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Books > Social sciences > Warfare & defence > Military life & institutions > General
Tsuen Wan: Concord Publications, 1999. pp. 64.Contemporary b/w
photographs, and descriptive text. With colour plates
Women make up almost half of the nation's workforce, yet research
shows that they continue to hold a lower percentage of corporate
board seats compared to men. Research highlights advantages to
gender diverse boards, and some countries have taken steps to
increase board gender diversity. The Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) requires companies to disclose certain information
on board diversity. This book examines the representation of women
on boards of U.S. publicly-traded companies and factors that may
affect it; and selected stakeholders views on strategies for
increasing representation of women on corporate boards.
Furthermore, this book discusses women in combat, and includes a
discussion of the impact of women in Congress as well as historical
information.
In Living and Surviving in Harm's Way, experts investigate the
psychological impact of how warriors live and survive in combat
duty. They address the combat preparation of servicemen and women,
their support systems, and their interpersonal and intrapersonal
experiences. The text maintains a focus on cognitive-behavioral
interventions for treating various combat-related disorders, and
addresses psychological health and adjustment after leaving the
battlefield. The text is logically organized for easy reading and
reference, and covers often overlooked topics such as preparation
and training of service personnel, women in combat, and the
indirect effects of combat stress on family. This book is written
by clinicians who have in some ways experienced what they write
about, and resonates with mental health professionals, servicemen
and women, and their families. Any clinician hoping to treat a
serviceman or woman effectively cannot afford to overlook this
book.
The Thiepval Memorial commemorates over 72,000 men who have no
known grave; all went missing in the Somme sector during the three
years of conflict that finally ended on 20 March 1918. The book is
not a military history of the Battle of the Somme, it is about
personal remembrance, and features over 200 fascinating stories of
the men who fought and died and whose final resting places have not
been identified. Countries within the UK are all well represented,
as are the men whose roots were in the far-flung reaches of the
Empire and even 'foreigners'. The stories that lie behind each of
the names carved into the memorial's panels illustrate the various
backgrounds and differing lives of these men. The diverse social
mix of the men - young and old, 'gentry' to 'labourers', actors,
artists, clergy, poets, sportsmen, writers, and more - is something
that stands out in the book. Despite their social differences, what
is most apparent is the wide impact of the loss for over fifty
widows, around 100 children left fatherless and over thirty
families mourning more than one son. Ranks from private to
lieutenant colonel are expertly covered, as well as all seven
winners of the VC.These captivating stories stand as remembrance
for each man and to all the others on the memorial. They are
meticulously organized so the book can be of use to visitors as
they walk around the memorial; as a name is viewed, the story
behind that name can be read.
Some warriors are drawn to the thrill of combat and find it the
defining moment of their lives. Others fall victim to fear,
exhaustion, impaired reasoning, and despair. This was certainly
true for twentieth-century American ground troops. Whether
embracing or being demoralized by war, these men risked their lives
for causes larger than themselves with no promise of safe return.
This book is the first to synthesize the wartime experiences of
American combat soldiers, from the doughboys of World War I to the
grunts of Vietnam. Focusing on both soldiers and marines, it draws
on histories and memoirs, oral histories, psychological and
sociological studies, and even fiction to show that their
experiences remain fundamentally the same regardless of the enemy,
terrain, training, or weaponry. Peter Kindsvatter gets inside the
minds of American soldiers to reveal what motivated them to serve
and how they were turned into soldiers. He recreates the physical
and emotional aspects of war to tell how fighting men dealt with
danger and hardship, and he explores the roles of comradeship,
leadership, and the sustaining beliefs in cause and country. He
also illuminates soldiers' attitudes toward the enemy, toward the
rear echelon, and toward the home front. And he tells why some
broke down under fire while others excelled. Here are the first
tastes of battle, as when a green recruit reported that "for the
first time I realized that the people over the ridge wanted to kill
me," while another was befuddled by the unfamiliar sound of bullets
whizzing overhead. Here are soldiers struggling to cope with war's
stress by seeking solace from local women or simply smoking
cigarettes. And here are tales of combat avoidance and fraggings
not unique to Vietnam, of soldiers in Korea disgruntled over
home-front indifference, and of the unique experiences of African
American soldiers in the Jim Crow army. By capturing the core "band
of brothers" experience across several generations of warfare,
Kindsvatter celebrates the American soldier while helping us to
better understand war's lethal reality--and why soldiers persevere
in the face of its horrors.
