THIS IS A HISTORICAL NOVEL CONCERNING MILITARY RESERVE UNITS FORM POST WORLD WAR II DAYS TO THE PRESENT. CAREERS, ATTITUDES, ASSIGNMENTS AND PERSONAL LIFE ARE REPRESENTED. LIVES AND TIMES IN THE RESERVES ARE TRACED THROUGH THE KOREAN CONFLICT, THE BERLIN CRISIS, THE CUBAN FIASCO AND FINALLY VIET NAM. THE RESERVISTS, THE WEEKEND WARRIORS ARE SHOWN IN THEIR DUTIES, INTERESTS, THEIR WORK, THEIR LOVES, BOREDOM AND PREPAREDNESS FOR THE FUTURE. WEEKENDS AND WEEKDAYS SPENT AWAY FROM HOME LEAD TO JOYS AND FRUSTRATIONS, BECAUSE OF WORLD CONDITIONS. RESERVE MILITARY PERSONNEL AND NATIONAL GUARD, AS WELL AS REGULARS WHO EXPERIENCED THESE ACTIONS WILL SEE THEMSELVES IN THE VARIOUS ROLES DEPICTED IN THIS STORY.
With its unparalleled coverage of English slang of all types (from 18th-century cant to contemporary gay slang), and its uncluttered editorial apparatus, Cassell's Dictionary of Slang was warmly received when its first edition appeared in 1998. 'Brilliant.' said Mark Lawson on BBC2's The Late Review; 'This is a terrific piece of work - learned, entertaining, funny, stimulating' said Jonathan Meades in The Evening Standard.But now the world's best single-volume dictionary of English slang is about to get even better. Jonathon Green has spent the last seven years on a vast project: to research in depth the English slang vocabulary and to hunt down and record written instances of the use of as many slang words as possible. This has entailed trawling through more than 4000 books - plus song lyrics, TV and movie scripts, and many newspapers and magazines - for relevant material. The research has thrown up some fascinating results
The Global Road Warrior is the ultra-pragmatic reference for the international business communicator and traveler, containing critical information you need for survival and success while on the road internationally.
America's National Guard was once considered a ragtag gaggle of pretend soldiers. Beginning in the 1980s the National Guard gradually transformed into today's highly flexible operational force that answers our nation's call for overseas combat deployments as well as domestic emergencies that run the gamut from lifesaving disaster responses to staffing Covid clinics. Brigadier General Paul "Greg" Smith describes his personal journey during these years, from a callow cadet to a committed commander leading military forces in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. Smith gives a humorous, gritty, and sometimes touching glimpse into the inner workings of this unique military organization while offering portraits of the men and women who serve as the minutemen of our age. His reflections on service, duty, and the complexities of command will enlighten anyone who seeks to better understand the challenges of leadership.
Savannah is known for its Victorian-style homes, lovely squares, society balls, and colorful people. One such notable Savannahian is Robert “Reds” Helmey. On Super Bowl Sunday in 1969, the day Joe Namath was picking apart the Baltimore Colts’ seemingly invincible secondary defense, Reds Helmey was hijacking a United Airlines flight to Havana. Acting as a lone ranger, this former Green Beret was bent on a mission to single-handedly pick through a myriad of personal security defenses to get Fidel Castro. On January 11, Reds boarded a commercial 727 from Miami and forced its pilot to fly to Cuba. As the jet approached Havana, he had the pilot send a transmission to flight control. The actual radio transmission to air traffic control at Havana’s Jose Marti Airport was, “Tell Fidel El Rojo is coming.” “Overwhelming patriotism of a citizen soldier. Reds would go the extra miles for his country; he just had his own way of doing things and I’m glad he did.” —Curtis E. Harper, LTC USAR, Ret. Ex-Marine, Ranger Tab, Special Forces Tab, Master Parachutist, and decorated Vietnam combat veteran “An assassination plot [one of many, as documented by former contract agents of CIA] against Fidel Castro was spawned by CIA in 1969, using a special forces operative, Reds Helmey.” —Barbara Hartwell Former CIA Psychological Operations “Helmey kept belief in ‘CIA Plot.’” —Corbett H. Thigpen Psychiatrist and coauthor of The Three Faces of Eve “A reader could easily conclude that the author’s fascinating life and exciting reflections are fiction. Not so! Reds is a unique and patriotic American who has lived a life that many would envy. I have known him for over sixty years, and the book represents the Reds Helmey I know!” —Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler Trial Attorney over fifty years, former president of the State Bar of Georgia, and past president of the University of Georgia National Alumni Association “I found the story fascinating!” —John Berendt Author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil “Reds has a good sense of character and dialogue. The sexual interludes are very well done, with understated humor. A nice feel for rhythm. Never overdone. Simple, yet solid.” —William F. Nolan The prolific author of over sixty novels and books of nonfiction, including Logan’s Run
To Lead by the Unknowing, To Do the Unthinkable tells the story of a squad of marines on the front line of the war in Iraq. It tells of the battles the marines were in and how they had to improvise, adapt, and overcome to complete their missions, as well as the personal struggles they endured and their thoughts while the war was unfolding right in front of them. From Marine Corps boot camp to life out of the marines, To Lead by the Unknowing, To Do the Unthinkable is a must read.
