Monday, August 23, 2010
Combat Reads
Quick-and-dirty book lists and literary notes from veterans of past wars plus one former combat correspondent. Mine first.
Currently nose-in:
Tent Life in Siberia by George Kennan. Back into this timeless, exuberant, wry and often hilarious memoir of a survey of a prospective telegraph route across Siberia, ultimately rendered pointless not just by the wretched conditions but by the success of the competing transAlantic cable project. Kennan is variously listed as a great-uncle or cousin twice-removed of the Cold War diplomat of the same name. First read this 25 years ago, still great, and a good companion to The Tiger (see below).
No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah by Bing West. Another classic of war reportage from a combat veteran who keeps going back, with benefit of long experience and multi-strata perspective, from the ground up. (See below for more re West. Good companions to this, offering grunt’s eye views on the fight in Anbar and how things shifted there, are Rage Company, Blood Stripes and House to House, as well as West’s own Strongest Tribe.
Into Dust and Fire: Five Young Americans Who Went First to Fight the Nazi Army Rachel S. Cox. Another ode to dead uncles. Robert Cox, brother of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, was a Harvard senior in May 1941 when he decided to join the British Army to fight for freedom. Saw combat at El Alamein, wounded in action and returned, then got it April 19, 1943, in Tunisia. Spotted this one at work and recognized it from tales of dead uncles traded with a former colleague who was a nephew of Rob Cox. If you have World War II-generation parents, you might have one, too. My own dead uncle, RAAF Flt. Sgt. Philip Crittenden, got it “in flying battle” over Belgium in October 1941. A great ode to dead uncles worth a look is Thomas Childers’ Wings Of Morning, a detailed and poignant history of his uncle’s ill-fated B-24 crew.
Interesting side note re Cox, he served in the King’s Royal Rifles, originally raised in the French and Indian War as the Royal American Regiment. (see Conquered into Liberty below). And he died on Patriots Day, the 168th anniversary of that historic dawn at Lexington and Concord when Americans took up arms against their king.
The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling. Thank you, Glenn Reynolds. Your “10 Years Ago on Instapundit” feature led to this 2002 review:
The Peshawar Lancers, an alternate-history romp featuring crazed Wahabbi assassins, murderous Afghan tribesmen, deep-cover death cults, and some very subtle Harry Flashman allusions …. One interesting aspect to the book, which must have been entirely completed before 9/11, is when a character expresses shock that anyone would be surprised by a group of bystanders rushing to attack a suicide bomber. That’s what one does, isn’t it?
Gotta find out how anything remotely related to Flashman can be subtle.
Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War by Eliot Cohen of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, a former adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Cohen argues the wars fought up and down the Albany-Quebec route defined the persistent strategies, tactics, motives and excuses of American warfare. The case could be made that the conventional and unconventional land warfare, plus some key naval battles, fought back and forth over this ground in several formative American wars, defined America. This study of war in three centuries between British, French, Indians, Americans and Canadians in New York, Vermont and Canada gets a thumbs up from Bing West, always a good sign. I interviewed Cohen a few times back in the day on GWOT-related issues, recall it as an interesting and enlightening experience.
In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia Ronald H. Spector. The war that didn’t end in 1945, in five Asian nations previously occupied by Japan. Examination of a fascinating period, going deep on a topic we all know in bits and pieces.
The Four Nations Frank Welsh. Been diving in and out of this over the past few years, always worth coming back to and re-reading. A comprehensive political, economic, military and cultural/ethnic history of the British Isles, with myth-busting. And a lot of gritty detail on who was killing who, and why.
On the nightstand:
The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa: With E. D. Swinton’s “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift” Michael L. Burgoyne, Albert J. Marckwardt. A reimagining/update of Swinton’s classic lessons-learned, how not to be a tactical moron primer.
The Gun NYT war scribbler/former Marine officer C.J. Chivers’ history, sociology, etc., of the AK 47.
Recent reads:
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival John Vaillant. Really good. A page turner. My daughter stole it from me, I had to steal it back. A tale of issues between the locals and the local tigers in Russia’s Far East. Well written, gripping, chilling. A recent history of the Russian Far East, the natural, economic and political disaster that was perestroika, plus an interesting examination of cautious, respectful relations between those two super-predators, humans and big cats, from prehistory through the present, as seen through the eyes of those who deal with big cats most intimately, fellow hunters.
Ha, I remember the time I startled a tiger. No, seriously. True story … some other time.
Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II Mitchell Zuckoff. “A lost world, man-eating tribesmen, lush impenetrable jungles, stranded American fliers (one of them a dame with great gams, for heaven’s sake), a startling rescue mission. … ” says one blurber. What else you need to know? A grueling, deadly sort of a romp.
The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn Nathaniel Philbrick. The latest retelling of the now-legendary epic is another great one from a historian who, as he did in Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War, goes deep on the individuals involved and the choices they made … eschewing victimology, demonization and assorted cultural preconceptions in favor of weighing historic characters in context, on their own merits and flaws … as well as exploring strategic, tactical and logistical issues, down to weaponry, rates of fire, ammo problems and day-of-battle improvisations. Clarity thanks to maps. A lot of firsthand accounts from both sides.
Big takeaway: what a grandiosely petty tragedy this was, the product of a historic unhappy confluence and clash of towering egos, narrow agendas and astonishing ineptitude with the troopers and Indians paying for it. Terrible irony abounds, Philbrick holds, in what was ultimately a disaster for the victor who wanted to avoid a fight, and a successful martyrdom for the defeated blunderer. Philbrick makes the case that Custer’s goal of a successful overwhelming of the Sioux was within the heavily outnumbered, out-gunned 7th’s grasp, as was what he had attempted in a prior case, a negotiated resolution. It didn’t have to happen the way it did.
(For the favorite combat reads of a veteran of another bad day in 7th Cav’s history, Ia Drang vet Larry Gwin, see below.)
