![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CrossingsWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nCrossings: A Doctor-Soldier\u2019s Story<\/b> by Jon Kerstetter, Crown, 352 pages, $27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is an Oneida tribe member whose college adviser tells him Native students do not go into the \u201chard sciences.\u201d But the Wisconsinite stepped across \u201cthe boundaries that scripted my life\u201d before, and graduates from the Mayo medical school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not content with the \u201cmundane side\u201d of emergency medicine, he volunteers in Africa and Eastern Europe. Then, at 42, he joins the Army National Guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why? \u201cWar engaged me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In three Iraq tours the flight surgeon savors \u201csomething provocative and empowering\u201d in the risk of a potentially deadly encounter. \u201cI needed the Army with all its attendant medical complexity and the stimulation of combat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet even he must \u201cseparate myself from the emotional impact of seeing the critically wounded\u201d and of forensics \u2015 identifying body parts. His descriptions<\/a> are as visceral as mortuary-affairs Marine Jessica Goodell\u2019s underrated 2011 memoir, \u201cShade It Black<\/a>.\u201d Kerstetter sees \u201cthings that even God might turn from seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, rushing to meet a medevac, he falls and breaks so many bones he finds himself on a gurney. Surgeries later, tests show a brain aneurysm. Then there\u2019s a stroke that necessitates therapy that identifies \u2015 surprise \u2015 post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the debilitating, frustrating diagnoses, the physician is convinced to heal himself, relearning how to walk and how to use words, and earning his master\u2019s in writing. His rewriting his sentences and rewiring his body and his mind produce a remarkable story that is clinically clear yet emotionally eloquent, deserving of at least a Ph.D.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have had to constantly revise and rewrite the contents of this book,\u201d he writes. Considering the high quality of the prose, the amazing admission inspires anyone who loves words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Combat Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War <\/b>by Thomas J. Brennan, USMC (ret.), and Finbarr O\u2019Reilly, Viking, 340 pages, $27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Marine sergeant and a photojournalist walk into a war, willingly, and meet at Outpost Kunjak in Afghanistan. One is \u201ca warrior, an active player,\u201d the other is a \u201cprofessional witness. He has a gun. I have a camera. He\u2019s trained to follow orders. I\u2019m programmed to question authority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their shared memoir<\/a> is \u201cabout how our stories became entangled,\u201d with alternating chapters by each, sometimes offering two views of one event. The book about the effect of trauma is exceptional in candor and compassion \u2015 and about the creative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWriting is painful,\u201d Brennan confides. \u201cNot only the writing itself but grappling with my own experiences and emotions and self-doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both men give examples of all three, some of their doubts triggered by being dumped by the military and by the media. One tries to kill himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each discovers, says O\u2019Reilly, that \u201cthe more I participate in my own life and expose myself to new experiences, the less trapped I feel by my memories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What memories. Brennan, medically discharged and mentally fragile after a grenade explosion, wonders \u201cif it wouldn\u2019t have been easier just to stay abroad\u201d where he could \u201ccling to a sense of normalcy amid the chaos of deployment.\u201d At home he becomes an \u201casshole\u201d toward his wife and daughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Reilly goes from the trying \u2019Stan to the fire in Gaza and finally sees enough. \u201cThere will always be another war. Just not for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each struggles to return to the \u201ccadence and hum of life.\u201d Brennan tries journalism boot camp (with O\u2019Reilly as teacher), gets a journalism degree and publishes The War Horse<\/a> digital report, which you\u2019ve heard of. In March he broke the story about Marines United<\/a>, the Facebook group that posted photographs of naked female Marines and embarrassed the Corps he loves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War <\/b>by Doug Stanton, Scribner, 336 pages, $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The author of 2009\u2019s popular \u201cHorse Soldiers<\/a>\u201d (about Special Forces in Afghanistan and soon to be a movie) uses a title with a broad view but wisely narrows his focus. Army Spc. John S. \u201cStan\u201d Parker enlists after high school and can hardly wait \u201cto become a paratrooper and go to war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stan gets his wish, and Stanton gets a soldier who exemplifies service in Vietnam. The combination makes