Central Florida police officer Charles M. Grist is one of the few Vietnam veterans to have served as an enlisted soldier in the Iraq war. In 2004, he volunteered to be the sergeant-in-charge of the protective service detail for an Army Reserve general in Baghdad.

Grist and his unit, the C.O.B.R.A. Team, were based inside Baghdad's Green Zone, but their travels with the general led them along the deadly roads of Baghdad, to the throne of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, and through the picturesque hills of Kurdistan. It was a fast-paced life of high adventure, filled with convoys, mortar or rocket attacks, and the constant threats of ambushes or improvised explosive devices.

As a Vietnam veteran, Grist knew that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be his last war. He used his daily journal to record his team's wartime experiences, to document the events that shaped Iraq in 2004, and to preserve the heroic deeds of some of the Army Reserve and National Guard warrior-citizens with whom he served. That journal became the basis for this book.

The explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, should never have happened. Wallis, who has extensive, direct, personal knowledge of aviation security matters gained from his position at the crossroads of security information and the industry's endeavors to combat aviation terrorism, had warned the industry one year before the bombing that the interline element of baggage represented the prime opportunity for terrorist activity and had urged the adoption of passenger and baggage matching, a system that he had helped to develop. Mandated by the FAA for use at high risk airports, it was the feature missing from Pan AM's activity at Frankfort, an omission so cruelly exploited by the bombers. Wallis argues that the priority given by governments to technological solutions to the continuing terrorist threat puts the flying public at unnecessary risk every day.

This volume brings together all of the facts surrounding the sabotage of Flight 103, including the investigation and the civil litigation in which so much of the story unfolded for the first time. It uncovers the fundamental weaknesses in Pan AM's communication and management policies. Wallis supports the policy that politics are politics and explores the possibility that U.S. and U.K. policy towards a neutral trial for the two Libyans indicted for the bombing, which may have been affected by the wider scenario of Middle East politics rather than simple justice for the victims of Lockerbie. Although the tragedy has led to improvements in defense technology for use against acts of aviation sabotage, these methods have yet to be applied universally.

Originally published in 1911. Author: Major A. C. Lovett Language: English Keywords: History Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Soldier In Paradise is a novel salivating in the human experience of living, dying, and war. Steven S. Cullen's concise and detailed writing creates the perfect platform for a reader to understand the physical, emotional, and unique concept of life during and after war. This story follows the direct experience and reality of young man's journey. Although the characters names and information are counterfeit, the storyline and testimony are based on true events from this author occurrenc

Hilton Owens, Sr., one of the first African American special agents in the Internal Revenue Service, offers a unique glimpse into the intriguing world of undercover IRS operations. Owens chronicles his story, and those of fellow African American special agents William E. Mannie and Frederick L. Sleet, in "Three of the First. " The agents' survival was solely dependant on their wits and, on occasion, their government-issued .38s. The first years were rough, and early undercover operations seemed destined to fail. The agents drove their own cars, carried no fake IDs, and had to rely on winnings at the gambling establishments they infiltrated to fund their shoestring investigations., Despite the obstacles, however, they successfully toppled several large illegal gambling operations. Throughout their careers, the three men faced challenges related to family, politics, and race, but all three advanced up the career ladder, eventually gaining supervisory positions. With their knowledge and experience, they assisted in formalizing undercover operations for the IRS. "Three of the First" introduces three IRS pioneers who will be remembered as important figures in both black history and government service.

This book demonstrates that the disciplinary boundaries present within international relations approaches to security studies are redundant when examining social media, and inter- and multi-disciplinary analysis is key. A key result of the analysis undertaken is that when examining the social media sphere security scholars need to "expect the unexpected". This is because social media enables users to subvert, contest and create security narratives with symbols and idioms of their choice which can take into account "traditional" security themes, but also unexpected and under explored themes such as narratives from the local context of the users' towns and cities, and the symbolism of football clubs. The book also explores the complex topography of social media when considering constructions of security. The highly dynamic topography of social media is neither elite dominated and hierarchical as the Copenhagen School conceptualises security speak. However, neither is it completely flat and egalitarian as suggested by the vernacular security studies' non-elite approach. Rather, social media's topography is shifting and dynamic, with individuals gaining influence in security debates in unpredictable ways. In examining social media this book engages with the emancipatory burden of critical security studies. This book argues that it remains unfulfilled on social media and rather presents a "thin" notion of discursive emancipation where social media does provide the ability for previously excluded voices to participate in security debates, even if this does not result in their direct emancipation from power hierarchies and structures offline.

"Important...a truly fascinating reading on this controversial subject."
-- "Library Journal"

"The reprinted documents are what makes Burg's book valuable, and they allow readers to judge for themselves whether gays and lesbians deserve to be fully integrated into the modern military."--"The Journal of Sex Research"

In Ancient Greece and Rome, in Crusader campaigns and pirate adventures, same-sex romances were a common and condoned part of military culture. From the Peloponnesian War to the Gulf War, from Achelleus to Lawrence of Arabia gays and lesbians have played a crucial but often hidden role in military campaigns. But recent debates over the legality of gay service in the military and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have obscured this rich aspect of military history. Richard Burg has recovered important documents and assembled an anthology on these often invisible gay and lesbian warriors.

