5 comments about What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It.

1. [...]
   
   The only other book I've read about the war was also good, but dealt more with the administrative failures, focusing on life in Baghdad's green zone. This book cuts a broader swath, and though the editor's misgivings about the war are apparent, she evokes a wide range of complex emotions and reactions from the soldiers she interviews. To simply call it "balanced" is too narrow. At a time when criticizing civilian leadership for pretense and mismanagement has almost become an American past time --- to the point where it might overwhelm a more complex and nuanced understanding of present circumstances --- this book was a was a stark reminder of how much is at stake, regardless of the course America takes.
   
   During this war I've struggled to keep myself informed, to keep my interest in this historic sacrifice fresh, but too often I feel almost entirely insulated. Too often my interest wanes. What Was Asked of Us contains some of the first stories shared by today's soldiers at war, stories which are sobering and inspiring. I was moved by these soldiers' depth of emotion, irrespective of their varying backgrounds, education, and opinions about the war.
   
   It's an easy, gripping read. And it is a history, at least of the first two years. One of the great virtues of this book is its organization. The stories outline the transition of the War and of the country from the initial invasion, through the first months of occupation, and gradually toward the collective, discouraging revelation that the occupation was destined to become a drawn out and bloody affair. Key events that have marked this progression are described by the soldiers, who often experienced them first hand (e.g. the War's first suicide bomb).
   
   My point is, don't be fooled into thinking that this is merely 300 pages of shock treatment and war tragedies that will leave you more confused than ever about what's happening in Iraq. In fact, as I near the end of the book I'm already wondering if there will be something akin to a "second edition" that relates the experiences of those serving during the War's later phases, such as the spike in violence after the Samarra mosque bombings, and of course the "surge," etc.



2. Anyone with a "Support Our Troops" ribbon on their vehicle should read this book. It's neither anti-war nor pro-war, and while readers may well find their own opinions about the Iraq war unchallenged, it will surely deepen their understanding of what that war means for those who have been fighting it. Here in the words of about 35 soldiers, mostly men and mostly marines, are accounts of being under fire, taking casualties, witnessing bombings, dealing with loss, anxiety, and grief, while maintaining a perspective that allows them to continue from day to day - staying the course.
   
   It is impossible not to be moved by some of these stories. In some soldiers the initial idealism remains tried but uncompromised. In others, there is anger and disillusionment. In still others there is the welcome intensity of fighting itself. Among even the ambivalent, there is often pride taken in jobs well done and difficult objectives achieved. A frequent theme in their stories is the varying ability to perceive the Iraqis as fellow human beings or as so utterly foreign as to be beyond empathy. The reader quickly learns that it is inappropriate to generalize about the fighting forces in Iraq. As one of them says, if you ask a hundred different soldiers why they are there, you'll get a hundred different answers.
   
   What the book speaks to is the need for Americans - regardless of their feelings about the war itself - to understand the immense toll that it takes on the mental and emotional health of individual soldiers, and that many return in great need of healing. For a further understanding of post-traumatic stress syndrome among those who have served in the military during wartime, read the books of Jonathan Shay.



3. I know I am biased because my twin sons make up two of the chapters but that aside....this is a book everyone needs to read. It lets the men tell in their own words what they did and how they feel. No one can understand what our men and women are dealing with without reading their words. I encourage everyone to suggest this book. It is not an easy read, especially for this mom, but one that will stay with you long after it is read.



4. To say that this book is interesting and/or enjoyable to read is missing the point. This book and the soldiers interviewed are trying desparately through the authors to communicate the devastation of war and in particular this War. We need to listen and learn.



5. At first I thought this book would be a pro-war book with all the soldiers talking of how glad they were there. But, I found it to be a refreshingly unbiased book of stories from several different soldiers (mostly Marines) who served at different parts of the war. Some were glad to have been there, others were angry that they were there, others were glad they were there but angry at the lack of security and funding available to help the Iraqi people. I was amazed at learning that the humvees had little to no protection and that they rigged parts of other blown up humvees onto their vehicles to better protect themselves. Part of me was horrifed at the conditions of the soldiers, but I was more in awe of what these soldiers were able to accomplish with what little they did have. Amazing book.

2 comments about No Picnic on Mount Kenya: A Daring Escape, A Perilous Climb.

1. An extremely well-written book, especially considering the author was not writing in his native language. A crazy idea about climbing a mountain by 3 novices; crazier still under the circumstances of escaping from a POW camp with the intention of returning. I bought the book after having read the story in National Geographic "Adventure" of 2 experienced & well-outfitted mountaineers who re-traced their steps. The original is better!



2. An entertaining story. It's hard to imagine escaping from an interment camp simply to climb a mountain, planning to return to camp afterwards! And it is even harder to imagine planning such a climb with the sparse resources available.