a highly readable, dramatic, often heart-tugging story<\/a> of the Tet effort from an all-American grunt\u2019s viewpoint. Stan, who later wonders if he went to war \u201clike a sucker and killed and bled,\u201d personifies \u201ca group of young men who survived something they often did not understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they know is that \u201cAmerica seemed to be at war both in the United States and in Vietnam,\u201d and Stan \u201cdoesn\u2019t know if he\u2019ll still be alive at sundown\u201d because war \u201cis really about elimination \u2015 eliminating, erasing, wasting, greasing, making nonexistent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stan\u2019s three Purple Heart citations vouch for that. He survives a bamboo spike that pierces his wrist, a leech as \u201cthick as a hammer handle\u201d on his eyelid, and the anxiety of trying to protect a starving girl, age \u201c6 or 7,\u201d while \u201cwanting to come back to Vietnam as another kind of person and be able to offer her some peace and attention and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He returns 46 years later as a retired sergeant major and finds \u201ca kind of transformation, a transubstantiation, even\u201d that brings him and a former North Vietnamese soldier \u2015 and a reader \u2015 peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s My Country Too: Women\u2019s Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan<\/b> edited by Jerri Bell and Tracy Crow, Potomac, 376 pages, $33.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prudence Cummings Wright, the leader of a female militia guarding a bridge during the Revolutionary War in which \u201ca few hundred women may have fought in uniform,\u201d opens the anthology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slow-forward 241 years to an era in which \u201c280,000 women served in Iraq and Afghanistan,\u201d and the book closes with Ranger School graduate Capt. Kristen Griest\u2019s<\/a> appointment as \u201cthe first woman assigned to a job in infantry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve come a long way, slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While collecting these essays and excerpts<\/a>, the editors, both veterans, realize \u201cwe had served our own country without knowing our own history\u201d and do not know \u201cwhose shoulders we were standing on.\u201d In her foreword, author and veteran Kayla Williams says service women \u201cwere scattered, hidden, erased and hard to uncover. Until this volume.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The welcome chronology attempts to show that \u201cAmerican\u2019s fighting women have been \u2015 and remain \u2015 patriots and warriors,\u201d and its stories might empower servicewomen \u2015 and many of their brothers in arms \u2015 to stand tall. Just like Oscar-winner Ginger Rogers\u2019 mother, Lela Leibrand, who was a sergeant in Marine Corps public affairs in World War I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are not a fad by any means,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Future of War: A History <\/b>by Lawrence Freedman, Public Affairs, 400 pages, $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The title<\/a> (set for release Oct. 10) promises a look ahead, but the subtitle\u2019s reference to history seems to be a conundrum: How can a look into the future be a history?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Easily, in the erudite British war-studies professor\u2019s engaging survey of how and why historians and writers \u2015 of nonfiction, fiction and film \u2015 bravely prognosticate. The theme is scholarly, but the tone is refreshingly popular: Tom Clancy makes the index, but von Clausewitz does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow people imagined the wars of the future affected the conduct and course of those wars when they finally arrived,\u201d Freedman says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Almost. After the \u201cspectacularly poor decision-making\u201d that led to World War I, \u201cthere was no wishful thinking about the nature of war in the years leading up to the Second.\u201d Korea, Vietnam and other fighting followed, and \u201cthe reputations of intervention\u201d suffered after Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, \u201calthough Syria was a poor advert for holding back\u201d on intervening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The attacks on 9\/11 turn terrorism, \u201clargely seen as an exceptional irritant and occasional inconvenience, into a cause of national trauma\u201d and indicate that \u201cthe inherited scripts for the future of war were inadequate,\u201d including \u201cthe desperation of fleeing refugees and the opportunities for terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What else is ahead? China\u2019s strength and Asia\u2019s politics make the region \u201ca likely setting for a great power war.\u201d The U.S. remains \u201cthe only power with a truly global reach in conventional forces, but it can no longer assume straightforward victory even in the battles fought on its own terms,\u201d which seem unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe future of the future of war is likely to contain speculative scenarios and anxious warnings, along with sudden demands for new thinking.\u201d But predictions \u201cshould all be treated skeptically.