Memoirs of a Defense Contractor

Memoirs of a Defense Contractor

Author: T. Henning

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2005-08

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 0595363261

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"This is the story of how one person persevered through three decades of technology change, marketplace change, major historic change, and the rise and fall of his multiple careers"--Publisher's description


Memoirs of a Defense Contractor

Memoirs of a Defense Contractor

Author: T.H. Henning

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2005-08-02

Total Pages: 115

ISBN-13: 0595807623

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"In ancient times when people lived in caves and thatched huts, men looked to other men to fashion weapons they could use to hunt and to defend themselves and their families against hostile enemies. These stone club and flint arrow makers were the first defense contractors." -T. H. Henning, From Memoirs of a Defense Contractor, Chapter Fourteen, Epilogue Corporate divestitures, acquisitions, mergers and the feast and famine nature of defense contracts have taken their toll on thousands of people. Yet today, you will find defense contractors side by side with our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines providing technical services in the national interest. They can be found on submarines, surface ships, flying with aircrews, in desert tents with our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and at spaceports in the U.S. helping the nation's space program reach towards outer space. Defense contractors have diversified their products and services to serve federal, state, and local government clients in such diverse organizations as health, education, civil aviation, agriculture, homeland security, intelligence, and other areas. This is a story of how one person persevered through three decades of technology change, marketplace change, major historic change, and the rise and fall of his own multiple careers. Memoirs of a Defense Contractor captures the author's experience at International Business Machines Corporation, Loral Corporation, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Litton Industries/TASC, (now Northrop Grumman), and Veridian, (now General Dynamics).


Memoirs of a Security Contractor

Memoirs of a Security Contractor

Author: Paul Yurkin

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-09-09

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9781514180273

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Paul "Chuck Norris" Yurkin has never been one to give up. A product of the inner city projects, he pulled himself up by the bootstraps and enlisted in the Marine Corps-serving proudly in Desert Storm before beginning a fifteen-year career with the Myrtle Beach police force. But when he saw the efforts of his policing failing to create any positive change, it wasn't long before Yurkin became jaded by the system as a whole. Seeking a new life for himself and his daughters, he met up with a private contracting firm and began training for a trip to sunny Afghanistan, where he would work on training the fledgling Afghan National Police. In the midst of two weeks of training in Virginia, he earned the nickname that would stick with him for years to come-and met three best friends that remained by his side through dangerous missions, misadventures, and the frustrations of being stationed abroad. In Memoirs of a Security Contractor, Yurkin tells the true story of his time as a security contractor in Afghanistan in candid detail-in an eye-opening tale of determination, friendship, and never giving up.


Skunk Works

Skunk Works

Author: Leo Janos

Publisher: Little, Brown

Published: 2013-02-26

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 031624693X

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This classic history of America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies is "a gripping technothriller in which the technology is real" (New York Times Book Review). From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century. "Thoroughly engrossing." --Los Angeles Times Book Review


Oppenheimer Is Watching Me

Oppenheimer Is Watching Me

Author: Jeff Porter

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2007-09

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 1587297507

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When he discovers that his father worked on missiles for a defense contractor, Jeff Porter is inspired to revisit America’s atomic past and our fallen heroes, in particular J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. The result, Oppenheimer Is Watching Me, takes readers back to the cold war, when men in lab coats toyed with the properties of matter and fears of national security troubled our sleep. With an eye for strange symmetries, Porter traces how one panicky moment shaped the lives of a generation.