5 comments about Enter the Past Tense: My Secret Life as a CIA Assassin.

1. The events described in the book are the standard material of espionage suspense novels. What's more interesting is the story behind the story. What is fact and what is fiction? How can Haas possibly keep his job? I found the book both credible and plausible, based on my own extensive direct experience with the military mindset.
   
   Mr. Haas is actually afflicted by two addictions: one recognized and one as yet unrecognized. The first is alcohol; the second is right-wing pro-military ideology. The second addiction, left untreated, has just as much potential to do damage to Mr. Haas (and the world) as the first.



2. Many books have documented how the CIA has used collage campus' to recruit agents, and Haas' account of his recruitment sounds completely like what other authors have talked about. I love Haas' line that his recruiter used, "I work for one of our governments three letter agencies." -That's classic. Also the way they sent Haas into action by himself, to either be successful or die, is exactly the way Dulles used to have agents sent behind the Iron Curtain on missions; the special thing about Haas was he survived!
   
   I bet the higher-ups at the Agency were thrilled when they realized that Haas could be so successful at what they wanted him to do.
   
   Haas' book is one of the most important and interesting books I have ever read.
   
   Check out C-SPAN'S book TV web site for a video of a book signing event where Haas gives a talk.
   
   By-the-way, I grew up in and still live in Cleveland OH, right next to Lakewood OH, the city that Haas talks about in his book; I have to say, Haas' description, of the area and its features and feel is very accurate. Haas really is able to place you in Lakewood, as he explains where he grew up.
   
   Haas' ability with words doesn't disappoint!



3. I was excited to read this book but I have now put it down and will not finish it. As a matter of fact I would like a refund. Just the inconsistencies with his parachute training are suspect and inaccurate for 1971. HALO school is something you remember I don't care how many drugs you try to obliterate your memory with. I was airborne infantry/parachute rigger in the Army and attended HALO school in 1980. I supported the Military Freefall Committee (SF HALO School) in 1979/80. The author stated that he attended HALO school in Yuma, AZ in 1971. Training at Yuma did not start until the late 80's. His statement that he trained in the wind tunnel at Wright Patterson AFB in 1971 is also not accurate. HALO school did not start utilizing the wind tunnel until the late 80's early 90's. In 1980 our pre-freefall practice was conducted on desk tops and then the first jump was a complete freefall from 12,500 ft, no wind tunnel. These inconsistencies and others lead me to believe that the HALO information was gleaned from the modern day internet research or from watching the Military Channel. I am not going to waste my time reading any further. I am not so naive that I think our gov't agencies do not employ assassins. I am also not so naive that I think this was one of the hired assassins.



4. Felt the book was shallow. I never really got to know the author. The story seemed somewhat evasive.



5. It always amazes me that when someone doesn't like the premise of a book, they first deny the events ever occurred and then insult the writer as a liar. About half the reviews of this book fall into this category.
   
   I personally cannot judge whether the episodes are factual or imaginary but as a one-time member of SOG and Air Commandos, they seem reasonable or at least, fit within my experience set.
   
   What is obvious is that someone somewhere owes Haas a big one.
   
   Consider his descent into illness and near madness. He became so debilitated he was finally unable to do his job or even leave his house yet he was supported during the lengthy period at home. Then during his extended hospital stays, his final rehab portion was approved for many weeks longer than is usual under regular group insurance coverage. Then, he resumed work in a very responsible position as if nothing had happened. If one doesn't see that as evidence "somebody" had his back, nothing will. Somebody feels a debt is owed for the years of risky assignments with no official status or ongoing compensation.
   
   As a piece of writing, the text is amateurish...cluttered with misspellings, poor paragraphing and punctuation and convoluted sentence structure. More than once I had to re-read a sentence to get his point; a clear sign of limited writing ability.
   
   BUT - the fact that he didn't have a proofreader or editor does not, in my opinion, lessen the content of the book.

No comments about Leadership: Achieving Life-Changing Success from Within.

5 comments about Grenadiers: The Story Of Waffen SS General Kurt 'Panzer' Meyer (Stackpole Military History).

1. I read this book within 3 days and found it an exceptional view from the other side of the hedgerow! If you are interested in the personal aspects of elite soldiers and the tough decisions that have to be made on the spot - this is the book for you. I gave it 4 stars because it lacked MAPS! I don't know about other readers but I read the text and maps side by side. Enjoy.



2. This Stackpole reprint/translation of Waffen SS General Kurt Meyer's memoirs can only be classified as incredible. Any serious student of WWII cannot be considered well read without having gone through this book. As some of the less favorable reviews state, Meyer gives a rose-colored view of his service, but if you accept up front the limitations of this work, it is otherwise an incredible account of hard fighting in virtually every major front of the war. For military history buffs, the book combines the best aspects of Baron Marbot's and General Lettow von Vorbeck's memoirs.
   