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Future War: Preparing for the New Global Battlefield<\/b> by Robert H. Latiff, Knopf, 208 pages, $25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back to the \u201cFuture,\u201d but the focus is technology with a touch of citizenry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The retired Air Force general talks \u2015 you can imagine his reading the text<\/a> as a speech \u2015 about \u201chow new technology has changed and will change warfare,\u201d and how developments \u201cwill challenge soldiers, decision makers and the public.\u201d Well-equipped, \u201cthe soldier of the future will be a collection of data points.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He pleads for assurance that America\u2019s quest for \u201csafety and security\u201d is \u201ccompatible with morality and ethics.\u201d Everyone ought to log in \u2015 the military, the media, defense industries, and Americans who \u201cthank soldiers for their service while thanking their lucky stars they don\u2019t have to serve.\u201d Otherwise \u201cwe may find we have a first-rate military and a second-rate society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich<\/b> by Norman Ohler, translated by Shaun Whiteside, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 304 pages, $28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to a \u201cvolksdroge\u201d \u2015 people\u2019s drug \u2015 called Pervitin, methamphetamine is everywhere in the German military, and pharmaceuticals fuel what is literally the \u201chigh command\u201d \u2015 including Hitler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The author attributes some of the German armed forces\u2019 allegiance, arrogance and aggression to chemicals, which enables his use of clever headings such as \u201cSieg High\u201d for \u201cSieg Heil\u201d and \u201cHigh Hitler\u201d for \u201cHeil Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He documents<\/a> the Fuhrer\u2019s use of cocaine, hormones, steroids and opioids from autumn 1941 into the second half of 1944: \u201cHitler hardly enjoyed a sober day.\u201d The stupor allows him make mistakes as commander in chief and to \u201cblissfully commit his crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately for the Allies, the Nazi \u201creign of terror was poisoning itself from within\u201d while providing fascinating details Ohler presents today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Crime in the Family: A World War II Secret Buried in Silence \u2015 and My Search for the Truth<\/b> by Sacha Batthyany, translated by Anthea Bell, Da Capo Press, 224 pages, $28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe it\u2019s the drugs: While the Nazi party fizzles, the party back at castle hops. It\u2019s 1945, the Russians are coming, and German officers and fellow guests stop socializing long enough to go out and kill 180 Jews at an Austrian estate on the Hungarian border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does the hostess, the author\u2019s great-aunt Margit, join the massacre? That\u2019s the question that leads a Swiss journalist to investigate the action or inaction of Countess Thyssen-Batthyany (of the steel-rich Thyssens), who married into his once-aristocratic Hungarian family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sacha engrossingly uses diary entries, a script, email notes and a shrink\u2019s couch to unfold layers of guilt. To his credit as a writer, his grandmother Maritta\u2019s obsession about a childhood moral dilemma regarding her Jewish neighbors is as haunting as Margit\u2019s dance card. The book<\/a> is due out Oct. 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n America\u2019s Digital Army: Games at Work and War <\/b>by Robertson Allen, Nebraska, 240 pages, $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cArmy\u201d in the title<\/a> includes everyone with a finger on the official Army video game, \u201cAmerica\u2019s Army<\/a>.\u201d From soldiers, developers and marketers on the production side to players, there are many hands \u2015 40 million downloads and counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No longer a mere recruiting tool, the Army \u201cdoes not need or expect every player of the game to be completely persuaded to enlist,\u201d says the anthropologist. Why not? Because players, who are virtual soldiers, become militarized and \u201cmore readily accept the status quo of army (sic) norms, priorities and ways of thinking about the world.\u201d Through interactivity, the Army integrates cultures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allen\u2019s own months of \u201cembed\u201d fieldwork include \u201ctaking an introductory Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) course.