The New York Times bestseller about West Point's Class of 1966, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Rick Atkinson. "A story of epic proportions [and] an awesome feat of biographical reconstruction."—The Boston Globe A classic of its kind, The Long Gray Line is the twenty-five-year saga of the West Point class of 1966. With a novelist's eye for detail, Rick Atkinson (author of the Liberation Trilogy) illuminates this powerful story through the lives of three classmates and the women they loved—from the boisterous cadet years, to the fires of Vietnam, to the hard peace and internal struggles that followed the war. The rich cast of characters also includes Douglas MacArthur, William C. Westmoreland, and a score of other memorable figures. The class of 1966 straddled a fault line in American history, and Atkinson's masterly book speaks for a generation of American men and women about innocence, patriotism, and the price we pay for our dreams
The author, a former teacher at the Citadel, looks at the various schools such as The Citadel, Texas A & M, Auburn, Clemson, Virginia Military Institute (VMI), and Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Portraits of fourteen women who graduated from West Point and served in the Army, highlighting their character, accomplishments, leadership, ordeals and sacrifices.
Angel Lamb has overcome many obstacles in her three decades of life. Rescued from an abusive environment at a young age, Angel has a realistic and cynical outlook on life, yet a strong sense of right and wrong. After she loses her wife in a tragic automobile accident, Angel seeks out the assistance of a local support group to help her deal with the crushing grief. When violence begins to find members of the group, Angel is forced to face her painful past as well as an uncertain future. In order to survive, she will have to challenger her own black and white view of good and evil.
The #1 New York Times–bestselling author’s story about life at the Citadel in the 1960s, a profound exploration of what it means to be a man of honor. Lt. Col. Nugent Courvoisie, known to the cadets as “the Boo,” is an imposing and inspiring leader at the South Carolina military academy, the Citadel. A harsh disciplinarian but a compassionate mentor, he guides and inspires his young charges. Cadet Peter Cates is an anomaly. He is a gifted writer, a talented basketball player, and a good student, but his outward successes do little to impress his abusive father. The Boo takes Cates under his wing, but their bond is threatened when they’re forced to confront an act of violence on campus. Drawn from Pat Conroy’s own experiences as a student at the Citadel, The Boo is an unforgettable story about duty, loyalty, and standing up for what is right in the face of overwhelming circumstances.
Bestselling author Joe Drape reveals the unique pressures and expectations that make a year of Army football so much more than just a tally of wins and losses. The football team at the U.S. Military Academy is not like other college football teams. At other schools, athletes are catered to and coddled at every turn. At West Point, they carry the same arduous load as their fellow cadets, shouldering an Ivy League–caliber education and year-round military training. After graduation they are not going to the NFL but to danger zones halfway around the world. These young men are not just football players, they are soldiers first. New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape takes us inside the world of Army football, as the Black Knights and their third-year coach, Rich Ellerson, seek to turn around a program that had recently fallen on hard times, with the goal to beat Navy and "sing last" at the Army-Navy game in December. The 2011 season would prove a true test of the players' mettle and perseverance. Drawing on his extensive and unfettered access to the players and the coaching staff, Drape introduces us to this special group of young men and their achievements on and off the field. Anchoring the narrative and the team are five key players: quarterback Trent Steelman, the most gifted athlete; linebacker Steve Erzinger, who once questioned his place at West Point but has become a true leader; Andrew Rodriguez, the son of a general and the top scholar-athlete; Max Jenkins, the backup quarterback and the second-in-command of the Corps of Cadets; and Larry Dixon, a talented first-year running back. Together with Coach Ellerson, his staff, and West Point's officers and instructors, they and their teammates embrace the demands made on them and learn crucial lessons that will resonate throughout their lives—and ours.
It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up
This radical re-reading of Ford's work studies his films in the context of his complex character, demonstrating their immense intelligence and their profound critique of our culture.
On the night of October 9, 1966 after a weekend of being placed on standby, Federal Treasury Agent Charley Covington received a call from ATTD higher-ups in Atlanta, Georgia releasing him from his stay in Valdosta, Georgia. According to accounts contained in the widow's journal, several phone calls came in that day, most of them from people she didn't know. One of them was from a known felon and snitch who reminded Charley about the illegal and clandestine activities out on the Clyattville-Nankin Road every Sunday night and another from a man about a car. Having spent the better part of the weekend arguing with his wife over a rumored affair, the lure of an evening's ride away from home may have been just what the doctor ordered to clear his head. Before he left he put his six-year-old daughter to bed, hollered a weak goodbye to his son, and agreed to a cup of conciliatory coffee with his nearly estranged wife. When his wife confessed the pot was empty and that he would have to wait while she made a fresh one, he noted the time and promised he would be back shortly after it was brewed. Two and a half hours later he was found lying dead with two bullets to the head just before the Withlacoochee River on the Clyattville-Nankin Road outside of Valdosta. By the time his body was cold, the rumors were hot. For eighteen days federal and local agency officials danced around the purported scandal of the Federal Treasury agent like a herd of long-tailed cats at a Southern lawn party. Eventually they closed the case, declaring his death a suicide and its taint a blight upon their shared profession. Odd as it may seem, if Charley Covington hadn't lost his life in the middle of the Clyattville-Nankin Road that rainy night in 1966, he could never have come back to save mine forty-four years later. I know this to be true because in the summer of 2009, I began to write his story and several chapters in I stopped. As a professional writer I have learned that if a story refuses to write itself, there are but two reasons why. Either a story is not yet ready to be told, or a story is not yet ready to be heard. In the case of Charles Gordon Covington, both reasons appeared to ring true. So I put down my pen and waited for further instructions from the cosmos as to what to do next. Seven months later the cosmos finally answered...Copyright 2009T.A. Powellwww.brownstoneliteraryworks.com