   For those who are reading this review who don't know who Kurt Meyer was, he was a Waffen SS officer who started the war in Poland as a company commander, fought in France and Greece, took command of the LSSAH recon battalion at the commencement of Barbarossa, was heavily involved in the fighting around Kharkov several years later, and was ultimately transfered to the 12th SS Panzer Division (the Hitler Youth), first as a regimental commander, then as the division commander when Fritz Witt was killed during a naval barrage. This book is divided into four main sections. The first covers Meyer's service prior to Barbarossa, the second his role in Russia, the third his time with the 12th SS PD fighting (primarily) the Canadians, and the fourth he recounts his trial for war crimes, his time on death row, and his subsequent emprisonment and release.
   
   This book is not a broad overview of any segment of the war. Meyer's goal is to recount his role and recollections in the various campaigns with which he fought. Throughout the book he presents the reader with a can-do, never quite attitude fired by duty. There are many remarkable insights into many major players on the German side as well as events. For example, he denounces the men who tried to assassinate Hitler as terrorists. He also has lots of interesting insights into the campaign in Russia as well as the tactical and strategic failings in Normandy. The human side of Panzer Meyer comes through in the final section as he relates his emotions at (from his viewpoint) being unjustly condemned and concern for his family.
   
   There are definitely some serious limitations to this work as legitimate history. I certainly wouldn't take Meyer's word at face value on virtually any point he discusses (he is certainly writing to justify both his and his comrades actions during the war), and he carefully omits discussion about several unpleasant realities of the war. In particular, I think his claim that the Waffen SS stands apart from the SD and Allgemeine SS to be simply ludicrous. He may or may not have personally been involved in some of the unspeakable crimes committed by the SS, but his sweeping claim that the Waffen SS represents only the best in German soldiers and that the great crimes were committed only by the other organs of the SS to be easily refutable. His rosy colored descriptions of the treatment of Soviet POWs also smacks as totally unbelievable given what the fate of most of these prisoners was if they were captured by the SS. There is also no discussion whatsoever of the general political support given to the Nazi regime by the SS of all stripes.
   
   Limitations aside though, this is a great book. Anyone with any interest in the ETO will enjoy this book. It is compelling and easy to read, I couldn't put it down.



3. Grenadiers is (mostly) the combat autobiography of Kurt 'Panzer' Meyer, one of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated soldiers. The book begins on the first day of World War II, and continues through Meyer's capture in France in 1944, his war crimes trial, his decade of imprisonment, and through his release.
   
   Up until the point of his capture, the story focuses on the mostly small unit actions Meyer commanded in Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, Russia, and then again in France through the Normandy invasion, battles for Caen and the Falaise Gap. One learns about his personal life (wife and four small children, with a fifth born after his capture) and pre-war life only through asides and glancing comments; Meyer hammers relentlessly on detailed combat operations, what he saw, why he acted, and what the results were on the front. As a front-line commander he saw plenty. Meyer earned the reverence of his troops, the respect of his superiors and enemies, and the hatred of his eventual captors through dogged aggression, competence, charisma, a little luck, and a great deal of personal bravery. If one enjoys reading a sometimes hour-by-hour account of small unit exploits over 300 pages, this is a great book to read by someone who has a legitimate right to claim he saw it all.
   
   Some of these reviews suggest that Meyer's book is not expecially well written. Well, no, he's not Hemingway; he's a soldier. Nonetheless I thought Meyer made the points he wanted to make very well; his themes are respect for his men, love of country, the bonding between officers and men through shared sacrifice, the value of community (very much including family). He also demonstrates a fair knowledge of military history and culture, a feeling of sharing the military tradition with previous generations. I think that getting this clearly and unambiguously through the story of the war is not so easy. Meyer's writing is much more readable than that of a number of academics on the same subjects.
   
   More interesting, because somewhat more rare, is Meyer's retelling the story of his war crimes trial and subsequent death sentence, commuted to life, finally commuted to 14 years (10 years after good time). Meyer's respect for all of his opponents (well maybe not the French) includes the Canadians he fought at Caen; but his disdain for armchair soldiers and politicians who took over the trials after the fighting was over is also clear. He resents being put on trial at all, based on 'evidence' (clearly fabricated in this case) of refusal to take prisoners, or of having shot Canadian prisoners (done before he was commander, and of which he could not even have been aware), especially when he has seen personally the same crimes perpetrated both in Russia and by the western allies to German victims. He strongly contests the Allied fiction that only beasts fought for the Germans, and only angels on the side of the Allies. His resentment towards this kind of victor's justice, and his gratitude towards those who at great effort and expense worked to his eventual release, shows him at his most emotional (not much).
   
