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Uncommon Valor from Dwight Jon Zimmerman and John D. Gresham presents a fascinating look at six of our bravest soldiers and the highest military decoration awarded in this country. Since the Vietnam War ended in 1973, the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest award for valor, has been presented to only eight men for their actions "above and beyond the call of duty." Six of the eight were young men who had fought in the current war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. All of these medals were awarded posthumously, as all had made the choice to give their lives so that their comrades might live. Uncommon Valor answers the searing question of who these six young soldiers were, and dramatically details how they found themselves in life-or-death situations, and why they responded as they did. For the first time, this book also provides a comprehensive history of the Medal of Honor itself—one marred by controversies, scandals, and theft. Using an extraordinary range of sources, including interviews with family members and friends, teammates and superiors in the military, personal letters, blogs posted within hours of events, personal and official videos and newly declassified documents, Uncommon Valor is a compelling and important work that recounts incredible acts of heroism and lays bare the ultimate sacrifice of our bravest soldiers.
Golden Ghetto: How the Americans & French Fell In & Out of Love During the Cold War is an intimate, improbable story of fear and skepticism giving way to trust and friendship at a huge U.S. Air Force base in central France that, for two generations, transformed the political, economic, and social life of an occupied territory.
Author William Bonk raises awareness and provides a critical resource for thousands potentially exposed to hazardous chemicals at shuttered Fort McClellan in Alabama. Bonk, a licensed private investigator, draws attention to the real possibility that veterans, their families, and civilians once assigned to now-closed Fort McClellan (FMC), Alabama were subjected to hazardous environmental conditions to include chemical weapon material and toxic chemicals starting in the early 1950s and continuing through 1999 and beyond. "I want to attract the attention of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress," said Bonk, also a retired supervisory criminal investigator and former U.S. Army military police trainee who trained at FMC. I want them to be able to have a reason to move forward with a FMC health registry and work toward a presumption within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that FMC veterans were adversely affected by exposure to dangerous contaminants." The sad reality according to Bonk is that, "because of latency, dosage, time, and risk factors, FMC veterans have to fight individually to attempt to prove an in- service event and the service connection with a nexus between the two. In most cases, they were unknowingly exposed to a plethora of contaminants, making any argument difficult to prove." Bonk establishes a timeline and meticulously traces the post's historical use of hazardous materials, such as chemical weapons material, ionizing radiation, pesticides, and heavy metals. Bonk bases his findings on data from public U.S. government reports, open source news articles, and multiple interviews with trainees and trainers stationed at FMC, which was comprised of almost 50,000 acres and originally home to the U.S. Army's Military Police and Chemical Schools. The reports often reveal ambiguity, uncertainty, speculation, and a total lack of due diligence when rendering conclusions and recommendations regarding contaminated parcels.
The American Legion was founded in 1919, shortly after the harrowing conflict of World War I drew to a close; this book describes the founding, and the principles which underscored the Legion from day one. An excellent insight into the thought behind veterans' organizations, this book discusses the merits behind the creation of the American Legion. The foregoing devastation which characterized World War I, in which enormous numbers of Americans were enlisted for service, made the formation of veterans groups an urgent matter. The founders sought to promote the democratic ideals of the USA, record experiences of individual soldiers, and maintain ties of friendship between former soldiers. Much of this book describes the structure of the American Legion, how officers used their experience in the military hierarchy to create a cohesive group. The early meetings are described with the comments of the young troops, who had only recently experienced intense combat on Europe's Western Front. We also hear favorable words in the press of the time, which deemed the veterans' group needed. Finally, a lengthy list of names for every state's chapter is appended - in just a year, the American Legion became a national group, with committees in most states of the union.
Although a cease-fire agreement was signed in Panmunjeom on July 27, 1953, fighting between North and South Korea never stopped. The hot war was replaced by a low-intensity war. Terrorism, assassinations, infiltration of spies, and the like replaced tank battles and artillery duels. Until 1993, the United States patrolled its sector of the DMZ (demilitarized zone) in South Korea. In Call Sign: Purple Three, author Mark Heathco, who pulled 385 missions inside the DMZ during his military career, describes the preparation for a dangerous patrol in August 1985. This memoir follows the soldiers as they arrive at Warrior Base, refit for war, and finally execute the patrol itself. With great detail, Call Sign: Purple Three provides keen insight into the Korean DMZ at a time when the world thought all was well in Korea, but in reality chaos was just a hair trigger away. This insiderÕs memoir offers an understanding of what these soldiers did and the sacrifices they made.
First World War-based ex-servicemen’s organisations found themselves facing an existential crisis with the onset of the Second World War. This book examines how two such groups, the British and American Legions, adapted cognitively to the emergence of yet another world war and its veterans in the years 1938 through 1946. With collective identities and socio-political programmes based in First World War memory, both Legions renegotiated existing narratives of that war and the lessons they derived from those narratives as they responded to the unfolding Second World War in real time. Using the previous war as a "learning experience" for the new one privileged certain understandings of that conflict over others, inflecting its meaning for each Legion moving forward. Breaking the Second World War down into its constituent events to trace the evolution of First World War memory through everyday invocations, this unprecedented comparison of the British and American Legions illuminates the ways in which differing international, national, and organisational contexts intersected to shape this process as well as the common factors affecting it in both groups. The book will appeal most to researchers of the ex-service movement, First World War memory, and the cultural history of the Second World War.