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 Max Hastings. A narrative of the war against Japan, with broad strategic sweep, plus tight focus, including a lot on some lesser known corners of the war, the misery experienced in those theaters and the personalities and interests that drove them, for better or worse. A must-read for understanding that war, expecially with all the handwringing anti-A-bomb revisionism out there lately.
Quartered Safe Out Here George MacDonald Fraser. The Flashman author’s memoir of combat in Burma in World War II. With moments of terror and hilarity at full Flashman level, plus great characters, Fraser’s examination of what it is like as a mental and physical experience to move forward into fire, see men drop around you, and engage in close-quarters combat may answer some questions for people who have not experienced this, and will sound familiar to those who have.
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam Lewis Sorley. The second half of the Vietnam War, pre-Tet to the bitter end. Told at a high level, focusing on the struggles and successes of Gen. Creighton Abrams and Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker in their dealings with U.S. and Vietnamese pols and brass. It tells the terrible tale of everything that went right, and how it was allowed to go wrong. Excellent companion to Bing West’s The Village, which does the same at ground level. Could change your view of that war. A useful mirror on our own times.
A Voyage to the South Sea … Lt. William Bligh’s own account of the Bounty mutiny, the preceeding voyage to collect breadfruit in Tahiti and the subsequent epic small-boat transit to Batavia. For those who like original source material, this Penguin version includes court transcripts from Edward Christian’s legal efforts to clear his brother Fletcher Christian’s name. Here’s Caroline Alexander’s exhaustively researched 2004 The Bounty, and Nordhoff and Hall’s classic Bounty Trilogy.
The Village, Bing West. A beautifully written narrative of a Vietnam war success, the Marine Corps’ Combined Action Platoons, that is highly relevant to understanding today’s counterinsurgency efforts. May be some of the clearest, most effective prose I’ve ever read. Instructive, inspiring, tragic. (High on my next-read list, West’s The Strongest Tribe. And he has a new one out that reportedly takes a counterintuitively dim view of the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan: The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan.)
Goodbye, Darkness, William Manchester. A World War II Marine’s return to the Pacific 33 years later. Manchester uses his quest to exorcise his own demons as a vehicle for a highly personalized infantryman’s history of the war in the islands.
Anabasis, Xenophon. Remarkable tale of 10,000 Greek mercenaries in a jam in Mesopotamia circa 400 B.C., forced to fight their way out via the Black Sea after a battle on the approaches to Babylon goes badly wrong. I don’t know why that sounds so familiar. I also don’t know why this movie hasn’t been made yet. The Warriors, 1979 cult classic, does it as an NYC gang war, which apparently is being remade for release this year as an LA gang war. What’s wrong with doing a faithful sword-and-sandals version, I don’t know.
Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar. That guy could write, in addition to excelling at kicking Gallic ass and pretty much everything else he set himself to. The brief true tale of the centurions Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo BTW is every bit as good as the elaborate, entirely fictionalized tale of these two rogues in HBO’s Rome. Better, actually. ”Rome” is good fun and great film, but don’t use it as a study guide for your history final.
The Autobiography of Sgt. William Lawrence, 40th Foot, 1807-1815. Much of this dictated memoir revolves around scrounging for food, marching, the lash, etc., with periodic horrors such as being tapped for a “forlorn hope” — first through breached walls in Spain — and the infantry squares at Waterloo.
A couple of fave rereads, two from war correspondents: The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, a great NYT war correspondent. And Dispatches, by Michael Herr. They take will take you on strange, often disturbing but always insightful rides deep inside their wars, Iraq and Vietnam, respectively.
One bit of unfinished business: Sebastian Junger’s WAR is a good book. In fact, it’s a great book. I’m sorry I dissed it based on a former paratrooper Afghan vet’s bad review and my own objections to the title. Memo to self: don’t judge a book by its cover. That said, the title is a tad overreaching. Organized warfare had been going on for several millennia before this book came out. But Junger tells a compelling, insightful tale of long-duration combat at a small, remote outpost in the Korengal Valley in 2007, and the inevitable price the participants pay. The film from the same project, Restrepo … well, here’s the household teenage military historian’s one-word review:
Raw.
“Restrepo” was what made me crack that book. Glad I did. Re the flick, put me down for ”well-shot, neatly edited, unadorned, heart-wrenching, inspiring.” And the kid’s right … raw. Thanks, Junger and Tim Hetherington, for these efforts. RIP Tim, dead in Libya April 20, 2011, along with Getty Images shooter Chris Hondros, doing what they loved. With a shout out to all who keep going back.
On a lighter note, for another unforgiving vision of war: Inglourious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino rewrites the ending to World War II, masterfully, with a lot of inserted cinephile elements, of course. In fact, the whole thing is a cinephile’s Nazi death fest. The first 15 minutes are gripping, film history. So are the next 138. You can call it war porn or a cartoon. But give yourself over to Tarantino’s world. By the end you’ll think that’s actually how it went. As with another great imagining of war, Apocalypse Now, grotesque and exaggerated fantasy feels more like the real thing than straight doc or drama sometimes. Maybe because of the fundamentally grotesque, exaggerated qualities of war that straight doc or drama rarely capture. (See Restrepo above for a magnificant exception.)
Reader MikeHu offers a headsup on what sounds like a fascinating film project: “Theirs is the Glory,” a Market Garden depiction filmed in 1945 at Arnhem with British “Red Devil” para vets and Dutch civilians who had participated in the real deal a year earlier. It’s included in this relatively cheap 4-disc collection of WWII classics. Here’s Wikipedia on the film, which was directed by a WWI Irish Rifles vet of Gallipoli.
Your purchases via the links help support my e-reading habit, at no additional cost to you. Per request of a former Vietnam doorgunner pal, plus others who keep clicking into cached pages, the best of the site’s booklists follow.