   To Meyer's credit, for the short time he lived after his release (Meyer died on his 51st birthday) he worked not to gripe about the past, but to push for a better (peaceful) future. It would have been interesting to see how he would have done had he lived as long as Rudel or Skorzeny (or Degrelle).
   
   Finally, there is additional material by Hubert Meyer (Divisional Chief of Staff of 12-SS PzDiv HJ), covering not only a brief summary of the story of HitlerJugend Division till the end of the war, but of much greater interest, more background on Panzermeyer's past, and his personality, motivations, and what made him the leader he was. Hubert Meyer does not write as well as Kurt Meyer, but this material is well worth reading in terms of illuminating just what made Panzermeyer tick. Add this to other sources on the subject, and compare to Kurt Meyer's descriptions of what took place; it is hard not to come away impressed by at least the military qualities of the man. Now, the politics, that is something else entirely.
   
   An excellent book for your military history bookshelf.



4. Like a lot of you reading this, I have read innumerable books about the Second World War, most of them from the German perspective. The majority of these were testaments by former army officers or, in the latter instances, Party-government bigwigs. GRENADIERS was the first work I had ever bought penned by a former SS man, in this case Kurt "Panzer" Meyer. I was very interested to see what an ex-member of two notorious Waffen-SS divisions, the "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" and the "Hitlerjugend", would have to say...not merely about his combat experiences but about Hitler, National Socialism, and the war in general.
   
   GRENADIERS exists on several levels simultaneously: a pure combat memior by a man who saw a hell of a lot of it, a treatise on the relationship of the Waffen-SS to its putative parent body, the Gestamt or "Total" SS, a spirited defense of the Waffen-SS against the "libels" leveled against it by the victorious Allies and by the postwar German government, and a memior of Meyer's trial for war crimes, his imprisonment (originally a death sentence) and his eventual release. On all these levels it succeeds...so much so that it permenently changed my view of the Waffen-SS. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
   
   As a combat memior, the book is highly entertaining. It begins in media res, with Meyer's antitank unit rumbling into Poland in September 1939, and continues at a steady clip through the campaigns in France (1940) the Balkans (1941), Russia (1941 - 1943) and finally Normandy (1944), during which time he served with many legendary Waffen-SS frontfighters, including Fritz Witt, Max Wünsche, Michael Wittmann, Gerd Bremer, Theodor Wisch, and Sepp Dietrich. Meyer, who finished his career as the acting commander of the 12th SS Panzer Division, offers almost no biographical information about himself, and seldom "flashes back" to his peacetime existence. For the most part he is simply recounting tales of battle at the head of an elite recon unit as it was transferred from one hotspot to another all over Europe. Because Meyer's troops were motorized, riding on motorcycles, amphibious wagons, armored cars or assault guns, his accounts tend to be like his style of fighting: straight-ahead, breathless and fast-paced (not for nothing was his original nickname "Schneller" Meyer). He's an exciting narrator, if not a very skilled one, and he manages to convey a lot about his personality and philosophy of war without lecturing the reader. His accounts of the Russian and '44 French campaigns are particularly interesting to students of those theaters; he often speaks of the physical and psychological burdens placed on the German soldier by Russia's brutal climate and vast spaces, and of similar strains imposed in the West by the Allies overwhelming superiority of material. He writes without bitterness, and with a strong sense of respect to his own troops and to their opponents, be they Poles, Russians, Canadians (the French don't compare too well).
   
   Meyer makes some very interesting points about the average Waffen-SS man in his outfit. He notes that they were very young (19 years old on average for privates), that 62% of them had been in technical or skilled trades before the war, and that very few of them had actually been members of the Allgemeine (General) SS before the war began. "These young men," he insists. "Fought for Germany and certainly did not die for a political party." Their motivations for joining the Waffen-SS were made from simpler stuff: it had the most attractive uniforms, its exploits were ballyhooed in the German press and it was regarded universally as an elite unit...all powerful motivators to young men looking for glory.
   
   Meyer, who was captured in 1944 and tried for war crimes immediately after the war, recounts his trial with some bitterness, and not merely because he was, as were most German POWs of any standing, badly mistreated in captivity. Having taken great pains to show that he fought chivalrously at all times, he regarded the trial as a humiliation and a disgrace, the moreso because most of the evidence against him was based on heresay, perjury and ex post facto jurisprudence. Having his sentence commuted from death to life imprisonment was, in fact, worse than death for him, since he was incarcerated not in a POW camp or even a place like Spandau Prison but in an ordinary Canadian hooscow - with rapists, arsonists and murderers as cellmates. The agonizing struggle to obtain his release, waged in part by the Canadian press (which righteously pointed out that Canada had violated its own laws in convicting Meyer), and his life as a spokesman for HIAG in West Germany (the Waffen-SS veterans' association, dedicated to securing military benefits for Waffen-SS veterans) close out the book on a more or less uplifting note...though the reader may find himself exhausted emotionally by the time the last page is read. Meyer's journey is truly a punishing one.
   
