Dozens of books about the Iraq War have been written by politicians, generals, snipers, and Special Forces operatives. This war journal of an enlisted U.S. Marine reservist provides an un-glamorized narrative of a common soldier's deployment to Iraq, from notification of mobilization to final trip home. The visceral experiences of combat are described in candid detail, along with the hazards of homesickness, boredom and loss. In light of the Islamic State's continuing operations in the region described in the book, the author's story presents a poignant account of the failures so far of the War on Terror.

You know about MI5. You know about MI6.

Now discover the untold stories behind Britain's most secretive intelligence agency, in the first ever authorised history of GCHQ.

For a hundred years, GCHQ - Government Communications Headquarters - has been at the forefront of innovation in national security and British secret statecraft. Famed for its codebreaking achievements during the Second World War, and essential to the Allied victory, GCHQ also held a critical role in both the Falklands War and Cold War. Today, amidst the growing threats of terrorism and online crime, GCHQ continues to be the UK's leading intelligence, security and cyber agency, and a powerful tool of the British state.

Based on unprecedented access to classified archives, Behind the Enigma is the first book to authoritatively tell the entire history of this most unique and enigmatic of organisations - and peer into its future at the heart of the nation's security.

This is an examination and an analysis of the systems of recruitment, selection, education and training for junior officers in the British Armed Forces. It is a study based around four core institutions: The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, The Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, the Department of Initial Officer Training, Royal Air Force College, Cranwell and the Officers Training Wing, Commando Training Centre, Royal Marines, Lympstone. The conclusions reveal the enduring dilemmas involved in the preparation of officer aspirants for entry to the British military profession.

In a period characterised by an unprecedented cultural engagement with the past, individuals, groups and nations are debating and experimenting with commemoration in order to find culturally relevant ways of remembering warfare, genocide and terrorism. This book examines such remembrances and the political consequences of these rites. In particular, the volume focuses on the ways in which recent social and technological forces, including digital archiving, transnational flows of historical knowledge, shifts in academic practice, changes in commemorative forms and consumerist engagements with history affect the shaping of new collective memories and our understanding of the social world. Presenting studies of commemorative practices from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, War Memory and Commemoration illustrates the power of new commemorative forms to shape the world, and highlights the ways in which social actors use them in promoting a range of understandings of the past. The volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, history, cultural studies and journalism with an interest in commemoration, heritage and/or collective memory.

The Millennial Generation and National Defence captures the views, values, and attitudes of today's youth - the Millennial generation - towards the military, war, national defence and foreign policy matters.Surveying over five thousand American college students, ROTC cadets, and military academy cadets from eighteen states across ten years, the authors provide a unique insight into the attitudes of civilian and military Millennials at the intersection of the armed forces and society and toward the American military institution. Exploring a range of issues such as military professionalism, the military's role in American society and the world, and the role of women and the gay and lesbian community in the military, this study portrays a generation who, after the impact of 9/11, have narrowed the civilian-military divide and entered a new era of civil-military relations. It will be a valuable resource to scholars of Sociology, Psychology, International Relations and Military and Defence Studies.

This book explores domestic opposition to formal US military bases in Latin America, and provides evidence of a growing network of informal and secretive base-like arrangements that supports US military operations in the Latin American Region.

The book is a collection of studies on the war in Ukraine. The considerations focus on different contexts of the first phase of the armed conflict. The authors try to answer questions about the motives and results of Russian disinformation and blaming Ukraine, the US and NATO for the invasion, as well as of the position of third countries towards the Russian aggression. One of the issues addressed is sexual violence in wartime and the image of women in armed conflict. The authors also analyze the aid provided by certain nations and Ukrainian national minorities in selected countries. Some chapters also examined public opinions on various war-related issues. Such a broad approach provides multidimensional view of the war while complementing earlier images of the conflict in Ukraine.