A COMBAT VET’S READING LIST compiled by our mutual friend, Larry Gwin, former XO of Alpha Co., 2/7 Cav at the Ia Drang and author of Baptism, a Vietnam Memoir:
The American Revolution:
1776, by David McCullough
The Winter Soldiers, Saratoga, and Decisive Day, by Richard M. Ketchum
Rabble in Arms, by Kenneth Roberts
The Civil War:
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
The Last Full Measure, by Jeff Shaara
The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
Army of the Potomac Trilogy, by Bruce Catton
Gettysburg, by Stephen W. Sears
World War I:
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, by Siegfried Sassoon
Good-Bye to All That, by Robert Graves
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
The Great War and Modern Memory, by Paul Fussell
World War II:
The Forgotten Soldier, by Guy Sajer
The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat
The Thin Red Line, by James Jones
The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
D-Day, by Stephen E. Ambrose
Citizen Soldiers, by Stephen E. Ambrose
Goodbye Darkness, by William Manchester
With the Old Breed, by E.B. Sledge
A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by James D. Hornfischer
Wings Of Morning, by Thomas Childers
Stalingrad, and The Fall of Berlin 1945, by Antony Beevor
Korea:
Chosin, by Eric Hammel
The Coldest War, by James Brady
The Coldest Winter, by David Halberstam
Vietnam:
Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu, by Bernard B. Fall
A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan
Dispatches, by Michael Herr
We were Soldiers Once…And Young, by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway
The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
Other Wars/Classics:
The Iliad, by Homer
The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great, by Steven Pressfield
The Year of the French, by Thomas Flanagan (Ireland, 1776)
War and Peace, by Count Leo Tolstoy
Moscow 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March, by Adam Zamoyski
Black Hawk Down, by Mark Bowden
The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins
Another 7th Cav Ia Drang vet reached back into his unit’s history:
Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S. Connell
Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors, by Stephen Ambrose
Here’s another Nam combat vet’s addition:
Achilles in Vietnam, by Jonathan Shay
Two more Nam vets add:
King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict, by Eric Schultz
Paul Revere’s Ride, by David Fischer
Dak To, by Edward F. Murphy
The Long Gray Line, by Rick Atkinson
A Vietnam Psyops vet adds:
WWII:
Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible, by John McManus
The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of WWII’s Most Decorated Platoon, by Alex Kershaw
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II’s Greatest Rescue Mission, by Hampton Sides
Vietnam:
The Cat from Hue, by John Laurence
Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason
Iraq/Afghanistan:
Generation Kill, by Evan Wright
In the Company of Soldiers, by Rick Atkinson
House to House, by David Bellavia
CRITTENDEN’S QUICK LIST:
A big shout out re Herr, Filkins, Sajer, Fall, Antony Beevor, Childers, all excellent must-reads of war. Childers in particular, with his tribute to absent uncles. Herr and Filkins, with their generational odes to war and warriors, and what happens when you go along for that ride. Here’s my own quick list omitting those already listed above:
The Jewish War, by Flavius Josephus
Harold and William: The Battle for England, A.D. 1064-1066, by Benton Rain Patterson
Henry V, by William Shakespeare
Every Man Will Do His Duty: An Anthology of Firsthand Accounts from the Age of Nelson, edited by Dean King
The Battle: A New History of Waterloo, by Alessandro Barbero (My review here, with a little about Gwin and company.)
Retreat from Kabul: The Catastrophic British Defeat in Afghanistan, 1842, Patrick Macrory (basis of the first Flashman novel)
Here Is Your War, by Ernie Pyle
The Face of War , by Martha Gellhorn
Guadalcanal Diary, by Richard Tregaskis
Fighter Squadron at Guadalcanal, by Max Brand.
Behind Bamboo, by Rohan Rivett
Five Years to Freedom, by James N. Rowe
Thunder Run, by David Zucchino. A battlefield acquaintance, who wrote the definitive, authoritative account of the taking of Baghdad in April 2003.
Martyr’s Day, by Michael Kelly, another battlefield acquaintance. Also, not exactly a war book, Things Worth Fighting For, edited by Max Kelly, his widow.
One Bullet Away, by Nate Fick
Blood Stripes, by David Danelo
A Terrible Love of War, by James Hillman
And for a good time, read:
Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke
All of the Flashman novels, by George MacDonald Fraser, starting with this one.
GREAT BOOKs make GREAT FLICKS:
Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae was not the source of the great CGI-enhanced film 300. That sprung whole from 300, the illustrated novel by Frank Miller.
On July 18, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Vol. Inf. Regt. led the assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina. The all-black regiment and its white officers were decimated, as depicted in the 1989 film Glory. Reading list:
Where Death and Glory Meet: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Infantry by Russell Duncan
A Brave Black Regiment, a first person account of Captain Luis F. Emilio
Undying Glory: The Story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment by Clinton Cox
Hope & Glory: Essays on the Legacy of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Martin H. Blatt
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, upon which the film Apocalypse Now is based.
A DVDography of the great Michael Caine, Korean war combat vet, self-made man and star of some of the best war flicks ever made: The Man Who Would Be King, The Last Valley, Zulu, A Bridge Too Far, Battle of Britain, The Quiet American, The Eagle Has Landed, Too Late the Hero.
Band of Brothers : E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, by Stephen Ambrose, and Band of Brothers, the fine HBO series.
Das Boot: The Boat by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, produced: Das Boot – The Director’s Cut and Das Boot – The Original Uncut Version, director Wolfgang Petersen, starring Jürgen Prochnow.
Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, Nechama Tec, researched history on which Defiance, the recent film of Jewish resistance, is based.
HBO’s The Pacific. Based on With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie.
Speaking of the Pacific, some more flicks followed by a lot of books: A Town Like Alice, Empire of the Sun, King Rat, Bridge on the River Kwai, Hell In The Pacific (Psycho-drama starring Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. What else do you need to know?), Ambush Bay, They were Expendable, Report from the Aleutians, The Airmen and the Headhunters.