   It is a defense of the Waffen-SS, however, that the book is most intriguing. Meyer points out - repeatedly - that the Waffen-SS had relatively little to do with its parent body, and was merely a military organization in a slightly different uniform. The picture painted by history - of a band of murderous racial fanatics, screaming "Sieg Heil!" as they shot prisoners in the neck, is (Meyer insists) nonsense. Doubtless there were men of this type in Waffen-SS units, but as Meyer points out, nearly all of his opponents routinely shot prisoners in cold blood, bombed defenseless towns and used civilians as human shields - including, he adds pointedly, the Western Allies, who have tended throughout history to portray themselves as knights in shining armor.
   
   The book isn't perfect. Meyer touches on the murders committed by his men in Normandy only in terms of explaining, after the fact, how he was disgusted by them and ordered an investigation into their commission; he tells the reader nothing about his life before the war or why he ended up in the SS in the first place (he was transferred from a Police unit, the German Police becoming part of the SS in 1936) and his style of writing is amateurish, though not without talent. None of this, however, was a significant detraction from GRENADIERS, which in the final analysis is not so much a memior but a tribute to the 900,000 men who, whatever their motivations or war records, were collectively dubbed "criminals" in 1945...and have spent, along with their families, dealing with the fallout of this sweeping judgement. But as Meyer is quick to point out, the ultimate verdict on a soldier comes from his opponent, and as one Canadian soldier exclaimed: "The SS were a bad bunch of bastards, but were they ever soldiers!"



5. Kurt Meyer was one of the most revered, controversial military figures to come out of World War 2. He was the very epitome of the Waffen-SS officer; youthful, dynamic, fearless and ruthless. He was a member of the SS from the pre-war era till his capture in 1944. His memoirs one would hope would have shed light on the reasons he joined the SS and maybe provide his version as to what really happened at the Abbey Ardenne and the Canadian prisoners. At least some attempt at explaining why a generation of men would join an organization like the Waffen-SS. "Grenadiers" provides no such explanation. It is just a short "military" memoir which does little to explain the motivations and justifications of one of the SS' most famous personalities. It is valuable as a source of the SS in combat but as a memoir it is extremely disappointing. I felt under whelmed after reading this so-called "classic." Meyer ultimately does a disservice to the "grenadiers" he seeks to vindicate. Rather than proving that he and his men were not criminals but patriotic idealists you're provided with just another war book.

5 comments about The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security.

1. If you want to change the world for the better or just keep your little corner of it from getting worse, then you'll want to read this book. It's what Boyd discovered about how conflicts are fought and won. Sadly, although he flew in two wars, most of Boyd's clashes were fought within the US military rather than with some foreign foe. As a result, one of the best USAF fighter pilots who ever lived is better remembered by the Marine Corps, where he is a hero, than by his own branch.
   
   I'm not going spend time praising Boyd. The fact that I finished this book with a list of books and articles to read is praise enough. Instead, I'm going to offer a useful corrective to Boyd the man, by introducing someone else you should read.
   
   That someone is G. K. Chesterton, an Englishman with a maverick, warrior personality every bit as fierce and unyielding as Boyd's. On June 1, 1941, on one of the darkest days in World War II, when the island of Crete had fallen to the Germans, leaving 17,000 British soldiers as prisoners of war, the Times of London, defiantly put these lines from Chesterton's "The Ballad of the White Horse" on its front page:
   
   I tell you naught for your comfort,
   Yea naught for your desire,
   Save that the sky grows darker yet
   And the sea rises higher.
   
   Like Boyd, Chesterton understood that how we fight determines if we win or lose. He shared Boyd's contempt for those who believe that bigger is better. In a 1909 at the height of England's fears about new German battleships, Chesterton wrote precisely what Boyd would later say about fighter aircraft.
   
   "Common-sense tells a man that indefinite development in one direction must in practice over-reach itself... If you perceive your enemy plunging on blindly in a particular direction, the real thing to do, if you have any spirit and invention, is to calculate the weakness in his course and advance yourself in some other direction. You ought to take advantage of his infatuation, not to imitate it; you ought to surprise his plan of campaign, not copy it laboriously. If he is building very big ships, the best thing you could do would probably be to build small ones; ships lighter, quicker, and more capable of navigating rivers."
   
   But Chesterton understood something that Boyd never learned, an aspect of warfare that's so often forgotten today that the very word for it seems quaint--chivalry. Perhaps his best explanation of chivalry came in a 1906 article explaining why the Europe of his day dominated the world. Again Chesterton described a concept dear to Boyd, the power that comes from an ability to think new thoughts and imagine new ways of acting.
   
