officers

"Two decorated American war heroes survive combat in Afghanistan only to find themselves on an unfamiliar battlefield--the courtroom--in this true story by the commander of Delta Company, 1/506th a.k.a. Dog Company."--Provided by publisher.

German midshipman Erich Killinger was captured by Russia at the start of World War I. Killinger escaped the Russian POW train in Siberia, fled to China, and passed through a series of German consulates and safe houses to Shanghai. Given fake identity papers, Killinger traveled in style by ship and rail from Shanghai to Skien, Norway, via the United States. He arrived back in Germany on March 6, 1916--eleven months after being captured.

Explores the life of John Paul Stapp, hailed by "Time" magazine as "the Fastest Man on Earth" after his 1954 experiment to test how fast a human being could go on land--turns out, over six hundred miles an hour--and also how quickly he could come to a complete stop--just over a second.

Brief profiles of Civil War leaders from both the Union and the Confederacy, and the events that made them famous.

Fighting was a practiced routine for Lieutenant Ivan Castro. But when a mortar round struck the rooftop of his sniper?s post in Iraq, he found himself in a battle more difficult than even he could have imagined. The direct hit killed two other soldiers and nearly claimed Castro?s life as well. Mangled by shrapnel and badly burned, Castro was medevac?d to Germany more dead than alive. His lungs were collapsed. He couldn?t hear. One eye had been blown out, the nerve to the other severed. In the weeks and months that followed, Castro would find that physical darkness was nothing compared to the emotional darkness of loss and despair. Desperate for a reason to live, he eventually fought his way back to health through exercise and a single-minded goal: running a marathon. Once he set his course, there was no stopping him. Stubborn to a point that at times bordered on insanity, he managed not only to recover but to return to active duty. Since 2007, he has run over two dozen marathons, including the Boston Marathon in 2013, where he was one of the runners diverted when the bombs exploded.

The Irish-American story, with all its twists and triumphs, is told through the improbable life of one man. A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York -- the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America. Meagher's rebirth in America included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade from New York in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War -- Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg. Twice shot from his horse while leading charges, left for dead in the Virginia mud, Meagher's dream was that Irish-American troops, seasoned by war, would return to Ireland and liberate their homeland from British rule. The hero's last chapter, as territorial governor of Montana, was a romantic quest for a true home in the far frontier. His death has long been a mystery to which Egan brings haunting, colorful new evidence.

A memoir from a SEAL and medic in which he explores his 25-year career in dangerous combat missions and the post-traumatic stress disorder that developed at home.

Captain D. Michael Abrashoff recounts the years he spent commanding the USS Benfold, and discusses how he improved his leadership skills and how his ship was run.

When Cheryl Dietrich joined the U.S. Air Force, she began a transformation from overweight introvert and military neophyte into one of the key personnel redesigning the structure of the Air Force within the Pentagon. She is one of only one hundred female officers holding the rank of colonel or higher. Her memoir paints a picture of what it's like to be a squadron commander, to lead a NATO division and conduct mobility and wartime exercises in a gas mask and chemical gear, as well as to deploy with NATO to war-torn Croatia.