The PACIFIC WAR book list:
Pete Ellis: An Amphibious Warfare Prophet, 1880-1923 Dirk Anthony Ballendorf
The Pacific War: 1941-1945 John Costello
“And I Was There”: Pearl Harbor And Midway — Breaking the Secrets Adm. Edwin T. Layton with Roger Pineau and John Costello
Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 or why they dropped the bomb on the Japanese, by Max Hastings
Pacific War, 1931-1945 Saburo Ienaga. A view from Japan.
Pearl Harbor and the Coming of the Pacific War: A Brief History with Documents and Essays Akira Iriye
God’s Samurai: Lead Pilot at Pearl Harbor Donald M. Goldstein
Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of her Survivors James D. Hornfischer.
Given Up for Dead: America’s Heroic Stand at Wake Island Bill Sloan
Tears In The Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath Michael and Elizabeth Norman
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese Elizabeth Norman
Beyond Courage: One Regiment Against Japan, 1941-1945 Dorothy Cave
The Coral Sea 1942: The first carrier battle Mark Stille
Miracle at Midway by Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway Jonathan B. Parshall and Anthony Tully
Whirlwind: The Air War Against Japan, 1942-1945 Barrett Tillman
Fortress Rabaul: The Battle for the Southwest Pacific, January 1942-April 1943 Bruce Gamble
War correspondent Richard Tregaskis’ Guadalcanal Diary
Into the Valley: a Skirmish of the Marines, by John Hersey, also published before Guadalcanal was over.
Hero of the Pacific: The Life of Marine Legend John Basilone James Brady
Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle Richard B. Frank
South Pacific Destroyer: The Battle for the Solomons from Savo Island to Vella Gulf Russell Sydnor Crenshaw
Islands of the Damned: A Marine at War in the Pacific R. V. Burgin
Pacific War Diary, 1942-1945: The Secret Diary of an American Sailor by James J. Fahey
Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener
How They Won the War in the Pacific: Nimitz and His Admirals Edwin Palmer Hoyt
Strong Men Armed: The United States Marines Against Japan Robert Leckie
Allies Against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan Nicholas Evan Sarantakes
Australian Commandos: Their Secret War against the Japanese in WWII A. B. Feuer
American Commando: Evans Carlson, His WW II Marine Raiders, and America’s First Special Forces Mission John F. Wukovits
Shadows In The Jungle: The Alamo Scouts Behind Japanese Lines In World War II Larry Alexander
Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945 Field Marshal “Bill” Slim
Beyond the Chindwin: An Account of Number Five Column of the Wingate Expedition into Burma 1943 Brigadier Bernard Fergusson
The Wild Green Earth Brigadier Bernard Fergusson
Prisoners of Hope Michael Calvert
The Road Past Mandalay John Masters
Quartered Safe Out Here George MacDonald Fraser
Go For Broke: The Nisei Warriors of World War II Who Conquered Germany, Japan, and American Bigotry C. Douglas Sterner
Yankee Samurai: The Secret Role of Nisei in America’s Pacific Victory Joseph D. Harrington
Foo : A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun : The Secret Prison Diary of Frank ‘Foo’ Fujita by Frank Fujita
Through the Valley of the Kwai by Ernest Gordon
The War Diaries of “Weary” Dunlop: Java and the Burma-Thailand Railway, 1942-45 by Sir Edward Dunlop
Surrender and Survival The Experience of American POW’s in the Pacific 1941-1945 by E. Bartlett Kerr
Bougainville, 1943-1945: The Forgotten Campaign Harry A. Gailey
The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea–The Forgotten War of the South Pacific James Campbell
MacArthur’s Jungle War: The 1944 New Guinea Campaign Stephen R. Taaffe
Thousand-Mile War: World War II in Alaska and the Aleutians
A Dawn Like Thunder: The True Story of Torpedo Squadron Eight Robert J. Mrazek
We Were Pirates: A Torpedoman’s Pacific War James Shell
Thunder Below! The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II by MOH recipient Eugene Fluckey.
Islands of Hell: The U.S. Marines in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 Eric Hammel
Bloody Tarawa: The 2d Marine Division, November 20-23, 1943 Eric Hammel
Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa Joseph H. Alexander
One Square Mile of Hell: The Battle for Tarawa John F. Wukovits
D-Day in the Pacific: The Battle of Saipan Harold J. Goldberg
Last Man Standing: The 1st Marine Regiment on Peleliu, September 15-21, 1944 Richard D. Camp
Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at Peleliu, 1944–The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War Bill Sloan
With The Old Breed: At Pelelieu and Okinawa Eugene B. Sledge
Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines at War in the Pacific Eric Hammel
So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi’s Letters from Iwo Jima Kumiko Kakehashi
Operation Iceberg : The Invasion and Conquest of Okinawa in World War II Gerald Astor
Danger’s Hour: The Story of the USS Bunker Hill and the Kamikaze Pilot Who Crippled Her Maxwell Kennedy
The Ultimate Battle: Okinawa 1945–The Last Epic Struggle of World War II Bill Sloan
Tennozan: The Battle of Okinawa and the Atomic Bomb George Feifer
Last Chapter, by Ernie Pyle. A collection of Pyle’s Pacific columns: B-29 crews in the Marianas, a light carrier, landing on Okinawa with the Marines.
In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors Doug Stanton
Enola Gay: The Bombing of Hiroshima Gordon Thomas & Max Morgan Witts
Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan J. Samuel Walker
Thank God for the Atom Bomb Paul Fussell
In the Ruins of Empire: The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia Ronald H. Spector
In alternate Pacific War history:
The Burning Mountain: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan Aldred Coppel
Rising Sun Victorious: An Alternate History of the Pacific War Peter G. Tsouras
BLITZKRIEG and the WAR IN EUROPE:
Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War, Chris Bellamy
Story of a Secret State Jan Karski
LIFE Magazine, Aug. 28, 1944: POLAND by Jan Karski; PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY: Saipan
Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust E. Thomas Wood
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany William Shirer
The Second World War Winston Churchill
Quest for Decisive Victory: From Stalemate to Blitzkrieg in Europe, 1899-1940 Robert Citino
Path to Blitzkrieg: Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920-39 Robert Citino
Poland 1939: The Birth Of Blitzkrieg Steven Zaloga
Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, And Atrocity Alexander B. Rossino
BLITZKRIEG UNLEASHED: The German Invasion of Poland 1939 Richard Hargreaves
Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe by Robert Gellately.
