Military Medley

Reflections of Valour by James Elsener

Reflections of Valour by James Elsener

Reflections of Valour is a tale of untested lovers from different backgrounds during the tumultuous early days of the Vietnam War. Brenda Walker attends an exclusive East Coast women's college and enjoys the trappings of her wealthy suburban environment. John Briggs is from a modest Midwestern working-class family, dedicated to his career as a Marine. Despite their differing worldviews and priorities, their relationship develops and deepens. When he is called to war, Briggs is torn between a...

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SA David ‘Sinbad’ Adkins, U.S. Air Force (1979-1983)

SA David ‘Sinbad’ Adkins, U.S. Air Force (1979-1983)

SA David ‘Sinbad’ Adkins (U.S. Air Force, 1979-1983) is best known for his body of work as a comedian and film & TV actor. He became known in the 1990s for being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series such as Coach Walter Oakes in A Different World, and as David Bryan on The Sinbad Show, and starring in the films Necessary Roughness, Houseguest, First Kid, Jingle All the Way, Good Burger, and Planes. Prior to this success, however, Sinbad spent some time...

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Vietnam, The Memoir of a Sandlot Soldier by W. Thomas Burns

Vietnam, The Memoir of a Sandlot Soldier by W. Thomas Burns

Like many young men who came of age in the late 1960s, W. Thomas Burns, the author of "Vietnam, The Memoir of a Sandlot Soldier", joined the military and found himself in Vietnam. Burns, despite the title of his memoir, was a United States Marine who joined the Corps in 1967. By May of 1968, he was in-country, fighting with 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division.   "Vietnam, The Memoir of a Sandlot Soldier" isn’t a book about strategy, tactics, or the history of the war....

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We’ll All Die As Marines by Colonel Jim Bathurst

We’ll All Die As Marines by Colonel Jim Bathurst

For seventeen-year-old high school dropout Jim Bathurst, the Marine Corps reputation for making men out of boys was something he desperately needed when he enlisted in March of 1958. What began as a four-year hitch lasted nearly thirty-six years and included an interesting assortment of duty stations and assignments as both enlisted and officer. We'll All Die As Marines narrates a story about a young, free-spirited kid from Dundalk, Maryland, and how the Corps captured his body, mind, and...

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Hidden Army by Lawrence Rock

Hidden Army by Lawrence Rock

According to Pentagon records, nearly four million personnel served in and around Vietnam; most in Vietnam, others on flight bases in Thailand and ships in adjacent South China Sea. Of those 3,917,400 million men and women ordered to the Southeast Asia Theater, ninety percent were not sent there to fight. They were there to support the ten percent who were. Support troops included pilots, sailors, medics, nurses, cooks, clerks, drivers, engineers, communications people, military police, and...

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George H.W. Bush And the Chichi Jima Incident

George H.W. Bush And the Chichi Jima Incident

By the summer of 1944, continuous successes against the Japanese placed Allied forces on the doorsteps of its mainland. Convinced an invasion of Japan was necessary for a final victory, military commanders began planning for an amphibious landing on the strategically located Iwo Jima, roughly 575 miles from the Japanese coast. Once in the hands of the Allies, Iwo Jima would be a perfect place where B-29 bombers, damaged over Japan, could land without returning all the way to the Mariana...

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What Rotten EGGS by Daniel M. White

What Rotten EGGS by Daniel M. White

During World War II, the Coast Guard built its LORAN, or long-range navigation systems, a network of land-based transmitting stations that would give military ships and aircraft a means of accurately navigating to their destinations.  After the war, the LORAN became the primary means by which the entire world navigated the oceans. LORAN stations were built wherever there was local support for them, but those who worked at these remote locations often found themselves far from home,...

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SSgt Bernice Frankel (Bea Arthur), U.S. Marine Corps (1943-1945)

SSgt Bernice Frankel (Bea Arthur), U.S. Marine Corps (1943-1945)

Bernice Frankel, better known as Bea Arthur, of the U.S. Marine Corps between 1943 and 1945, went on to be one of television’s best-loved sitcom stars. As one of the nation’s beloved Golden Girls, she was outspoken in and out of the character of Dorothy Zbornak, advocating for the rights of women and minorities. Yet she was also an intensely private person who kept many details of her life to herself for decades. Bea Arthur’s Military Career Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel in May 1922 to a...

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The Dark Side of Glory by Richard McMahon

The Dark Side of Glory by Richard McMahon

In this page-turning suspense novel, Richard McMahon expertly switches between two settings and time periods, the earlier being the Korean War and the current a who-done-it mystery in a world of surprises where nothing is as it seems. The book opens in the present time (the early 1970s) as Biographer Matthew Clark is asked by Miriam Coursen to write a biography of her deceased husband, U.S. Army Major General Philip Coursen, a highly decorated Army officer. When Clark agrees to write the...

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Vietnam Beyond by Gerald E. Augustine

Vietnam Beyond by Gerald E. Augustine

When Gerald Augustine shipped off to Vietnam in 1966, he brought a 1949 Kodak Brownie Hawkeye box camera at the behest of his mother. It turned out to be a great decision.  About the Author of Vietnam Beyond He used the camera to document his experiences during and after the Vietnam War, and some of these images are included in his new book, "Vietnam Beyond." A Middletown, Connecticut native, Augustine graduated from high school in 1963 and went on to study at Central Connecticut State...

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Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis

Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis

Call Sign Chaos is the account of Jim Mattis's storied career, from wide-ranging leadership roles in three wars to ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the Middle East. Along the way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extracting the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas - and short-sighted thinking - now facing our nation. He makes it clear why America must...

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Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram

Last Night I Dreamed of Peace by Dang Thuy Tram

At the age of twenty-four, Dang Thuy Tram volunteered to serve as a doctor in a National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) battlefield hospital in the Quang Ngai Province. Two years later, she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country. At times raw, at times lyrical...

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