   "The elements that make Europe upon the whole the most humanitarian civilisation are precisely the elements that make it upon the whole the strongest. For the power which makes a man able to entertain a good impulse is the same as that which enables him to make a good gun; it is imagination."
   
   Boyd thought like a fighter pilot. He would have us understand a man in order to destroy him, knowing that a foe who's blown out of the air will never trouble you again. As a writer, Chesterton had a different perspective. He believed that understanding leads to restraint, writing in that same article: "For if you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not."
   
   Chesterton saw conflict in broad terms. When he clashed with H. G. Wells over the latter's infatuation with a World State or with Bernard Shaw over pacifism, he took the time to understand what each was saying. His criticisms of the dangers and weakness of international institutions are among the best ever written. His description of the pacifist personality is so accurate that it applies with near perfection to today's pacifists. But having gotten into the mind of his opponent, he recognized in him a fellow human being. With few exceptions, he retained the respect and even friendship of his foes. Only when one crossed a critical line, demonstrating that without great pain he was beyond redemption, would Chesterton seek to crush him to prevent the evil he intended. What was for Boyd the rule, destroying anyone who disagree with him, was for Chesterton the rare exception. Boyd needs to be tempered with Chesterton
   
   In short, I'd suggest that, as you read what Boyd said about war and conflict, you also read what Chesterton wrote. You'll accomplish a lot more and suffer far less grief if you do. And as you might suspect, I wrote a book on that topic, a collection of Chesterton's best articles on war and peace paying particular attention to his warnings about Germany. And when the necessity arose, Chesterton could be as tough-minded as Boyd. Chesterton used all his powers as a writer to crush those ideas in the German mind that Nazism would later exploit.
   
   --Michael W. Perry, editor of Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements that Led to Nazism and World War II



2. The OODA loop is an affirmation of my theorized belief that all we do in life follows a pattern. The successes and the failures of our endeavors is relative to the degree of our adherence to the said pattern and our familiarity with the task. God Bless the late Col. John Boyd.



3. Mr. Hammond's The Mind of War has made a major contribution into the philosophy and life of Colonel John R. Boyd. This work centers more around Boyd's work in aircraft design and his post-retirement contributions to maneuver warfare---which were too numerous to list in these pages. All Americans would benefit from reading Mr. Hammond's book and the book written by Mr. Robert Coram, BOYD, The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (this book is on my top five biographies ever). Learning Boyd's philosophy and his multi-disciplinary approach has application from the battle-field to the boardroom. Highly recommended.



4. Great summary of John Boyd's thoughts on modern warfare. It is hard to find the wide-range of theories all in one place as is book attempts to condense. Col. Boyd's mind was a far-reaching net pulling diverse subjects together by common threads. It is difficult for any single book to do the same in so few pages but it this one comes close to the mark.



5. Hammond presents a quasi-biography of John Boyd, who was the intellectual driver of the OODA loop and the author of "Patterns of Conflict." Although the book reviews Boyd's life, it is done with the intent of focusing on Boyd's intellectual contributions to US military thought and doctrine from the 1970s to 1990s. The author, despite knowing Boyd and being one of his fans, presents a balanced version of Boyd and his contribution, unlike Robert Coram's fun-to-read but biased biography. (Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War)

5 comments about Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945.

1. I found this via a web search for 84 Charing Cross Road; I started reading the eval pages online, and loved it so much that I ordered it immediately.
   
   I fun and interesting read...I simply didn't want it to end.
   
   I'm getting it for my granddaddy, who was in WWII.



2. Between Silk and Cyanide is a humorous and engaging account of code making in England during World War II. Leo Marks was not good enough to be sent to Bletchley Park for code breaking, instead he was sent to work on code making and teaching people who were to be sent to Europe how to encode their messages. He was immediately appalled at how insecure the British codes were. The book is about his fight to make better, more secure codes and make sure that no messages that were received where indecipherable.



3. I have read and enjoyed this book several times, and given away quite a few copies.
   
   WWII from the point of view of an 20-something boffin. Great story telling, both from the technical side of cryptography and the politics and office shenanigans of the British government.
   
   It has some tear-jerking stories of death and suffering, a few points of the cold-blooded ruthlessnes of the spy business, and Marks' sense of humor can either come off as self-deprecation or arrogance, depending on your take.