1588, The SPANISH ARMADA:
The Confident Hope of a Miracle: The True Story of the Spanish Armada by Neil Hanson.
The Armada by Garrett Mattingly.
Her Majesty’s Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage by Stephen Budiansky
Elizabeth’s Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England by Robert Hutchinson
Martyrs and Murderers: The Guise Family and the Making of Europe by Stuart Carroll.
ENGLISH CIVIL WAR:
What does that have to do with us Yanks? Short answer, a lot: Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America David Hackett Fischer.
English Civil War proper:
God’s Fury, England’s Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars Michael Braddock
CROMWELL’S WAR MACHINE: The New Model Army 1645 – 1660 Keith Roberts
The King and the Gentleman: Charles Stuart and Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1649 Derek A. Wilson
A Life Of The Great Lord Fairfax, Commander-In-Chief Of The Army Of The Parliament Of England (1870) Clements Robert Markham
God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ireland Michael O’Siochru
The NEW WORLD:
1491, New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, Charles Mann’s mythbuster. What the Americas were like, what happened when the Europeans arrived, and who is responsible for that.
Mayflower, a Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick, another mythbuster that goes deep on relations between the English and the Wampanoag, Narragansett, etal, from the Pilgrims through King Phillip’s War, including Benjamin Church’s innovative development of hybrid English-Indian units and tactics, the birth of modern counterinsurgency.
Letters from Mexico Hernan Cortes
The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico Miguel Leon-Portillo
The Discovery And Conquest Of Mexico Bernal Diaz Del Castillo
History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru William H. Prescott
The story of Cortes and Moctezuma is an epic that could use a cinematic update, in the right hands. Meanwhile, some viewing: Apocalypto, the Mel Gibson masterpiece.
In pre-Columbian news:
Vikings : The North Atlantic Saga edited by William Fitzhugh and Elizabeth Ward, National Museum of Natural History
Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans by James C. Chatters.
Skull Wars Kennewick Man, Archaeology, And The Battle For Native American Identity by David Hurst Thomas.
The ANCIENT WORLD:
Thermopylae: The Battle For The West Ernle Bradford.
The Greco-Persian Wars Peter Green.
The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece — and Western Civilization Barry S. Strauss.
Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam Victor Davis Hanson.
Anabasis, Xenophon, the March Upcountry.
The Campaigns of Alexander Arrian.
Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography Peter Green.
Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War against the Taliban Stephen Tanner.
The Conquest of Gaul Julius Caesar.
The Jewish War, by Flavius Josephus
JOHN KEEGAN:
The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing
The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme
Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris; June 6 – Aug. 5, 1944; Revised
The Battle For History: Re-fighting World War II
Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America
The American Civil War: A Military History
The Iraq War: The Military Offensive, from Victory in 21 Days to the Insurgent Aftermath
The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare
Intelligence in War: The value–and limitations–of what the military can learn about the enemy
Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda
The MODERN BATTLESPACE:
Filkins’ The Forever War has been favorably compared to Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and belongs on the shelf next to it. Not so much the lyrical ode to PTSD as Dispatches is, more a matter-of-fact, practical guide to how you get it.
From one of the best war correspondents of our time, the Robert Kaplan shelf:
The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War
Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History
Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan
LTC David Kilcullen, Australian Army ret’d., who helped write the book on modern counterinsurgency, with the book on modern counter-insurgency: The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One
U.S. Army/U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual Gen. David Petraeus etal.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics and the Endgame in Iraq, Bing West
Rage Company, by Thomas Daly. A groundview of the early stages of the surge in Anbar province.
Kaboom, by Matt Gallagher. Later stages of the surge outside Baghdad.
The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army by Greg Jaffe.
Tom Ricks:
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
Making the Corps: 10th Anniversary Edition with a New Afterword by the Author
A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam by Lewis Sorley
More later …
In case you didn’t find what you were looking for:
Your purchases through the site’s links help support my reading habit. Thank you.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:00 pm Comments (30)
Monday, August 9, 2010
Offline
On blogging hiatus and loving it. Turns out there’s a whole offline world out there. Many thanks for the expressions of concern, everything’s fine. Just e-fasting. You know you’re nearing 21st century nirvana when you’ve left social networking behind and feel close to transcending rants, extended blah blah blah into the ether, etc. Because you know what they say, it is all nothingness … (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:18 am Comments (8)
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sturm Und Ia Drang
Larry Gwin, Purple Heart, Silver Star, a 2/7 Cav veteran of the Ia Drang and author of Baptism: A Vietnam Memoir, is a friend and part of an informal, disorganized sort of VFW comprised of local combat vets, WWII through Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, that manifests in assorted bars and restaurants and beach houses from time to time. Here’s his Vietnam Vet’s Reading List, to add to the list readers … a fair number Nam vets themselves … have helped build here. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:32 am Comments (1)
Lifestyles Of The Fabulously Rich, Corrupt And Hypocritical
It’s been a heck of a week in the world you don’t dwell in. John Kerry looks more like Jonah after being forced to pony up the $500,000 in taxes he was dodging on his $7 million luxury yacht. Chelsea Clinton just can’t get any respect with her $3 million-and-counting wedding plans. Now, Charlie Rangel sets the Dems up for prime election time woe due to his failure to report this, attempts to avoidng paying that. NYT.
It all starts to sound like a heck of a recession-time story line for the Party of the Little Guy.