\u201d At a California game-production studio he finds staffers in combat uniforms, \u201cfreshly returned from a voluntary five-day job-related excursion\u201d and \u201cresocialization\u201d at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for \u201cmini\u201d Basic Combat Training and haircuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn this work environment the developers adopted to varying degrees the subjectivities of the soldiers,\u201d and the \u201cmilitary-entertainment complex\u201d wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Golden Fleece: High-Risk Adventure at West Point <\/b>by Tom Carhart, Potomac, 224 pages, $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting the Navy\u2019s goat is an infamous tradition and the point of this memoir<\/a> by a U.S. Military Academy Class of 1966 graduate \u2015 incidentally, he\u2019s the Air Force brat who \u201clonged to be the perfect cadet\u201d in Rick Atkinson\u2019s acclaimed 2009 book about West Point, \u201cThe Long Gray Line<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To commemorate their last Army-Navy football game before graduation, Carhart and five classmates capture the mascot and cause ripples in the Hudson and the Potomac. A current cadet could adapt the antics into a field order this football season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For something meatier, try Ted Russ\u2019 suspense novel \u201cSpirit Mission<\/a>,\u201d which combines a similar tail with a secret quest in Iraq \u2015 and is on Military Times\u2019 list of best books of 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Vietnam War: 1945-1975 <\/b>by David Parsons, Marci Reaven and Lily Wong, New-York Historical Society and Giles, 96 pages, $18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Slim, succinct, smartly designed, the book offers an objective chronology of a time when \u201c27 million American men came of draft age [and] 2.7 million were sent to Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With six essays and storytelling images including a two-page stunner \u2015 a 1968 photograph of Marines dwarfed by elephant grass that symbolizes morass \u2015 the content shows many sides. A page about 1971\u2019s Kent State shootings faces a page about 1970\u2019s Hard Hat Riot, which supported the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coinciding with an exhibit (through April 22) at the Historical Society<\/a>, the 30-year timeline works<\/a> well as an introduction to or a refresher about the conflict. It also unwittingly reminds a reader that \u201cprotester\u201d is spelled with an \u201c-er\u201d \u2013 not an \u201c-or,\u201d and certainly not both ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Behind the Scenes: The Tales of American Military Spouses Making a Difference \u2015 a Military Spouse Legacy Project<\/b> coordinated by Cara Loken, CreateSpace, 222 pages, $14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The collection<\/a> lacks the polish that can come from a major publisher but makes up for design deficiency with pluck, starting with its first essay, by \u201ca 38-year-old male military spouse in an interracial, same-sex marriage\u201d who is voted president of his Navy husband\u2019s Family Readiness Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The other 29 essays, representing all service branches, 27 women and two other men, demonstrate how singular initiative can have wide impact, from the creation of nonprofit organizations to a recognition that spouses can and want to have professions, also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of the writers are recipients of what appear to be well-deserved spouse-of-the-year awards, and each offers advice about how to serve alongside those who wear the uniform in the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 27 Articles<\/b> by T.E. Lawrence, Simon & Schuster, 64 pages, $10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One hundred years after their first publication, Lawrence of Arabia\u2019s succinct but often stereotyping tips about how to work with Arab people are back<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biographer John Hulsman\u2019s introduction says Lawrence offers \u201ca whole different worldview for how to work with others,\u201d and CBS News head David Rhodes\u2019 afterword admits Lawrence\u2019s flaws, but says the advice still applies in \u201ctoday\u2019s global, asymmetric, information-overloaded challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heed Lawrence\u2019s suggestion to \u201ccling tight to your sense of humour\u201d while you try to forgive his condescending generalizations about entire cultures, such as: \u201cIf you want a sophisticated (servant), you will probably have to take an Egyptian, or a Sudani.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Warlords\u2019 Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and Their Fight Against the Taliban <\/b>by Daniel R. Green, Naval Institute, 264 pages, $30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The author of three books, including this one<\/a>, is a Navy Reserve officer and Washington think-tank fellow who has deployed five times to Afghanistan and Iraq in military and civilian roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can tell he knows what he is talking about, especially after his 2012 surveys (qualitative and quantitative) of sites where Army Special Forces and Navy SEAL teams try to enlist local support for defeating the Taliban. And if his style is academic (he tends to \u201creflect upon\u201d things), his message is worthwhile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cToo frequently, \u2018victory\u2019 is described in conventional terms … when actual \u2018victory\u2019 has more to do with the ability of the indigenous government to handle its own internal security threats in the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Last Fighter Pilot: The True Story of the Final Combat Mission of World War II <\/b>by Don Brown with Capt. Jerry Yellin, Regnery, 352 pages, $26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A former Navy JAG officer and author salutes the U.S. Army Air Force\u2019s 78th Fighter Squadron in this in this quick history<\/a> of the Pacific aviators\u2019 final months before Japan\u2019s surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pilot \u2015 Yellin, now 93 \u2015 loses 11 friends in \u201ctheir final rendezvous with destiny,\u201d and the \u201cimpending aerial assault on Japan would lay the groundwork for the Allies\u2019 planned invasion of the island.