Burg shows us that the Amazons of legend weren't just fictional. We learn about the richness and variety of their culture in documents from Plato, Seneca and Suetonius. From courts-martial proceedings we discover women warriors in seventeenth century England who passed as men in order to serve, and army officers whose underground culture fostered long-term romantic friendships.

There are also sections on the American Civil War, World War I and II, the contemporary U.S. military as well as sailors and pirates. This anthology will forever change the way we think about "gays in the military."

"The Ethics of War "is an indispensable collection of essays addressing issues both timely and age-old about the nature and ethics of war.
Features essays by great thinkers from ancient times through to the present day, among them Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, Russell, and Walzer
Examines timely questions such as: When is recourse to arms morally justifiable? What moral constraints should apply to military conduct? How can a lasting peace be achieved?
Will appeal to a broad range of readers interested in morality and ethics in war time

Includes informative introductions and helpful marginal notes by editors

A few months out of college, followed by a sixteen-week course on how to be a naval officer, author Thomas F. Jaras found himself standing bridge watches on the USS Vance in the middle of nowhere, providing navigational aid for aircraft flying to the polar ice. Now, almost fifty years later, Jaras recalls the three years he spent aboard the Vance in the 1960s, on the ramparts of the Cold War.

In his memoir, "In the Trough," Jaras attempts to understand his love-hate relationship with the USS Vance, an insignificant radar picket ship that supported Operation Deep Freeze in the Antarctic Ocean for a year and then spent two years on the Pacific Distant Early Warning Line. He describes life on an endurance ship afloat in midocean, battling eighty-foot walls of water crashing over the bridge.

"In the Trough" chronicles Jaras's transition from a boy to man as he dreamed of life ashore during long weeks at sea that were punctuated by short, intense visits to terra firma. Young, inexperienced, and naive, he feared the best years of his life were being wasted at sea. He searched desperately for women, love, and a normal existence while ashore for precious short stints in Tahiti, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii. Despite three stressful, unhappy, and difficult years at sea, Jaras acknowledges a tearful departure but promised himself to never go to sea again.

This book examines the postwar memoir fight over the broad front versus the single thrust strategy, the Allied advance on the Rhine, and the British call for a ground-forces commander other than General Eisenhower. It traces the argument in the postwar memoirs from 1946 through 1968 as well as the official histories of the United States, Britain, and Canada to see what the documents really said. What were men willing to say, what did they feel that they had to cover up? Field Marshal Montgomery was deeply chagrined that he had only one army group to command when he thought himself the most professional commander in Northwest Europe. Montgomery had little grasp of the intricacies of politics and could not understand that American public opinion made it impossible for Eisenhower to name him ground-forces commander. During the Battle of the Bulge the U.S. President and Chief of Staff settled the issue in Eisenhower's favor.

On the 29th of June 2014 ISIS declared the establishment of a caliphate stretching across territories in Iraq and Syria. In response, Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led 77 nation coalition, was launched to respond to the threat of Islamic State. The West's War Against Islamic State offers the first history of Operation Inherent Resolve and the West's war against ISIS, from its inception in 2014 to the fall of Raqqa in 2017. Andrew Mumford offers a comprehensive analysis and assessment of the military campaign deployed against ISIS in Syria and Iraq by examining the West's strategic objectives as well as the conflicting interests of rival powers, namely Russia, Iran and Turkey. By examining individual operational components of this military engagement such as drone usage, cyber warfare, special forces operations and sponsorship of guerrilla forces, this book offers a unique insight into the nature of modern warfare.

Settler-native conflicts in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa serve as excellent comparative cases as three areas linked to Britain where insurgencies occurred during roughly the same period. Important factors considered are settler parties, settler mythology, the role of native fighters, settler terror, the role of liberal parties, and the conduct of the war by security forces. Settlers and natives in each area share similar attitudes, liberal parties operate in similar fashions, and there are common explanations for the formation of splinter liberation groups. However, according to Mitchell, the key difference between the cases lies in the behavior of British security forces in comparison to South African and Israeli forces. Mitchell's chapter on liberal parties includes an independent account of the Progressive Federal Party of South Africa, the official parliamentary opposition from 1977 to 1987, along with the first major published account of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland. His study of splinter group formation contains the first major account since 1964 of the Pan-Africanist Party of Azania, including its insurgency campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. Mitchell also contrasts behavior among the Inkatha Party and Labour Party in South Africa with the Social Democrat and Labour Party in Northern Ireland.

A hopeless mission in a hostile land
This is an essential book for anyone interested in warfare in Afghanistan. The author, Henry Brooke was given a brigade to command in the field, but soon found himself cooped up behind the walls of Kandahar surrounded by hostile tribesmen within an equally hostile environment. In his writings Brooke makes it clear that he has little faith in his mission from the outset. Inevitably his misgivings are well founded as his force became beset by threats of fanatical attacks from within the city as well as from enemies without. True to the pattern of the British experience of the region a disaster threw a defeated army back to Kandahar and soon the noose was tightened so that the villages under its very walls became 'no go zones.' This is an account of the Second Afghan War that resonates with chilling parallels to the modern conflict.