First, an important Long Guy update. Kerry tells the Boston Globe he always intended to pay his Massachusetts taxes, even when he was saying he didn’t know whether he owed them or not. I liked this part: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:32 am Comments (1)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The Good News Out of Arizona
Judge sides with O admin. States cannot enforce federal law. Some people see this as a bad thing. Masses of illegals running wild, driving up public costs and crime rates, taking jobs, etc., and not only will the feds do nothing about it, they won’t let the states do anything about it. NYT. But maybe there’s a bright side. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:52 am Comments (5)
A Great Recession
The Clintons, like John Kerry, apparently are having one. Boston Herald‘s Lauren Beckham Falcone re Chelsea’s $3 million-and-counting nups: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:39 am Comments (3)
What Mitt Romney Does Better Than Chuck Norris
Polls vs. Obama. It’s a pretty astonishing Zogby poll result, because everyone knows there’s basically nothing Chuck Norris can’t do.* But beating Obama isn’t one of them. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:53 am Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Jonah Kerry?
The Bay State’s senior senator lowers his colors, agrees to pay all boat taxes, ”whether owed or not.” Avast, Long John, this is Massachusetts. Of course ye owe them! Boston Herald. (Fun poll at the link seeks your navigational observations on Kerry’s position.)
More interesting is this suggestion by state and national Republicans, that the SS Kerry is a scurvy ship. OK, that’s not exactly how they put it. It’s more hurtfully mocking than that. Herald again: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:26 am Comments (2)
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
To Begin The World Over Again
Spent yesterday on my back, thanks to a back treatment, nose in To Begin The World Over Again: Lawrence of Arabia from Damascus to Baghdad by John C. Hulsman, a T.E. Lawrence bio/contemporary nation-building guide. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 am Comments (2)
A Fine Whine
Thurston Howell III and Lovey made the best of it, living as luxurious a life as possible, they were stuck on that island. So many false hopes of rescue dashed, so many game, ingenious efforts at escape that came to naught. They couldn’t even buy their way off. But the Howells had their dignity.
All of which makes Sen. John Kerry’s plaintive cry that much more comi-tragic. “Can I get out of here, please?” Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:57 am Comments (0)
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Lifestyles Of The Rich And Clueless
Oh, the hurtfulness. Boston Herald piles on, with New England boat builders wondering why, in times of hardship, Sen. Thurston Howell … I mean John Kerry, D-Mass., had to outsource his luxury, going halfway around the world to buy the $7 million yacht he was berthing across state lines in tax-free Rhode Island: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:10 am Comments (3)
Saturday, July 24, 2010
It’s Baaaaaack!
Please excuse the absence. Out with a recurrence of back issues. It’s my dodgy spine. Hope to be baaaaaack before too long. Meanwhile, here’s the latest re John Kerry. It’s a not particularly swift boat maneuver. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:59 am Comments (2)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Re-Tooling
Wall Street Journal does a little chicken-egg on what Petraeus has managed in the last few weeks and what was McChrystal’s work. Basically counterinsurgency vs. counterterrorism, though it appears to be a fine, and disputed line. The upshot is WSJ reports a re-tooling is underway with greater emphasis on counterinsurgency, while the White House still wants to hold to its … cough (political) hawk ptooie, excuse me … troop withdrawal deadline. WSJ figures Petraeus may manage to slow that a little, but not substantially delay halt or reverse. I thought this part was interesting: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:02 am Comments (3)
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Arizona On The Charles
Massachusetts pols, acting like some kind of national windsock, push for immigration status declarations on applications for state bennies. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:41 am Comments (0)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Read It And Weep
Repubs blast Dems for nearly half a million in signs touting the stimulus in Massachusetts — 10 percent of the nationwide total on election-year free advertising for President Obama. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:14 pm Comments (1)
Race-Baitism
The left gleefully jumps on a fringe New Hampshire state legislature candidate as proof of Tea Party/GOP racism. Think Progress. Gateway jumps on Think Progress … GOP has already disowned him and the Tea Party never owned him. Starts to sound like race-baitism. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:48 am Comments (2)
Nam-A-Thon
In the growing Vietnam list, reader Befort recommends “anything and everything by Keith William Nolan,” a military historian, detailed deconstructor of combat, who died of cancer at age 44 in 2009. Based on titles alone, it’s an impressive-looking body of work that goes deep, and a good place to pick up for the day: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:09 am Comments (6)
Monday, July 19, 2010
Hue Back Machine
The always erudite reader Kimes weighs in with a couple of quick Vietnam book reviews. Like the look of that Hue one. But first, blue skies: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:21 am Comments (4)
That’s Rich
Party of the Rich, that is. That’s what Obama, and his local doppelganger* are calling it. Local Tea Party and GOP types say try again. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:00 am Comments (1)
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A People’s History Of American Moronitude
Boston’s Pioneer Institute bashes the ”Common Core” national educational guidelines as a gross dumbing-down effort. Boston Herald. Even the Boston Globe notes that current reading and math standards in Massachusetts are “highly regarded” and that there are concerns among “Republicans and other organizations that work on education issues … that the change would represent a major setback for the state.”
Personally, I start getting suspicious whenever I see the word “Common” applied politically with the presumption that we should all be thinking or doing the same thing … even if I am sometimes guilty of it, common sense, common interest, that kind of thing. Attached to a national education initiative, it warrants a look. What do these people want? We go to their site, click on What We Do: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:41 am Comments (2)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Stolen Valor Comprehension Defied
I’d have thought you’d have to be a lower order primate not to get it, but a federal judge rules lying about valorous war service is (A) constitutionally protected free speech and (B) not that big a deal. Denver Post: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 3:44 pm Comments (1)
Obama B.S. Removal Kit
They should be shipping these things up here by the trainload. Unfortunately “B.S.” refers to bumper stickers. The other stuff doesn’t come off that easy.