\u201d Yellin\u2019s 19-year-old buddy, 1st Lt. Philip Schlamberg, is \u201cthe last known combat death of World War II\u201d and the great-uncle of actress Scarlett Johansson, a relationship the book mentions at least thrice \u2015 as though progeny were Schlamberg\u2019s claim to fame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hilltop Doc: A Marine Corpsman Fighting Through the Mud and Blood of the Korean War<\/b> by Leonard Adreon, BookBaby, 244 pages, $15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After six decades, the veteran opens up a bit: \u201cMy experience there has lived with me every day.\u201d Using similar language, he reminisces about his service in this short, personal recollection<\/a> enhanced by photographs \u2015 his and the Navy\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His prose and poetry share a stark theme: \u201cWe own the hill,\u201d he says, but \u201cwe paid too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the U.S. War in Afghanistan <\/b>by Ed Darack, Smithsonian, 256 pages, $25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally an article<\/a> in the Smithsonian\u2019s Air & Space magazine, the expanded version<\/a> offers a plethora of details about flying machines \u2015 and their abbreviations \u2015 involved in the 2011 attack that killed 38 aboard an Army Chinook helicopter: a horrific, single-day milestone of the Afghanistan war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book notes that the crew members\u2019 personal goals and professional training exemplify the \u201cmilitary\u2019s relentless drive toward perfection\u201d but uses a \u201cdiverse but interrelated\u201d structure that is more often pedantic than compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bounty Hunter 4\/3: My Life in Combat from Marine Scout Sniper to MARSOC<\/b> by Jason Delgado with Chris Martin, St. Martin\u2019s, 352 pages, $28<\/p>\n\n\n\n Delgado is one of four snipers featured in last spring\u2019s \u201cThe Killing School<\/a>,\u201d and this story<\/a> about growing up the Bronx, serving in Iraq and being Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command\u2019s lead sniper instructor is his take on eight years in the \u201cstrange mix of bloodlust and brotherhood\u201d of the Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The writing is off the cuff, from his first kill (after a \u201crookie mistake\u201d) and first dip (cherry Skoal) to being \u201chot back in the day\u201d full of \u201cone-night stands four days a week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vernacular tries to hit the mark but often misses. For example, a lieutenant makes \u201cjust about the greatest call anyone has ever made in combat.\u201d Compared to whom? And \u201call the guys were highly motivated and talented warriors.\u201d How so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n FICTION<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brave Deeds<\/b> by David Abrams, Black Cat, 256 pages, $16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Five years after his superb, satirical first novel, \u201cFobbit<\/a>,\u201d and worth the wait, Army veteran Abrams leaves the base and goes AWOL with (mostly) brave dudes, a \u201ccluster of dumb in the middle of Baghdad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Six characters in search of the memorial service for their beloved Staff Sgt. Raphael \u201cRafe\u201d Morgan start with \u201cGrand Theft Hummer,\u201d in which they procure a Humvee \u201cunder the noses of gate guards more interested in mashing thumbs across Game Boys than the loss of one three-ton government vehicle.\u201d The vehicle then breaks down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The warriors, admitted \u201cworriers,\u201d proceed on foot, lost in urban space that is desolate and dangerous. With nearly every step they stumble into trouble \u2015 and opt to check out a tip about possible bomb makers inside a nearby house. Instead, should they continue their harried and hurried way? Or will a successful search turn their unauthorized meandering into a mission that might merit official forgiveness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their decision spirals into conflicts, some personal: Fish\u2019s psychopathic behavior and Cheever\u2019s selfish whining. Drew and O\u2019s distracting obsessions about their romances. Park\u2019s reticence that is construed as arrogance. Arogapoulus\u2019 new addiction that could indicate he is not the straight \u201cArrow\u201d his men trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dusty half-dozen speak with an omniscient, third-person voice that might cause some readers to wonder who \u201cwe\u201d is. But no matter who\u2019s talking, \u201cour breath sucks and pitches in our lungs and we release what has been in there all this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the second time Abrams shows expertise at deft humor, which can let less-skilled writers fail. His crosstown caper<\/a> ends up anything but funny, ultimately a touching, tense, and terrific look at young soldiers trying to find their way \u2015 sometimes with guile and sadly without guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pink Mist <\/b>by Owen Sheers, Talese, 112 pages, $27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Welsh author is \u201cindebted to the many service personnel and their families whose stories have informed this work,\u201d and readers of his play, in verse, will share the debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the drama<\/a>, three young British men enlist in the Army, aware that their service will include combat in Afghanistan, which is what they want. \u201cOtherwise it\u2019s like going to fair, but staying off the rides.