The Civil War historian recounts a significant yet smaller battle in the Shenandoah Valley—showing how it changed the war and the lives of those present. The battle of New Market came at a crucial moment in the Union’s offensive movements. It would also be the last major Confederate victory in the Shenandoah Valley. The outcome altered campaign plans across the North and South, while the bloody battle changed the lives of those who witnessed or fought it. In the spring of 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel prepared to lead a new invasion into the Valley. Confederate Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge scrambled to organize a defense. Young cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were called to the battle lines just days after leaving their studies. When the opposing divisions clashed on May 15th, 1864, local civilians watched as the combat unfold in their streets and churchyards and aided the fallen. In Call Out the Cadets, Sarah Kay Bierle traces the history of this battle, covering its military aspects and shedding light on the lives it forever changed. Youth and veterans, generals and privates, farmers and teachers—all were called into the conflict or its aftermath, an event that changed a community, a military institute, and the very fate of the Shenandoah Valley.
More than 50 years after World War II, cadet nurses tell their stories about how they helped win the war on the home front by serving in hospitals during the worst nurse shortage in history. Recalling what it was like to serve their country, these women share touching historical and personal stories about their experiences.
New York Times Bestseller: A “fascinating, funny and tremendously well written” chronicle of daily life at the US Military Academy (Time). In 1998, West Point made an unprecedented offer to Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky: Stay at the Academy as long as you like, go wherever you wish, talk to whomever you want, to discover why some of America’s most promising young people sacrifice so much to become cadets. Lipsky followed one cadet class into mess halls, barracks, classrooms, bars, and training exercises, from arrival through graduation. By telling their stories, he also examines the Academy as a reflection of our society: Are its principles of equality, patriotism, and honor quaint anachronisms or is it still, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, the most “absolutely American” institution? During an eventful four years in West Point’s history, Lipsky witnesses the arrival of TVs and phones in dorm rooms, the end of hazing, and innumerable other shifts in policy and practice. He uncovers previously unreported scandals and poignantly evokes the aftermath of September 11, when cadets must prepare to become officers in wartime. Lipsky also meets some extraordinary people: a former Eagle Scout who struggles with every facet of the program, from classwork to marching; a foul-mouthed party animal who hates the military and came to West Point to play football; a farm-raised kid who seems to be the perfect soldier, despite his affection for the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe; and an exquisitely turned-out female cadet who aspires to “a career in hair and nails” after the Army. The result is, in the words of David Brooks in the New York Times Book Review, “a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have read. . . . How teenagers get turned into leaders is not a simple story, but it is wonderfully told in this book.”
The Civil War historian and author of A Season of Slaughter continues his engaging account of the Overland Campaign in this vivid chronicle. By May of 1864, Federal commander Ulysses S. Grant had resolved to destroy his Confederate adversaries through attrition if by no other means. Meanwhile, his Confederate counterpart, Robert E. Lee, looked for an opportunity to regain the offensive initiative. “We must strike them a blow,” he told his lieutenants. But Grant’s war of attrition began to take its toll in a more insidious way. Both army commanders—exhausted and fighting off illness—began to feel the continuous, merciless grind of combat in very personal ways. Punch-drunk tired, they began to second-guess themselves, missing opportunities and making mistakes. As a result, along the banks of the North Anna River, commanders on both sides brought their armies to the brink of destruction without even knowing it.
When LSU head football coach Paul Dietzel saw Billy Cannon field an Ole Miss punt on LSU's own eleven yard line on a stifling Halloween night in 1959, his shouts of "No, no, no!" turned to "Go, go, go!" as Cannon eluded tackler after tackler, sending fans in Tiger Stadium into a frenzy and earning himself that year's Heisman Trophy. Dietzel is probably best known for leading LSU to its first national championship the year before Cannon's legendary run, but his career in athletics also carried him to numerous posts across the country and put him in the company of some of the best coaching minds of all time. In Call Me Coach, Dietzel affectionately recalls his rich and varied life in college football. In 1948, Dietzel decided to forgo medical school at Columbia University to become the plebe football coach at West Point. As an assistant over the next few years, he worked with Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky, Colonel Red Blaik and Vince Lombardi at West Point, and Sid Gillman at the University of Cincinnati. Taking the job of head coach at LSU in 1955, he reversed the Tigers' losing skid and -- using the wing-T formation and a revolutionary three-team substitution system incorporating the White Team, the Go Team, and the renowned Chinese Bandits -- crafted 1958's unbeaten championship season. The thirty-three-year-old Dietzel was voted National Coach of the Year by the widest margin ever. Back at West Point from 1961 to 1965, Dietzel rallied the Cadets to finally "beat Navy" and, as South Carolina's football coach and athletics director from 1966 to 1974, he took the Gamecocks to their first bowl game in twenty-five years and mandated the recruitment of black athletes in all sports programs. After twenty years as a head coach, with 109 wins and 95 losses at three schools and a postseason record of 11 victories and 3 defeats, Dietzel retired from coaching in 1974, later serving as athletics director at Indiana and LSU. Through Dietzel's eyes, readers glimpse college football during a simpler time but also see that many facets of the game -- including recruitment challenges, job insecurity, press relations, and fickle fans -- remain constant. Highlights among the book's many unforgettable anecdotes are a 1962 interview with Howard Cosell, discussion about West Point's football team with General Douglas MacArthur, and a rare disagreement with Bear Bryant during a staff meeting. Dietzel's recollections of his early and later years help complete the story of the man. In a warm raconteur's voice, he describes his impoverished childhood in Ohio, his own participation in high school and college sports, and his stint flying B-29 missions over Japan during World War II. His postretirement endeavors have included providing color commentary for TV, selling fudge, teaching skiing, and watercolor painting. Always at the top of Dietzel's priorities have been friends, family, and faith. Gratitude rings as a constant refrain in Call Me Coach, and sports enthusiasts everywhere will be grateful that Dietzel has shared these recollections of his remarkable life.
Fifteen year-old Elizabeth has been handed a briefcase full of incriminating documents by her dying uncle, documents wanted by a gang of crooks. In desperation she flees into the bush, where she encounters seventeen year-old Cadet Under-Officer Graham Kirk and his platoon of army cadets. Graham decides to hide Elizabeth until he can contact the authorities. But how? And who can he trust? As the days go by the crooks become ever more desperate. Graham s leadership and character are put to the test in the most challenging adventure of his young life. Set in the savannah country of inland North Queensland, this fast-paced action-adventure story will keep you guessing right until the very end. Read on and join with the cadets on an adventure of a lifetime.
Connie, a young Air Force wife is pushed into the private world of the upper-class cadets. The cadets, staff and Connie began building a Wednesday night gathering that had Arnold Hall and staff awestruck. 21 Club, began as a very quiet retreat, to have a few drinks, kick back and relax, but the new seniors had other ideas and were just waiting. Little did they know, they would become the clubs greatest adventure and the 21 Club would become a constant battle ground of rules and regulations. Connie, the bartender, seeking life outside a marriage that was in desperate need of mending, lost herself in the uprising of the 21 Club. She was the ice princess who's heart no cadet would ever capture. Hillary, was the night manager who learned to run the entire building flawlessly no matter how much chaos. The Hostess Office, where every rule trampled on any fun that would make the cadets jubilant. CJ, the outlandish, insurgent, but irresistible cadet, who knew the way to any women's heart. His was the world that once in, getting out was nearly impossible. All the people who worked and gathered at the 21 Club would be completely tested to the max by the third year and the last call of the 21 Club.