This book bridges theoretical gaps that exist between the meta-concepts of memory, place and identity by positioning its lens on the emplaced practices of commemoration and the remembrance of war and conflict. This book examines how diverse publics relate to their wartime histories through engagements with everyday collective memories, in differing places. Specifically addressing questions of place-making, displacement and identity, contributions shed new light on the processes of commemoration of war in everyday urban facades and within generations of families and national communities. Contributions seek to clarify how we connect with memories and places of war and conflict. The spatial and narrative manifestations of attempts to contextualise wartime memories of loss, trauma, conflict, victory and suffering are refracted through the roles played by emotion and identity construction in the shaping of post-war remembrances. This book offers a multidisciplinary perspective, with insights from history, memory studies, social psychology, cultural and urban geography, to contextualise memories of war and their 'use' by national governments, perpetrators, victims and in family histories.

More than seventy years following the D-Day Landings of 6 June 1944, Normandy's war heritage continues to intrigue visitors and researchers. Receiving well over two million visitors a year, the Normandy landscape of war is among the most visited cultural sites in France. This book explores the significant role that heritage and tourism play in the present day with regard to educating the public as well as commemorating those who fought. The book examines the perspectives, experiences and insights of those who work in the field of war heritage in the region of Normandy where the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy occurred. In this volume practitioner authors represent a range of interrelated roles and responsibilities. These perspectives include national and regional governments and coordinating agencies involved in policy, planning and implementation; war cemetery commissions; managers who oversee particular museums and sites; and individual battlefield tour guides whose vocation is to research and interpret sites of memory. Often interviewed as key informants for scholarly articles, the day-to-day observations, experiences and management decisions of these guardians of remembrance provide valuable insight into a range of issues and approaches that inform the meaning of tourism, remembrance and war heritage as well as implications for the management of war sites elsewhere. Complementing the Normandy practitioner offerings, more scholarly investigations provide an opportunity to compare and debate what is happening in the management and interpretation at other World War II related sites of war memory, such as at Pearl Harbor, Okinawa and Portsmouth, UK. This innovative volume will be of interest to those interested in remembrance tourism, war heritage, dark tourism, battlefield tourism, commemoration, D-Day and World War II.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, also known as the 'Sepah', has wielded considerable and increasing power in Iran in recent decades. Established in 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini as a paramilitary organisation charged with protecting the nascent Islamic regime and countering the untrustworthy Imperial army (or 'Artesh'), the Sepah has evolved into one of the most powerful political, ideological, military and economic players in Iran over recent years. The Sepah is entrusted with a diverse set of indoctrination apparatus, training programmes and system welfare provisions intended to broaden support for the regime. Although established as a paramilitary organisation, the Sepah developed to have its own ministry, complex bureaucracy and diversified functions, alongside its own network and personnel. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Sepah and its role. It examines the position of the Sepah in Iranian state and society, explores the nature of the Sepah's involvement in politics, and discusses the impact of the Sepah's political rise on Iran's economy and foreign policy. Contemporary Iran can only be fully understood by an awareness of the ongoing in-fighting among regime factions and increasing popular demands for social change - knowing about the Sepah is central to all this.

First published in 1978. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Examining the organization of everyday life inside the regiments of the French Foreign Legion, this book takes its theoretical point of departure in the notion of the voluntary total organization; that is to say, an institution that constitutes a geographically delimited place of residence and work in which inmates are voluntarily separated from the outside world, leading an enclosed, formally administered life. Informed by a modified version of Goffman's original concept of the total institution, A Sociology of the Total Organization untangles the Foreign Legion and the ways in which different kinds of social orders interplay there. With a focus on regimental life, the author characterizes the armed forces not only as a total organization, but also as a greedy one, seeking undivided loyalty and the incorporation of all social roles within its bounds. Against this understanding, the book draws on rich ethnographic work to develop the notion of atomistic unity, the ideal relational condition that exists in the military, in which individuals commit to a unit and articulate ties with individuals on an impersonal basis, grounded in the belief in a greater whole. A detailed and empirically grounded study of the mechanisms in which the Foreign Legion not only cuts members' ties to people outside the organization, but also restricts the creation and maintenance of ties among its members, this book shows how atomistic unity is not limited to greedy organizations such as the military, but applies to a variety of collectivist settings. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology with interests in military life, social relations, social theory and the work of Goffman.