\u201d Off they go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But \u201cwe came back, bringing \u2018there\u2019 with us \u2015 the anger, the dreams, the dead\u201d in a pink mist of exploding bodies. The language is dark and stark but offers hope, even when a veteran painfully stands on prosthetics to watch his mate\u2019s coffin lower into the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reading a script means doing without the acoustics and kinetics of a stage production such as the National Theatre of Scotland\u2019s outstanding \u201cBlack Watch\u201d (about Iraq), which played in the U.S. But the drama deserves an audience over here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sapphire Pavilion: A Steve Stilwell Thriller <\/b>by David E. Grogan, Camel Press, 280 pages, $16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not about gems or architecture, and prior Stilwell experience is unnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All you need do is allow this suspense novel<\/a> to entertain you with what happens when a former Navy JAG officer learns that an old Navy buddy is in a Ho Chi Minh City jail for possessing heroin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The situation brings international, military and political intrigue, a secretary of state who is tight-lipped about a relationship that goes back to when the city was called Saigon, a female agent who\u2019ll muster any mystique for money, an Iraq veteran starting what she thinks will be a no-stress job at a small law firm in colonial Williamsburg, and a Vietnamese taxi driver who wants to get his family to the U.S. And there\u2019s Stilwell, whose billable hours do not help his marital life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throw in elements of bribery, treachery and ethics, and you\u2019re hooked by the former Navy JAG officer\u2019s second novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Operation Jericho<\/b> by Jonathan Ball, Morgan James, 240 pages, $17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Marine veteran\u2019s action novel<\/a>, released in 2013 and now in a new edition, tells the poignant story of two heroic Marine sergeants who are Muslim-American brothers on CIA duty in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The writer is earnest in his effort to demonstrate that motivated Americans in the military include Muslim ones, an enlightening view while immigration laws are in the news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Iman and Hasim, whose parents moved from Afghanistan to the U.S. during the Soviet conflict, come across as the Didactic Duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pair has \u201can unnatural ability to move quickly through open terrain,\u201d thanks to Corps training. And after infiltrating a terrorist camp, they see firsthand \u201cwhy American heroes, especially those brave enough to serve in the U.S. Marine Corps, were such a phenomenal and effective force all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The messages are superfluous and demonstrate that the pen is heavier than the sword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Osiris <\/b>by Eric C. Anderson, Dunn, 212 pages, $19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cretired member of the U.S. intelligence community\u201d offers what seem like credible details in his thriller about what happens when ISIS tries to make up for \u201ca thousand years\u201d of humiliation by the West. Today, they want Baghdad; tomorrow, Jerusalem. They\u2019re off to an audacious start by trapping 5,000 U.S. Embassy workers in the Emerald City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With rapid pace, Anderson introduces Turks, Russians, Qataris, a Marine who works with the CIA, an Arab-American officer in the U.S. Army, and the mysterious cyber warrior they call ODIN. You don\u2019t have to guess who the bad guys are. (There\u2019s also a female, and she\u2019s bad, for personal reasons.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suspense develops but characters do not. \u201cThis is the first book<\/a> in a trilogy,\u201d the jacket says. Perhaps the next two will have individuals who are as intriguing as the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NONFICTION NOTED, NOT REVIEWED<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Victory! Applying the Proven Principles of Military Strategy to Achieve Greater Success in Your Business & Personal Life <\/b>by Brian Tracy, TarcherPerigree, 320 pages, $17. The author of 80 books says \u201cyou can become extremely successful by doing what other top military leaders and business executives have done.