Veteran Memoir

On February 20, 1945, the second day of the assault on Iwo Jima - one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific theater in World War II - Private Jack Lucas, who was only 17, and three other Marines engaged in a close-proximity firefight with Japanese soldiers. When two enemy grenades landed in their trench, Lucas jumped on one and pulled the other under his body to save the lives of his comrades. Lucas was blown into the air as his body was torn apart by 250 entrance wounds. He was so severely wounded that his team left him for dead. Miraculously, he survived.

Patrick K. O'Donnell has made a career of uncovering the hidden history of World War II by tracking down and interviewing its most elite troops: the Rangers, Airborne, Marines, and First Special Service Force, forerunners to Americas's Special Forces.

May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Popaditch is immortalized forever as "The Cigar Marine."

These stories from the life and medical career of a Navy SEAL turned doctor are surprising, riveting, and inspiring. A family physician delivering babies, managing disease and trauma, and dealing with death, discovers new dimensions when he goes to war in Iraq. Treating the military, civilians, and their families, "Dr. Bob" experienced tremendous joy, unbearable heartache, and deep gratitude. He shares those emotional experiences in this deeply personal memoir.

A powerhouse fusion of pathos and humor, brutal realism and intimate reflection, Flying Through Midnight is a landmark contribution to Vietnam War literature, revealing previously top-secret intelligence on the 606's night missions. Fast-paced, thrilling, and bitingly intelligent, Halliday's writing illuminates it all: the heart-pounding air battles, the close friendships, the crippling fear, and the astonishing final escape that made the telling of it possible.

In the vein of Band of Brothers and American Sniper, a riveting history of Alvin York, the World War I legend who killed two dozen Germans and captured more than 100, detailing York's heroics yet also restoring the unsung heroes of his patrol to their rightful place in history - from renowned World War I historian James Carl Nelson.

The Battle of Iwo Jima, a major event in the Pacific Theater of World War II - and one of the bloodiest in United States history - began on February 19, 1945. But what happened two days earlier has largely been a footnote - until now.... On February 17, Landing Craft Infantry 449 was among a dozen gunboats helping to prepare the area for their invasion two days later. US military leaders thought that they had weakened Japanese forces in the area.

In November 2006, then-first-lieutenant Thomas Daly arrived as part of the surge in Ramadi to take part in Operation Squeeze Play, a division-size effort to remove al-Qaeda from Anbar province. In this powerful memoir, he describes the successful clearing of Southern Ramadi's Second Officer's district, the Qatana, and the uprising of local citizens against al-Qaeda on the eastern edge of the city (the result of an unlikely alliance between Daly's company and Thawar al Anbar).

On November 25, 1950, during one of the toughest battles of the Korean War, the US Eighth Army Ranger Company seized and held the strategically important Hill 205 overlooking the Chongchon River. Separated by more than a mile from the nearest friendly unit, 51 soldiers fought several hundred Chinese attackers. Their commander, Lieutenant Ralph Puckett, was wounded three times before he was evacuated. For his actions, he received the country's second-highest award for courage on the battlefield and resumed active duty later that year as a living legend.

I'm Just a Supply Sgt. is a compelling narrative of the Vietnam War with a very personal, psychological perspective that is difficult to find in most histories. Don Stout's ability to comprehend and record his feelings during the war, and his struggles after the war, provide not only a window into the suffering of many veterans but also a tool for catharsis for those afflicted with PTSD. Without a doubt, Don's story provides one of the most unique perspectives on the war and is not only a history of his service but a psychological epic.

Chris Thomas is not yet 30 years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, 20 years later, Thomas takes listeners behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.

For nearly a decade, Brett Velicovich was at the center of America's new warfare: using unmanned aerial vehicles - drones - to take down the world's deadliest terrorists across the globe. One of an elite handful in the entire military with the authority to select targets and issue death orders, he worked in concert with the full human and technological network of American intelligence - assets, analysts, spies, informants - and the military's elite operatives to stalk, capture, and eliminate high-value targets in al-Qaeda and ISIS.

In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as "Maggie" to his fellow paratroopers, joined the 82nd Airborne Division, his new "home" for the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains outside Naples.

Upon its release, The Bullpen Gospels was a direct hit to the New York Times best seller list. With comparisons to Jim Boutons’s Ball Four, The Bullpen Gospels is slated to be a classic of the genre.

Tank Driver is the story of a young man’s combat initiation in World War II. Based on letters home, the sparse narrative has the immediacy of on-the-spot reporting. Ted Hartman was a teenager when he was sent overseas to drive a Sherman tank into combat to face the desperate German counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hartman gives a riveting account of the shifting tides of battle and the final Allied breakout. He tells about the concentration camps, the spectacle of defeated Germans, and the encounter with Russian soldiers in Austria that marked combat’s end.

In The Things They Cannot Say, award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks these difficult questions of 11 soldiers and marines, who - by sharing the truth about their wars - display a rare courage that transcends battlefield heroics. For each of these men, many of whom Sites first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth means something different.

Army First Lieutenant Jack Jacobs was serving as an advisor to the South Vietnamese when he and his men came under devastating attack. Severely wounded, Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit, returning again and again to the site of the attack to rescue more men, saving the lives of a U.S advisor and thirteen Allied soldiers. Colonel Jacobs received the nation's highest military award, the Medal of Honor.

Want to know what Vietnam was really like? From a Marine sniper in Hue, to a medevac dust-off pilot going into a hot LZ, Navy Corpsmen, A-6 pilots taking out bridges and SAM sites in North Vietnam, a nurse on the USS Repose, combat medics deep in the jungle, machine gunners in I-Corps, mechanics working on the rolling deck of a big carrier on Yankee Station, squad leaders on infantry sweeps in “the Arizona Territory”, truck convoys under fire, riverine patrol boats in the Delta, and much more....

The stories of 15 combat veterans featured in this audiobook tell of the experiences of average Americans who fought US enemies on Pacific islands, in China, and in Burma during World War II. They relate much previously unavailable information about the military in which they served and the battles they fought. The possibility of death and permanent physical and mental injury was a common experience. This audiobook is a "must listen" for those who think they have learned all there is to know about World War II.

In 1960, the Imperial War Museum began a momentous task. A team of academics, archivists and volunteers set about tracing ordinary men and women who had lived through one of the most harrowing periods of modern history, the First World War. Veterans were interviewed in details about their day-to-day experiences, on and off the front. The project has since grown to be the most important archive of its kind in the world, and provides a unique account of life during the Great War.