biography

Nearly twenty years later, the ATF and FBI assaults on the Branch Davidian residence near Waco, Texas, remain the most deadly law enforcement action on American soil. The raid on February 28, 1993 ultimately resulted in the deaths of fifty-three adults and twenty-three children, with only nine survivors. The author is one of those survivors.

The never-before-told true story of an army aviation task force during combat in the Afghan war, told by the commanding officer who was there. From pilots of lethal Apache attack helicopters to the medevac soldiers who risk their lives on a daily basis, this is a story of selflessness and brotherhood.

The story of the evolution of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from World War II to the Cold War through the eyes of Daphne Park, one of its outstanding and most unusual operatives. In the 1970's, Park was appointed to a most senior operational rank as one of its seven Area Controllers, an extraordinary achievement for a woman working within this most male-dominated and secretive of organizations.

In 1944, hundreds of Allied soldiers were trapped in POW camps in occupied France. The odds of their survival were not good. The odds of escaping, even worse. But one man had the courage to fight the odds and figure out how to negotiate the release of an unprecedented 149 prisoners.

The horse's Korean name was Ah-Chim-Hai (Flame of the Morning). She was an old chestnut-colored Mongolian racehorse. Once she amazed the racing crowd with her remarkable speed. But when the 1950's Korean War shut down the racetrack, she was sold to an American Marine and trained to carry heavy loads of ammunition across steep hills under a barrage of bullets and bombs. Her new name was Reckless. And she proved to be fearless under fire, exposed to every type of hazard. Sometimes she shielded human reinforcements and soon the Chinese were targeting the horse. But Reckless never shied away from danger and soon the men came to appreciate her not just as a horse but as a fellow Marine. She lived through the war and ended her days as a retired Marine at Camp Pendleton, giving birth to four foals while she was there.

The story of the U.S. Navy's most famous aviator duo, Lieutenant Tom Hudner and Ensign Jesse Brown. Tom Hudner was a White New Englander from the country-club scene. Jesse Brown was African American and a sharecropper's son from Mississippi. Tom and Jesse became a team when they joined forces as wingmen in Fighter Squadron 32. Their job was to land their planes on the deck of an aircraft carrier--considered the world's most dangerous job. When the Korean War becomes a reality, Tom and Jesse come to the aid of the Marines cornered in the Chosin Reservoir Battle. When one of them is shot down behind enemy lines, and pinned in his burning plane, the other faces an unthinkable choice: watch his friend die or attempt history's most audacious one-man rescue mission.

Personal histories of war, told through the lives of thirteen ordinary soldiers who fought in the nation's major conflicts, from the American Revolution through Iraq.

The author was on his second World War II mission as a top-turret gunner when his plane was shot down in 1943. He was one of only two men on the plane to escape immediate death or capture. He was able to run from the plane wreck and knock on the door of an isolated farmhouse whose owners, fortunately, had a firm connection to the underground French Resistance group, Morhange, and its founder, Marcel Taillandier. Meyerowitz's escape to freedom was hair-raising and included a masquerade as a deaf-mute, a periolous trek over the Pyrenees, and a voyage aboard a fishing boat with U-boats below and Luftwaffe fighters above.

"Discusses the life and work of Sonia Sotomayor"--Provided by publisher.