The Boston Marine Barracks is one of the oldest in the U.S.: it stands within eyeshot of the USS Constitution. Lt. Col. John R. Yates Jr., the last commanding officer of the Barracks when it closed in 1974, researched the hundreds of letters left behind by previous Barracks commanders, their superiors and many others. They reveal the life and times of the Marines billeted at the Barracks from the early 19th century until World War II. Often, however, the Marines were deployed to far-off events and places. This book tells the story of the Barracks' Marines participation in the Seminole Wars, the action in Samoa, the Boer Wars, the Philippine Insurrection, Panama, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and World War I. This book reveals a naval prison's existence on the shipyard for which the Marines were responsible for many years.

Public Health and the US Military is a cultural history of the US Army Medical Department focusing on its accomplishments and organization coincident with the creation of modern public health in the Progressive Era. A period of tremendous social change, this time bore witness to the creation of an ideology of public health that influences public policy even today. The US Army Medical Department exerted tremendous influence on the methods adopted by the nation's leading civilian public health figures and agencies at the turn of the twentieth century. Public Health and the US Military also examines the challenges faced by military physicians struggling to win recognition and legitimacy as expert peers by other Army officers and within the civilian sphere. Following the experience of typhoid fever outbreaks in the volunteer camps during the Spanish-American War, and the success of uniformed researchers and sanitarians in confronting yellow fever and hookworm disease in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Medical Department's influence and reputation grew in the decades before the First World War. Under the direction of sanitary-minded medical officers, the Army Medical Department instituted critical public health reforms at home and abroad, and developed a model of sanitary tactics for wartime mobilization that would face its most critical test in 1917. The first large conceptual overview of the role of the US Army Medical Department in American society during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this book details the culture and quest for legitimacy of an institution dedicated to promoting public health and scientific medicine.

Student Veterans and Service Members in Higher Education bridges theory to practice in order to better prepare practitioners in their efforts to increase the success of veteran and military service members in higher education. Bringing together perspectives from a researcher, practitioner, and student veteran, this unique author team provides a comprehensive but manageable text reviewing relevant research literature and presenting accessible strategies for working with students. This book explores the facilitators and barriers of student veteran learning and engagement, how culture informs the current student veteran experience, and best practices for creating and maintaining a campus that allows for the success of these students. The latest to publish in the Key Issues on Diverse College Students series, this volume is a valuable resource for student affairs and higher education professionals to better serve veteran and military service members in higher education.

Student Veterans and Service Members in Higher Education bridges theory to practice in order to better prepare practitioners in their efforts to increase the success of veteran and military service members in higher education. Bringing together perspectives from a researcher, practitioner, and student veteran, this unique author team provides a comprehensive but manageable text reviewing relevant research literature and presenting accessible strategies for working with students. This book explores the facilitators and barriers of student veteran learning and engagement, how culture informs the current student veteran experience, and best practices for creating and maintaining a campus that allows for the success of these students. The latest to publish in the Key Issues on Diverse College Students series, this volume is a valuable resource for student affairs and higher education professionals to better serve veteran and military service members in higher education.

What if you could combine the agility, adaptability, and cohesion of a small team with the power and resources of a giant organization? When General Stanley McChrystal took command of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq in 2003, he quickly realized that conventional military tactics were failing. The allied forces had a huge advantage in numbers, equipment and training - but none of the enemy's speed and flexibility. McChrystal and his colleagues discarded a century of conventional wisdom to create a 'team of teams' that combined extremely transparent communication with decentralized decision-making authority. Faster, flatter and more flexible, the task force beat back al-Qaeda. In this powerful book, McChrystal and his colleagues show how the challenges they faced in Iraq can be relevant to any leader. Through compelling examples, the authors demonstrate that the 'team of teams' strategy has worked everywhere from hospital emergency rooms to NASA and has the potential to transform organizations large and small. 'A bold argument that leaders can help teams become greater than the sum of their parts' Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit 'An indispensable guide to organizational change' Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs

Hobson's The Evolution of Modern Capitalism was first published in 1894, although this reissue is of the fourth edition, published in 1926. The work traces the developments in trade and industry which characterised the first decades of the twentieth century. In the first part, Hobson deals with the origins and structure of modern capitalism, including the development of the machine industry, the changing structure of trades and markets, and the effects of these on workers and consumers. The final supplementary chapter considers the impact of World War I on this changing economy, and the 'disturbance, recovery and readjustments' which the war necessitated. This is a classic work of importance to economic historians and those with a particular interest in the history of capitalism.