Permanent Record

Permanent Record

Author: Edward Snowden

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 1250237246

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Edward Snowden, the man who risked everything to expose the US government’s system of mass surveillance, reveals for the first time the story of his life, including how he helped to build that system and what motivated him to try to bring it down. In 2013, twenty-nine-year-old Edward Snowden shocked the world when he broke with the American intelligence establishment and revealed that the United States government was secretly pursuing the means to collect every single phone call, text message, and email. The result would be an unprecedented system of mass surveillance with the ability to pry into the private lives of every person on earth. Six years later, Snowden reveals for the very first time how he helped to build this system and why he was moved to expose it. Spanning the bucolic Beltway suburbs of his childhood and the clandestine CIA and NSA postings of his adulthood, Permanent Record is the extraordinary account of a bright young man who grew up online—a man who became a spy, a whistleblower, and, in exile, the Internet’s conscience. Written with wit, grace, passion, and an unflinching candor, Permanent Record is a crucial memoir of our digital age and destined to be a classic.


Inside the Five-Sided Box

Inside the Five-Sided Box

Author: Ash Carter

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-06-09

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1524743925

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Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter takes readers behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of the Pentagon, its vital mission, and what it takes to lead it. The Pentagon is the headquarters of the single largest institution in America: the Department of Defense. The D.O.D. employs millions of Americans. It owns and operates more real estate, and spends more money, than any other entity. It manages the world’s largest and most complex information network and performs more R&D than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined. Most important, the policies it carries out, in war and peace, impact the security and freedom of billions of people around the globe. Yet to most Americans, the dealings of the D.O.D. are a mystery, and the Pentagon nothing more than an opaque five-sided box that they regard with a mixture of awe and suspicion. In this new book, former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter demystifies the Pentagon and sheds light on all that happens inside one of the nation’s most iconic, and most closely guarded, buildings. Drawn from Carter’s thirty-six years of leadership experience in the D.O.D., this is the essential book for understanding the challenge of defending America in a dangerous world—and imparting a trove of incisive lessons that can guide leaders in any complex organization. In these times of great disruption and danger, the need for Ash Carter’s authoritative and pragmatic account is more urgent than ever.


My Share of the Task

My Share of the Task

Author: General Stanley McChrystal

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-01-28

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 159184682X

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"General McChrystal is a legendary warrior with a fine eye for enduring lessons about leadership, courage, and consequence." —Tom Brokaw General Stanley McChrystal is widely admired for his hunger to know the truth, his courage to find it, and his humility to listen to those around him. Even as the commanding officer of all U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, he stationed himself forward and frequently went on patrols with his troops to experience their challenges firsthand. In this illuminating New York Times bestseller, McChrystal frankly explores the major episodes and controversies of his career. He describes the many outstanding leaders he served with and the handful of bad leaders he learned not to emulate. And he paints a vivid portrait of how the military establishment turned itself, in one generation, into the adaptive, resilient force that would soon be tested in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the wider War on Terror. "A compelling account of his impressive career." -The Wall Street Journal ' "This is a brilliant book about leadership wrapped inside a fascinating personal narrative." -Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs Stanley McChrystal retired in July 2010 as a four-star general in the U.S. Army. His last assignment was as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force and as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He is currently a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and cofounder of the McChrystal Group, a leadership consulting firm. He and his wife, Annie, live in Virginia.


A Bloody Business

A Bloody Business

Author: Gerald Schumacher

Publisher: Zenith Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780760323557

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Provides a behind-the-scenes look at America's civilian contractors in Iraq, following the activities of workers for MPRI and Crescent Security, two contracting firms who provide protection for diplomats, move convoys of precious materials, and help rebuild the infrastructure of the wartorn nation.


Civilian Warriors

Civilian Warriors

Author: Erik Prince

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-10-28

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1591847451

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The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping true story of the world’s most controversial military contractor. In 1997, former Navy SEAL Erik Prince started a business that would recruit civilians for the riskiest security jobs in the world. As Blackwater’s reputation grew, demand for its services escalated, and its men eventually completed nearly 100,000 missions for both the Bush and Obama administrations. It was a huge success except for one problem: Blackwater was demonized around the world. Its employees were smeared as mercenaries, profiteers, or worse. And because of the secrecy requirements of its contracts with the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA, Prince was unable to correct false information. But now he’s finally able to tell the full story about some of the biggest controversies of the War on Terror, in a memoir that reads like a thriller.