Via Newsbusters, where we now return to their main feature, “Margaret Thatcher’s Family Appalled by New Film, ‘Sounds like some Left-Wing Fantasy.’”
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:55 pm Comments (0)
Cordoba
Stephen Schwartz at the Weekly Standard does what Mayor Bloomberg and NY AG Cuomo don’t want to do, which is take a close look at the people involved in the Cordoba House project, a plan to build a massive mosque and Islamic community center a stone’s throw from Ground Zero. He concludes: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:34 am Comments (1)
Skillfully Positioned Celebrity Quasi-Candidate Mocked
Fun Greg Sargent Plum Line post cries out for a name switch. It’s a Palin bash, headlined “Only Republicans Like Sarah Palin.” (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:22 am Comments (1)
Degowned
Harvard tosses the Ivan. Russky spy Andrey Bezrukov, formerly d.b.a. Donald H. Heathfield, a Kennedy School grad no more. A Bezrukov classmate applauds the move. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:12 am Comments (0)
Technical Update
Web guy detected and zapped an extraneous bit of code left over from a recent sidebar rearrangement. Appears to have cleared up the page-freezing problem that I was experiencing and some readers were reporting. Let me know if you experience any ongoing problems loading the site. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for reading.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:10 am Comments (0)
Friday, July 16, 2010
OK, So I’m A Neanderthal
Like most Europeans and Asians, reportedly, 1-4 percent or so. And proud of it. Tell me something I don’t know. Now, the “Neanderthal Index” is commercially available, a test purporting to determine how much of a Neanderthal you are.
Hawks cocks a eye and looks down his hybrid Homo sapiens/neanderthalensis nose at it. The Genetic Genealogist notes it basically tells you whether you’re in one of the populations that is likely to have some Neanderthal, as a more specific test apparently isn’t a commercial go yet.
Yeah, well. Sounds like if you’re planning on shelling out to find out whether you’re a Neanderthal, you’re more sap than sapiens …
(Hawks remarks in an email it may not be too long before there is a practical way. Adds, more interesting than whether you are a Neanderthal or not, is which parts are and which parts aren’t. I say ”Ugh!” to that.)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:40 am Comments (1)
Slippery Slope
A terrorist-abetting lawyer slides down it, into a 10-year prison sentence. NY Post: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:32 am Comments (2)
Pol-Spawn Yuks
Boston Herald’s Inside Track takes a rare moralistic tone* after alleged comedian Kathy Griffin calls GOP Sen. Scott Brown’s daughters ”prostitutes.” Never mind the quality of humor. Track gals note that, from comic attacks to coverage by the media in general, GOP kids seem to come in for more grief than Dem ones do: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:25 am Comments (1)
More Likely To Die
It’s just one of the many dangers of sitting. I’ve been on jihad against it for a while. Now the science is catching up. AP: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:20 am Comments (1)
Technical Difficulties
A couple of readers report page freeze at the site, and I’ve experienced it myself. Web guy’s looking at it. Please let me know via contact or comments if this has been a problem, how long it’s been a problem, how it manifests, and among the techies out there, any thoughts on what’s going on. Helpful hint in the meantime. Entering via command line as opposed to via links seems to work better.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:15 am Comments (0)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A Legacy Of Caring
Departed Nevada granny reaches back from the other side … to campaign against Harry Reid. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:13 am Comments (2)
Paperwork Issues
Did you know it’s easier to lose your legally acquired British citizenship than to be stripped of the Harvard degree you earned under false pretenses? I did not know that. Boston Herald:
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:42 am Comments (0)
Movement On Civil Rights
And not in a good direction. Michael Graham pretty much pegs it. At the NAACP, the racism is on stage, not on the fringes. via Boston Herald, where Graham’s got some advice for the group that was once all about civil rights, and now apparently is about squelching them: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:06 am Comments (1)
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Back To Iraq
J.D. Johannes, who can never quite get out of the place, goes straight from Kabul to Basra. Judging by the picture, he kind looks happy to be there. This part was relevant to recent developments: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:53 am Comments (0)
Kaboom
Returned to it last night. As Matt Gallagher notes at his current blog, Kerplunk, I liked the cover a lot but felt the air rushing out when I cracked it.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:03 am Comments (2)
Obama’s Katrina
This CBS poll suggests that the Obama administration, in order to be better liked, basically needs to pack it in. It’s the economy, and he’s acted stupidly. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:00 am Comments (2)
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Advanced Bag Holding
The Arizona boycott reportedly wasn’t Boston City Councilor and co-sponsor Felix Arroyo’s idea in the first place, but he’s standing up on principle while everyone else runs for cover. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:11 pm Comments (0)
A Poli-Tragic Figure
Confidence in President Obama hits a new low. Washington Post-ABC News poll: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:52 am Comments (0)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Capitulation
What’s that Genghis Khan quote about besting one’s adversaries?
“The greatest joy in life for a man is to drive his enemies before him, to leave their cities in smoking ruins, to hear the wailing and cries of their wives and children, to ride their horses, and snore loudly upon the bosoms of their concubines.”
Something like that. A tad sexist, unabashedly imperialist, maybe, but still has resonance 800-odd years later in this more enlightened age. Wails and cries via Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:48 am Comments (1)
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Through The Ham Sandwich Looking Glass
Pushing his case for civilian trials for illegal enemy combatants, AG Holder claims execution on a military tribunal’s conviction might be legally dodgy. via Boston Herald.
No kidding it’s dodgy, when you consider the massive legal resources that have been devoted to easing the discomfort of terrorists and granting them civil constitutional rights, while painting the United States military and the Bush administration as war criminals. It’s a ham sandwich indictment that met with considerable success. Rise your hand if you think Eric Holder is actually interested in executing a mass killer.
But here’s the best part:
“As soon as we can” resolve those issues, “we will make a decision as to where that trial will occur,” Holder said.