4. Of all WW II memoirs, Leo Marks has probably written the most distinctive and unusual. In the prime of his youth, a young Leo failed in his attempt to enter Bletchley Park's hallowed ground, and was instead sent to the SOE, Special Operations Executive, charged with Churchill's mandate to "Set Europe Ablaze." When Marks arrived at the SOE, the coded transmissions of secret agents were based around famous poems, but unfortunately the Germans had access to the same libraries of classics and were easily breaking the codes. Up against the establishment and tradition, Marks fought to introduce indecipherable one-time pads of his own invention, fighting British conservatism and bureaucracy to push through his innovations. What makes Mr. Marks' book so different is not only the story he tells, but his natural gift for writing. His distinctive literary ability would have stood him well as a man of fiction, letters, or script, and his turn of phrase is both unexpected, witty, graceful, and as much a lesson as "The Elements of Style" is to writers today. Leo Marks is a funny man, and there is nothing better than an eighty-year-old with total recall and self-depreciating humor who actually achieved something; Leo briefed Violette Szabo before she went to meet her fate and admits to falling in love with her in those few hours. The poem he wrote about her is the highlight of the book, an unusual statement from a reviewer who loathes poetry! There are only a few interesting works on cryptology, the other that comes to mind is actually fictional, Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon."



5. A thoroughly intriguing story. Factual yet reads like a suspense novel...couldn't put it down

5 comments about Wings on My Sleeve (Phoenix Press).

1. The content is about 4 stars, interesting and well written, my beef is the binding of this paper back edition. As soon as started reading the pages started coming out of the book. I would strongly recommend trying the regular binding if you plan to keep the book or plan to pass it on.



2. I am extremely dissatisified with this product. When I opened the book the pages fell out like a snowfall. It could not be read - I threw it away.



3. 
   Having spent the last 30 years living and working next door to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, I've heard a LOT of flying stories. "You can always tell a fighter pilot...but you can't tell him much".
   
   Eric Winkle Brown's memoir is the best compilation of flying stories that I've ever heard. Imagine getting your very first flight with none other than Ernst Udet. Imagine flying F4F's off a converted banana boat during the darkest hours of WW2. Imagine flying captured Luftwaffe jets right out of Germany.
   
   Most ironic was the idea for the angled deck on aircraft carriers. Purely by accident the idea was sketched out in a board meeting for another reason when someone said "What a great idea for launching and recovering aircraft simultaneously".
   
   Great book. I'm ordering another one for a gift to a good friend and test pilot who flew in the same era.



4. A delightful biography of the military flying career of one of Britain's best-known and most successful test pilots. Quitely humorous and understated.
   This particular paperback was poorly bound and began to lose pages before I finished reading it. The black and white pictures are often muddy and poorly reproduced.
   A fun read for the aviation enthusiast nevertheless.



5. The book is an amazing read. The only problem is as soon as I opened it up the pages started falling out. The binding was very bad. By the time I got half way though, I was not holding a book any more but a bunch of loose pages.

5 comments about The Cat from Hue: A Vietnam War Story.

1. Despite its intimidating length, I plunged in nonetheless and prepared to plow through it as fast as possible. By the time I was halfway through I was rationing the pages because I didn't want it to end. If I was teaching a course on the Vietnam War, I would make The Cat From Hue required reading, along with Caputo's A Rumor of War, Fitzgerald's Fire on the Lake, and Karnow's history.



2. As a Brit, I was unfamiliar with Lawrence's reporting work, but was intrigued by the subject, the title and mostly favourable reviews.
   
   It was definitely a worthwhile and entertaining read (even at >800 pages) and, although far from a conventional history, it would definitely make my top twenty list of Vietnam books.
   
   As has been mentioned elsewhere, it does stylistically fall somewhere between 'We were soldiers once...' and 'Dispatches', although both of those are truly exceptional, for different reasons, compared with TCFH. No mean comparison, though.
   
   Lawrence's recollections are about his personal experiences in Vietnam and the (mostly correspondents/photographers) people he knew there. It's not an attempt at Big Picture history and is none the worse for that. Lawrence talks candidly about his own drink and drug use and the book has an honest feel to it, IMHO.
   
   Lawrence writes well and vividly, as one would expect, as makes his recollections seem like yesterday, which one might not. Characters such as Sean Flynn, Dana Stone and Tim Page are vividly brought to life.
   
   I doubt whether journalists covering current war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan are afforded the same access to the front lines as Lawrence and his peers were given in Vietnam: not a criticism, just an observation on changed times.
   
   It probably could have been edited down a bit, but I still found it a humane and compelling read. Highly recommended.



3. Very long but worth it if you want to know many of the personalities reporting the war in the Nam. Follows most aspects of the war from near the beginning with a green Laurence till the end and John as an old salt. Better and more human than other vietnam memiors.



4. There are lots of great things about this book, but what I enjoyed most is that it covers two distinct but interrelated subjects: The Vietnam War from the perspective of the grunts on the front lines and journalism during the war. Both subjects are covered in vivid detail, making the entire book enlightening, informative, and even entertaining. The Cat from Hue is a history book and an autobiography all at once, written in prose that flows well and makes the reader want more. And since it's 800+ pages, there is plenty more. Anyone with even the remotest interest in the Vietnam War should definitely read this book, even if you think you already know everything there is to know about that chapter of history.