This book focuses on military conscription in 22 countries that represent the world's regions. The purpose is to shed light on the history, politics, and main events that led to the choice of conscription or professional military forces in the countries under study. While we acknowledge that practical and technological developments played major roles in this choice, we also understand that racial and gender relations, social group and political regime dynamics, regional influences, and international forces also affected military composition and relations to the rest of the society. Through this review, we aim at providing an easy-to-access source of knowledge about military mobilization policies and historical developments as well as the main ideas, politics, and events that shaped them. Through this review, we offer a glimpse on developments that influenced societies and political systems and were reflected in their militaries.

Numerous states have passed gender integration legislation permanently admitting women into their military forces. As a result, states have dramatically increased women's numbers, and improved gender equality by removing a number of restrictions. Yet despite changes and initiatives on both domestic and international levels to integrate gender perspectives into the military, not all states have improved to the same extent. Some have successfully promoted gender integration in the ranks by erasing all forms of discrimination, but others continue to impede it by setting limitations on equal access to careers, combat, and ranks. Why do states abandon their policies of exclusion and promote gender integration in a way that women's military participation becomes an integral part of military force? By examining twenty-four NATO member states, this book argues that civilian policymakers and military leadership no longer surrender to parochial gendered division of the roles, but rather support integration to meet the recruitment numbers due to military modernization, professionalization and technological advancements. Moreover, it proposes that increased pressure by the United Nations to integrate gender into security and NATO seeking standardization and consistency on the international level, and women's movements on the domestic level, are contributing to greater gender integration in the military. Winner of the 2015 ERGOMAS "Best Book in Civil-Military Relations" Award.

At a time when Booker T. Washington is being rediscovered by African Americans today, the author offers a compelling look at the man and the qualities of leadership he embodied in his life and work. The result is a timeless message of hope, empowerment, and responsibility, which Washington himself characterized as the training of head, heart, and hand.

Having flunked out of college in the fall of 1965, the author enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was soon assigned to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, a place designed to manufacture the commodity a wartime army most quickly expends-rifle platoon leaders. In 1968, he found himself in Vietnam, part of the First Cavalry Division. From his memories and the battalion's radio log, the tedium, dread, fear and bewilderment of the everyday grunts are revealed. He found combat neither glorious nor great, reminding us of the humanity of the men who fought in Vietnam. The author's experiences at Kent State University in 1970 during the infamous shootings on that campus are also included.

Always Coming Back Home is an emotional tale of love, adventure, hope, and tragedy. Always Coming Back Home uses heartfelt stories and real-time emails sent from a deployed sailor to his bride, readers quickly become invested in this young family. The couple takes readers on adventures of sailing and scuba diving throughout the world. They also keep readers laughing as the couple becomes first time parents, anxious with them during military deployments, upset with them through miscarriages and family loss, and finally, heartbroken as it all comes to an end with a single phone call. Always Coming Back Home is a candid and raw account of two ordinary people coming together to accomplish extraordinary things.

The Kingdom of Bahrain's perseverance as an independent state in one of the world's most dangerous regions presents an enigma in the metanarrative of three centuries of near perpetual strife along the Arabian littoral. This mystery is due to Bahrain's size when compared to the very ambitious regional and international actors which have been eyeing Bahrain as a prize, a strategic stepping-stone to extending a form of hegemony over the region. Yet Bahrain is more than a pawn in the geopolitical games of larger states; it has its own set of skills and capabilities. It may be a small state in a dangerous region, but it is not weak. This work traces the long history of Bahrain and reveals how it has survived, especially since Revolutionary Iran has emerged as its main source of threat.

Military pedagogical research and teaching has made headways. There is still no internationally accepted unified field theory, but the diversity and heterogeneity of military pedagogy reflects the complexity of modern military tasks and enables the scientific debate on military ethics and morale, military education and interculturality. While political and educational developments have caught up with some of the topics addressed, changes in the military and the political and educational landscape will always necessitate this branch of academia to continuously adapt to the needs of the armed forces and their servicemen and -women. Insofar, the diverse contributions in this volume offer valuable insights into current military pedagogical thinking and acting.