No comments about Defenders of Fortress Europe: The Untold Story of the German Officers during the Allied Invasion.

1 comments about The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke: July 29, 1876-April 7, 1878 (Diaries of John Gregory Bourke).

1. Edited and annotated by Charles M. Robinson (history instructor at South Texas Community College and a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association), The Diaries Of John Gregory Bourke: Volume Two: July 29, 1876-April 7, 1878 is the next published installment of the personal journals of John Gregory Bourke who served as cavalry lieutenant in Arizona from 1872 up to the evening before his death in 1896. A noted ethnologist who wrote extensive descriptions of Native American tribal life and customs that he observed first hand, he illustrated his diaries with both sketches and photographs. This second published volume opens as General Crook prepares for the expedition that would lead to his infamous and devastating Horse Meat March. The diary faithfully recounts the manifold hardships the troops and their officers endured. The diary then continues with the story of the Powder River Expedition and culminates in Bourke's eyewitness description of Colonel Ranald MacKenzie's destruction of the main Cheyenne camp in what become known as the Dull Knife Fight. With the main hostile chiefs either surrendering or forced into exile in Canada, field operations came to a close and Bourke finishes this second volume of his memoirs with a retrospective of his service in Tucson, Arizona. Enhanced for the modern reader with extensive annotations and a biographical appendix on Indians, civilians, and military personnel named in the diaries, this outstanding series continues to be a seminal and strongly recommended contribution to American Frontier History and Native American Studies reference collections and supplementary reading lists.

No comments about Sea Bag of Memories.

No comments about Freedom's Journey: African American Voices of the Civil War (Library of Black America series, The).

5 comments about Battle Ready (Commander Series).

1. In the summer of 1994, I attended a change-of-command ceremony at Camp Pendleton for the I Marine Expeditionary Force. A new 3-star was about to take command prematurely for someone of his seniority. He hadn't even been a division commander, a 2-star billet. The fast-tracking general was Tony Zinni and the rest of his career continued to rocket. Other reviewers have commented on every aspect of his book, including his lack of support for the invasion of Iraq, so I will focus on two parts that impressed me deeply. I do agree with several others that having Tom Clancy as a co-author was distracting and unnecessary. The alternating first and third-person narratives were uneven at times. Thus the 4-stars. But then again, "Battle Ready" is not a literary selection.
   
   The first part was Zinni's 1967 tour as an adviser (called "co van" for "trusted friend" with the Vietnamese Marine Corps). Many accounts have been published about Marines in Vietnam but only handful has come from advisers; the very best Marine officers were selected for advisory duty. Other "co vans" include Gens. Boomer, Hoar, and Myatt--on the Army side, McCaffrey, Powell and Schwarzkopf. All of these men experienced a different Vietnam War than those who fought in American units.
   
   Why is Zinni's advisory experience relevant now? Marine advisers are mentoring Iraqis, and they could only dream their counterparts fought like the South Vietnamese. There's no hubris in Zinni's observations. He understood the Americans' lack of cultural knowledge, including his own early on: "The advisers' job was not to give the Vietnamese Marines tactical advice (they had more fighting experience than most Americans, and it was their country...American commanders were all in a hurry. They wanted to end the war on their one-year tour of duty. Vietnamese [Marine] commanders realized they would be in it for the duration."
   
   The last chapter, Chapter Eight titled "The Calling," is a classic leadership primer-observations made over the distinguished 40-year career of Zinni, a Marine warrior, scholar and leader. As a former Marine, I found his last paragraph most touching: "I have been all over this globe and exposed to most of the cultures on it. I am fascinated by them. I love the diversity. I want to understand them and embrace them. I could never understand prejudice or rejection or the sense of superiority that drive the hatemongers of the world. I lived through a tumultuous period of our history when our own minorities broke from second-class citizenship into full participation in this wonderful dream we call America. I have been proud of their accomplishments and contributions. They have proven the bigots wrong and made our nation greater. I hope the dream we have struggled to realize can be extended to the rest of the planet."
   
   General, it was my privilege to serve under commanders like you. Semper fi!



2. While 'In to the storm' elaborate detail of one big battle, and 'Shadow warrior' tells many big events, this 'Battle ready' tells us every single experience of General Zinni from O-2, O-3, O-4, everything till retired from O-10. I think I will be bored but with his sense of humor, General Zinni brings all his tought without make this book boring. (e.g. the HANDCON and took a bus in 'Nam).
   I learn how military and diplomat works in peacemaker process.



3. This book, co written with General Tony Zinni, tells of the methods, means, and the reasons for our military. The last part, when General Zinni pulls no punches, about our approach to war, foreign relations, and when to use and how to use the military [with the help of the civilian authority] to fight smarter battles and when to fight, is an excellent assessment of our current problems in the U.S.. His approach to fight in a "smarter" way, reflecting the new realities of war, e.g., terrorism, and an ever changing world, is the way it should be-and not to declare "victory", if that is the objective, on an aircraft carrier as a photo-op [his words], and to support the ideas that are right and to criticize the ideas that are wrong, even if they are "politically" incorrect. A first rate book.