5. The good ones, and John Laurence was very good, roamed South Vietnam like they owned it, documenting the carnage, the horror, the bravery, the cowardice, the stupidity, the love, the pain, the loss, the whole long national nightmare that was the Vietnam War. "The Cat from Hue", a taut, flabless doorstopper of a book, chronicles the roughly five years Mr. Laurence spent in South Vietnam as a combat correspondent for CBS.
   
   It would be inaccurate to characterize Mr. Laurence as naive when he first landed in-country in 1965, but he wasn't yet the gimlet-eyed observer that he would become. He was, like many first-timers, caught up in the adventure of the enterprise-young men at war. He lived with other journalists and photographers in Saigon, booming out from there to all points of the Vietnamese combat compass, in a place called "Frankie's House". If "Frankie's House" wasn't quite a den of iniquity, it was home to copious amounts of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was also home to a very talented group of men. Sean Flynn. Dana Stone. Tim Page. Michael Herr, of "Dispatches" fame. Flynn and Stone later disappeared in Cambodia and were never found.
   
   Through the years Mr. Laurence came to realize that America was trapped in the lethal briar patch it had flung itself into. His inability to be anything less than honest sometimes got him in trouble with the military hierarchy but this same honesty made him a favorite with the ordinary groundpounder. He shared their hardships (though he freely admits that he could hop a chopper and leave whenever he wanted) and his award-winning documentary "The Boys of Charlie Company" is the gold standard for what life was like in the field for the infantry.
   
   Combat is depicted in all its chaos in "The Cat from Hue". Mr. Laurence captures the fear, the excitement, and more, the "... wild rage of men trying to kill each other at close range". He wants to know, and coveys to the reader, what soldiers think about when facing death. In a war that, like all wars, became all-consuming, all-destroying, that became an end unto itself, that spawned casualties in the millions, Mr. Laurence is able to show the magnitude of the tragedy by focusing on the individual.
   
   Mr. Laurence may have made his bones as one of the stars of the TV war but he is also an excellent writer. He describes the jungle so vividly that one can see the bugs and the snakes and feel the heat, oh yes, the heat. Those who had to fight there knew that the jungle was a living thing, a place where a man could pass an area he had been through ten minutes before and not recognize it. Mr. Laurence can write elegantly, as when he describes the death of his friend Sam Castan, or acidly, as when he portrays Morley Safer as a cowardly grandstander.
   
   Of course, no one can spend as much time in combat as Mr. Laurence did and return unchanged. "You'd never be all to yourself afterwards" is how one grunt is quoted about the effects of too much time in the bush. Mr. Laurence is no exception-he exhibits many of the symptoms of PTSD and he still seems genuinely troubled by the time he crossed the line that separates correspondent from combatant. "The Cat from Hue" is moving and honest. It will stand next to other classics of the Vietnam War, the war that keeps on giving.

5 comments about Pucker Factor 10: Memoir of a U.S. Army Helicopter Pilot in Vietnam.

1. As a woman reader I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I learned so much in this book, about flying, Vietnam, rats (UGH) I knew it was hard over there but didn't really realize some of the hardships till I read this book. The author's writing is very easy to understand, you don't need a dictionary beside you, and the humour was great. You got some really good laughs and some sadness also. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.



2. Should you consider reading only one book about the U.S. helicopter pilots in South-Vietnam that bravely fought almost 40 years ago, then, "Pucker Factor 10" is the best choice.
   Mr. James Joyce there flew the two most used types: "slicks" and "gunships" thus covering two major aspects of the tactical helicopter warfare successfully used in SEA. This is what this book tells you.



3. I had to choose a war memoir for a term paper this semester in my english class...and I was very happy that I chose to read Pucker Factor 10. The book is very enlightening, and an interesting read. I found myself always WANTING to read more. James Joyce is a wonderful writer and he reveals emotions and specifics of war that you dont even realize. I highly suggest this book to everyone. I normally dont read memoirs like this but after reading his I want to read more!



4. James Joyce has written a truly excellent book. Mr. Joyce has successfully included every human emotion possible. His real life experiences are a combination of both desperate hours and uplifting moments, with a side of unmistakable humor. I would recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in the Vietnam era. Definately a MUST READ.



5. I'm not normally a reader of non-fiction war stories, especially in first person, but "Pucker Factor 10" caught my attention from the beginning all the way to the very end. Joyce brings the reader into the realm of realism, from family history, personal apprehensions, his somewhat inadvertant role as a helicopter pilot during the heat of battle, his impressions of soldiers and his humanity toward the enemy which brings chills to the reader. Meanwhile, just when I least expected, I found myself belly laughing his wit. This book is a must for anyone who enjoys true-to-lie accounts of how it was in the air trenches.