\u201d His examples<\/a> span from King Pyrrhus in Asculum in 279 B.C. to Army Gen. Tommy Franks in Afghanistan in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n End of the Saga: The Maritime Evacuation of South Vietnam and Cambodia <\/b>by Malcolm Muir Jr., U.S Navy History and Heritage Command. In the Navy\u2019s ninth book about the Vietnam war, sailors and Marines save \u201cthousands of U.S. citizens and pro-American Vietnamese and Cambodians from the Communist forces in the spring of 1975.\u201d Available through Government Printing Office or via free download here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Crashback<\/a>: The Power Clash Between the U.S. and China in the Pacific <\/b>by Michael Fabey, Scribner, 316 pages, $26. \u201cChina and the United States \u2015 and particularly the U.S. Navy \u2015 are engaged in a warm war in the Western Pacific,\u201d says military and naval-affairs writer, and \u201cthe U.S. has been losing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tactics: A Theory of Victory in Battle <\/b>by B.A. Friedman, Naval Institute, 256 pages, $30. Tired of tactics taking a back seat to strategy, the Marine major theorizes about tactics in a book<\/a> for those who study war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat <\/b>by Christopher A. Lawrence, Potomac, 498 pages, $40. Crunching the numbers<\/a> shows that \u201cdefense is the stronger form of combat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Women Who Flew for Hitler<\/a>: A True Story of Soaring Ambition and Searing Rivalry <\/b>by Clare Mulley, St. Martin\u2019s Press, 496 pages, $28. The sky wasn\u2019t big enough to hold both these test pilots who received the Iron Cross for service to the Reich. But as the war goes on, one wants to save the Fuhrer and the other wants him dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Secret Genesis of Area 51<\/b> by T.D. Barnes, History Press, 192 pages, $22. The Army veteran of the Korean War worked at Area 51, the Nevada base established by the CIA in 1955, and provides a history<\/a> of the \u201ctechnology laboratory and business that continues today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Improvising a War: The Pentagon Years, 1965-1967: Reminiscences of an Untried Warrior<\/b> by Benjamin L. Landis, Merriam, 186 pages, $12. A personal take<\/a> about the Army\u2019s coping with \u201cthe challenge to meet the force requested\u201d in Vietnam without tapping the National Guard or Reserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FICTION NOTED, NOT REVIEWED<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n Execute Authority: A Delta Force Novel <\/b>by Dalton Fury, St. Martin\u2019s, 304 pages, $27. The \u201cexplosive conclusion<\/a>\u201d of the series about Racer Raynor by the former Delta Force soldier and late author whose Tora Bora memoir, \u201cKill Bin Laden<\/a>,\u201d was published in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Plain Sight: A Jon Wells Novel<\/b> by Greg Gardner, Calumet, 292 pages, $16. In this thriller<\/a> by a retired Navy officer, former Army officer Wells investigates Somalian residents in Minneapolis, recruiting efforts by ISIS, and cyber-espionage by China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Borland\u2019s Sorrow<\/b> by Philip A. Fortnam, iUniverse, 306 pages, $19. A Navy Reserve officer\u2019s novel<\/a> about a fourth-grade teacher who deploys to Iraq in 2003 with his Army National Guard unit and is wounded physically and mentally \u2015 and redeploys in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heavy Green: The Collision of Two Unlikely Missions in America\u2019s Secret War<\/b> by Sam Lightner Jr., Summits & Crux, 310 pages, $15. The climber and writer uses historical fiction<\/a> to describe a covert Air Force and CIA effort to establish radar communications on a Laos mountain top during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/shooting-ghostsWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/odyssey-of-echo-companyWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/its-my-country-tooWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-future-of-war-a-historyWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/future-war-preparing-for-the-new-global-battlefieldWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/blitzedWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/crime-in-the-familyWEB.png.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/americas-digital-armyWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-golden-fleeceWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-vietnam-warWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/behind-the-scenesWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/27-articlesWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/warlords-shadowWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/the-last-fighter-pilotWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hilltop-docWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/final-mission-of-extortion-17WEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/bounty-hunterWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/brave-deedsWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/pink_mistWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/sapphire-pavilionWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/operation-jerichoWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/osirisWEB.jpg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n