4. Mr Clancy is one of the best military writers and he is typically on his game in this biography of Marine General Tony Zinni who eventually rose to CINC at CENTCOM, the command that has the heart of the middle east at its core. Clancy deftly switches back and forth between a first-person narrative of his subject and his own overviews of the history and background of each period, whether it be Vietnam or Somalia, Turkey or Pakistan. The only issue I have with Tom Clancy is italics. Everything told verbally by General Zinni is presented in italics so that a 440-page narrative probably contains about 220 pages of italics. If only Mr. Clancy would consult the Chicago Manual which states that italics should be used sparingly and never for more than a paragraph! Tom, I get a different voice in my head when I read the italics and I don't necessarily like that voice.



5. 
   I listened to it, rather than turning pages. The first half was more interesting than the
   second half, which is more politics than personal or military history. That is not to deny
   value to the later portion of the book. It was interesting to compare Zinni's adventures in
   Somalia to the account in "Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures -- A True Story From
   Hell On Earth" by Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait, and Andrew Thompson. They can both be true.
   
   Zinni wins my admiration for his patient determination to improve things, a unit or a nation.
   He shows the Somalia warlords as human. It was a disappointment that he took so long to see
   through Yasser Arafat.
   
   Zinni makes much of his "tell it like it is" attitude, and his interest in how to fight effectively.
   I was surprised that he did not mention the statue of John Boyd in the center of the lobby at
   Marine headquarters. Boyd was an Air Force fighter pilot, that taught how to fight effectively,
   and told unpopular truths. Amazon has several books about him.
   
   Zinni did not support the Iraq war. He claims plans for after the battles were won were not done,
   or not done well. Could be. He claims 300,000 troops were needed. I wish he had supplied details
   of that estimate, similar to the detailed plans for the evacuation from Somalia.
   
   This is not one of Clancy's best, but it is still pretty good. I recommend it to those interested
   in military history, whatever their opinions on the current Iraq situation.

No comments about Heroes and Villains: Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History.

2 comments about The Splendid Five: A True Story About the Splinter Fleet in the Pacific During WWII.

1. A splendid story about WWII! Wesley has a gift for dialog and character building. His book reads like a novel as he finds himself in a safe backwater trying to get into the war. His antics are reminiscent of Catch 22 as two old salts get him into all kinds of trouble which leads to their being assigned to Splendid Five, a pre-WWI wooden ship shorter in length than the wingspan of a B-29. It was a subchaser "built to chase submarines but which could not defend herself from one."

   Splendid Five and her sister ships were assigned to the Army to support MacArther's island hopping campaign to the Philippines. It starts in a light-hearted way but rapidly becomes grim as they enter their first battle off Pelelui*. The author got his first kill but learned: "Death for us would never hold the terrors it once had for we had seen it up close and knew it for what it was: The inevitable calling in of one's number."

   We...were delighted when they spotted a Kilroy Was Here sign on the beach where " . . . no American could have done that and no Jap would do it . . . " He never explained how it got there.

   A splendid read indeed. Don't miss it!

   *Editor's note:"Bloody Peleui" cost nearly 2000 American lives and eight thousand wounded.

   To prepare for these landings at Pelelui, Halsey's TF38 started a softening up campaign. Four TBFs off the light carrier San Jacinto took off to strike the radio station at Chichi Jima in the Bonins. A young, unknown Lt (j.g.) got shot down but was picked up by the American submarine, Finback. The Lieutenant's name was George H. Bush.




2. It is clear that this unknown story of WWII wooden subchasers will in the near future be chosen for the big screen.

No comments about Diary and Correspondence of Count Axel Fersen, Grand-Marshal of Sweden Relating to the Court of France.

5 comments about As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Escape from a Siberian Labour Camp and His 3-Year Trek to Freedom.

1. Incredible story of survival and the will to live.



2. All the superlatives belong to this tale: remarkable, daring, unbelievable, amazing, incredible, beyond belief, extraordinary. That a person could 1. escape from a Soviet labor camp, 2. in the dead of winter, 3. from the farthest eastern point of Siberia, 4. after suffering from hunger and brutal treatment for three years, and still 5. make it home to Germany safely after another three years is a story for all lovers of survival dramas. The author expertly and faithfully chronicles Josef Bauer's account without glossing over the details of what it took to survive. I didn't come to like Mr. Bauer from this telling, however, I did feel a deep respect for his perseverance and stamina. Two other books of escape and survival that I recommend even more highly are: The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz and We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance by David Howarth.



3. I found this book to be inspiring and motivational. It is the amazing tale of a daring escape and a treacherous journey across the frozen Siberian north. They only thing that disappointed me was that the ending was anti-climactic in my opinion. Just a simply amazing book, there is a reason why it has been translated in to 15 languages and sold more then 12 millon copies.



4. I was very, very dissapointed with this book. After having read the amazing story of Theodor Kröger (a German who survived not only the Tsarist prisons but also the communist gulags) I wanted more of this and so I ordered this book. But what I got was a kind of telegram-style book with so much ommisions in the story, that you wonder why did somebody write it at all. If you can't get the story right, then don't tell it. Also, this is supposed to be a non-fiction story, but the dialogues between the lead character and his captors and/or fellow-prisoners are put on paper like they were held yesterday. If you're looking for a Papillon story, you better look somewhere else. I didn't even finish the book, it was a waste of my time.



5. A tremendous film that attempts to capture the trek made by those rounded up during Stalins collectivazation. I dont think there are any other movies that are so emotional and hard hitting as this that deals with the gulags. One of the best movies I have ever seen.

No comments about Crusading Liberal: Paul H. Douglas of Illinois.