Former Army MP Mercy Carr and her retired bomb-sniffing dog Elvis are back in Blind Search, the sequel to the page-turning, critically acclaimed A Borrowing of Bones It’s October, hunting season in the Green Mountains—and the Vermont wilderness has never been more beautiful or more dangerous. Especially for nine-year-old Henry, who’s lost in the woods. Again. Only this time he sees something terrible. When a young woman is found shot through the heart with a fatal arrow, Mercy thinks that something is murder. But Henry, a math genius whose autism often silences him when he should speak up most, is not talking. Now there’s a murderer hiding among the hunters in the forest—and Mercy and Elvis must team up with their crime-solving friends, game warden Troy Warner and search-and-rescue dog Susie Bear, to find the killer—before the killer finds Henry. When an early season blizzard hits the mountains, cutting them off from the rest of the world, the race is on to solve the crime, apprehend the murderer, and keep the boy safe until the snowplows get through. Inspired by the true search-and-rescue case of an autistic boy who got lost in the Vermont wilderness, Paula Munier's mystery is a compelling roller coaster ride through the worst of winter—and human nature.
On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded just outside of Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people. Within a matter of hours, the FBI launched the largest manhunt in U.S. history, identifying the suspects as Timothy James McVeigh and John Doe No. 2, a stocky twentysomething with a distinctive tattoo on his left arm. Eventually the FBI retracted the elusive mystery man as a bombing suspect altogether, proclaiming that McVeigh had acted alone and that John Doe No. 2 was the byproduct of unreliable eyewitness testimony in the wake of the attack. Womack recreates the events that led up to this fateful day from the perspective of John Doe No. 2—or JD, as he is referred to in the book. With his ironic and curiously detached persona, JD narrates—from a second-person point of view—his secret life with McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and others in America's militia culture as McVeigh and JD crisscross the Midwest in McVeigh's beloved Chevy Geo Spectrum. John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel is the tragicomic account of McVeigh's last desperate months of freedom as he prepared to unleash one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in the nation's history. Womack's novel traces one man's downward spiral toward the act of evil that will brand his name in infamy and another's desperate hope to save his friend's soul before it's too late.
Though land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are sitting ducks on hair-trigger alert, they have their supporters: the air force, the aero-space industry, and people whose jobs may depend on them. So who will campaign against a new, unnecessary, and dangerous silo-based missile? Why a seventy-eight-year-old red-headed widow, of course, who sometimes wears a witch’s hat.
Margaret Roach worked at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for 15 years, serving as Editorial Director for the last 6. She first made her name in gardening, writing a classic gardening book among other things. She now has a hugely popular gardening blog, "A Way to Garden." But despite the financial and professional rewards of her job, Margaret felt unfulfilled. So she moved to her weekend house upstate in an effort to lead a more authentic life by connecting with her garden and with nature. The memoir she wrote about this journey is funny, quirky, humble--and uplifting--an Eat, Pray, Love without the travel-and allows readers to live out the fantasy of quitting the rat race and getting away from it all.