He said “the politicization of this issue, when we’re dealing with ultimate national security issues, is something that disturbs me a great deal.”
He’s right. The politicization of national security is disturbing and it has been a problem for some time. Where was this guy when the Bush administration needed him?
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:27 am Comments (3)
Boston Vs. Brewer
Brewer wins. Much-touted anti-Arizona protests flop as only a few hundred of the usual suspects with “RACIST” signs show up. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:08 am Comments (6)
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
Reader purchases via the Amazon links wax end-timey:
When Technology Fails (Revised & Expanded): A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency by Matthew I. Stein, is proving popular. It isn’t anything I said, I hope. I remain ever confident we will live through all this.
Also, How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It: Tactics, Techniques, and Technologies for Uncertain Times by James Wesley Rawles. Like the title.
Emergency Food Storage & Survival Handbook: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Your Family Safe in a Crisis Peggy Dianne Layton.
Quick thoughts. As mentioned previously, I take a minimalist approach to survivalism. If you own a shotgun and a chainsaw, know how to live rough and make things, have some reasonable amount of non-perishable food and water stocks in the basement, are relatively fit, you’re probably as good as you’re going to get. All that probably has more to do with how you’ve lived your life to date than any book, though reference guides are always useful to have around … especially if the outbreak of social chaos is accompanied by a loss of Internet.
That said, in the emergency food storage department, I’ve taken up pickling lately. Not exactly for survivalist purposes. Because I like pickles. Throw some hot peppers in your average dill pickle recipe and what is already good goes off the charts.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:50 am Comments (0)
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Brewer To Boston: MYOB
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, in town for the National Governors Association bash, blasts the Boston City Council etal for being big buttinskis and adds, never mind what the local libs and the Obama admin think, America has her back. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:00 pm Comments (5)
Helpful Hints For Destroying America
It’s Iowahawk, your go-to place for undermining everything that is good and decent in this world. It’s a long list, worked up by Iowahawk and his new Twitter pals, and it looks like an awful lot of work, but I like this one:
Work tirelessly to lower awareness.
Unlike raising $50 million from Hollywood studio for a war movie, and during handshake secretly switching scripts with one that makes USA the good guys, lowering awareness is one thing each of us can easily do at home and at work to make this less fair, less earnest, less concerned and generally crappier, more hurtful place.
I’d add that with this one post, Iowahawk has demonstrated that Twitter is actually good for something other than mildly annoying Iranian mullahs and Chinese autocrats.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:34 am Comments (1)
Ivy Cred
OK, so the FBI has said they were Russian spies, the Russian government has said they were Russian spies, and the Russian spies have said they were Russian spies, and Vladimir Putin has cracked jokes about it.
That leaves … Harvard. The nation’s premier Ivy League U.S. president mass-production facility has yet to yank the degree it bestowed on Russky spy Andrey Bezrukov, who was presenting as “Donald H. Heathfield,” a dead Canadian, when handed his sheepskin in 2000. Boston Herald: (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:52 am Comments (0)
Ideology By Poll
Sounds like America is sending a message to the party that likes to govern by poll. 55 percent of likely voters think “socialist” describes President Obama “well” or “very well.” NRO. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:47 am Comments (1)
Pillar Of Shame
A German activist is building a memorial in the hills over Srebrenica. 16,000 worn shoes encased in wire mesh to form pillars that will spell out “UN” when viewed from the victims’ graves below. In the run-up to building his memorial, Phillip Ruch also plans on dumping the 8,000-odd shoes he’s collected so far in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
It’s a little different for a Euro. More like this, please. Usually Europeans devote their protesting energies to attacking the “US” … the Brandenburg Gate has seen a lot of US-bashing demonstrations but never for the right reasons,* such as the shameful decision four decades ago to abandon Southeast Asia, or subsequent efforts to abandon Iraq and Afghanistan … as Euros more commonly focus their rage on our efforts to curtail the excesses of murderous regimes.
News report on the Srebrenica shoe project, via Boston Herald, notes that on the 15th anniversary of the July 11, 1995 massacre, the presidents of Serba and Croatia will pay their respects alongside Bosnian Muslims. The UN, whose peacekeepers stood by, is not invited.** Maybe because, while there have been some efforts by the belligerents to make good, the global peacekeeper has yet to mend its ways. Most recently notable for hosting Hamas mortar crews, drawing Israeli fire on women and children, and then squawking indignantly about it.
* Please correct me if I’m wrong and that man has in fact bit that dog, which is to say, if concerned Europeans have marched to denounce US abandonment of entire nations to genocide. Or, for that matter, if they’ve marched in support of a civilized, terror-free Iraq and Afghanistan any time recently.
** On second thought, given that the article states “The U.N. will not be represented,” it’s unclear whether the UN was invited or not. It may be that the UN has the good taste … even a sufficient sense of shame, or just good sense … not to show up. Though I supposed if Ban Ki Moon were to appear in sackcloth and ashes, his presence might be welcomed tolerated.
Haven’t noticed any mention of Dutch military or government involvement. But here’s a Radio Netherlands report of a Dutch Srebrenica vet who doesn’t see what the big deal was, doesn’t feel any guilt, but wants to go back and lend a hand, though he’s been warned the Bosniacs aren’t feeling as warm and fuzzy toward the Dutch as he feels toward them.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:08 am Comments (0)
Low Level Hell
As long as we’re doing Vietnam book lists, a friend who is an Iraq vet recommends the one that made him want to be a cavalry scout helicopter pilot. Low Level Hell by Hugh L. Mills. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:51 am Comments (1)
Friday, July 9, 2010
Bury Us Upside Down
You’ll find below some more obscure Vietnam and related book titles and some familiar ones, recommended by Joe Galloway and/or referenced in a Robert Kaplan war memoir review he forwarded. But first the recommended review. That would be a recommendation from one of the premier war correspondents of our time to read one of the premier war correspondents of our time, so I’m there. (more…)
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:02 pm Comments (2)