A tense and layered true-crime story about an all-American soldier
boy turned bank robber Alex Blum was a clean-cut all-American kid
with one unshakeable goal in life: to serve his country in the
military. He was accepted into the elite Rangers regiment, but on
the first day of his leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex got into
his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a
local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery. The Blum family
was devastated and mystified. How could he have done such a thing?
Alex's attorney presented a defence based on the theory that
trainee Rangers are indoctrinated on a level akin to the
brainwashing in an extreme religious cult, and Alex insisted that
he had believed the robbery was just another exercise in the
famously daunting Ranger program. But Luke Elliot Sommer, the
charismatic soldier behind the robbery, maintained that Alex knew
exactly what he was doing, and had, in fact, planned it all with
him. Who was lying? What had happened to Alex during those
gruelling months of training? How accountable was he?
The Indian Army founded by the East India Company in the eighteenth
century was unique among the armies of the world in that it had two
groups of officers - British and Indian. The intention was that the
Indian officers, coming from similar backgrounds as their men and
naturally understanding their social and religious mores and
customs, would form the crucial link between the British officers
and the sepoys. It is surprising, therefore, that there has been
very little written, by either British or Indian historians,
regarding the role and experience of those officers. They were
promoted from the ranks and served for many years in their units,
embodying both the spirit and the traditions of their regiments. So
who were these Indian officers who look out at us from photographs
taken from the eighteen eighties onwards? What was their
background, education and training? How did they, and their British
officers, interpret their role? The present volume is a long
over-due attempt to answer these questions and to pay due tribute
to the men who served the Raj and their country so well in peace
and war. A wide variety of sources has been drawn upon, including
interviews with British officers who served with the Indian Army. A
thread running through the book is provided by the diary of Amar
Singh, a Rajput from Jaipur. He was one of the first members of the
elite Imperial Cadet Corps and served in China, France, Mesopotamia
and on the North-West Frontier. He ended his military career as
Commandant of the Jaipur State forces.
Much has been written about the 302 British and Commonwealth
soldiers who were executed for military offences during the First
World War, but there is usually only a passing reference to those
who took part - the members of the firing squad, the officer in
charge, the medical officer and the padre. What are their stories?
Through extensive research, David Johnson explores the
controversial story of the men forced to shoot their fellow
Tommies, examining how they were selected; how they were treated
before, during, and after the executions; and why there were so
many procedural variations in the way that the executions were
conducted.
The assumptions that military service helps candidates attract
votes-while lacking it harms a candidate's chances-has been an
article of faith since the electoral coronation of George
Washington in 1789. Perhaps the most compelling fact driving the
perception that military service helps win votes is the large
number of veterans who have held public office. Some candidates
even exaggerate their military service to persuade voters. However,
sufficient counter-examples undermine the idea that military
veterans enjoy an advantage when seeking political office. In Why
Veterans Run, Jeremy Teigenexplains the tendency of parties to
elevate those with armed forces experience to run for high office.
He describes the veteran candidate phenomenon by examining the
related factors and patterns, showing why different eras have more
former generals running and why the number of veterans in election
cycles varies. With both quantitative and qualitative analysis, Why
Veterans Run investigates each postwar era in U.S. electoral
history and elaborates why so many veterans run for office. Teigen
also reveals how election outcomes with veteran candidates
illuminate the relationship between the military and civilian
spheres as well as the preferences of the American electorate.
In today's volunteer military many recruits enlist for the
educational benefits, yet a significant number of veterans struggle
in the classroom, and many drop out. The difficulties faced by
student veterans have been attributed to various factors: poor
academic preparation, PTSD and other postwar ailments, and
allegedly antimilitary sentiments on college campuses. In Grateful
Nation Ellen Moore challenges these narratives by tracing the
experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at two California
college campuses. Drawing on interviews with dozens of veterans,
classroom observations, and assessments of the work of veteran
support organizations, Moore finds that veterans' academic
struggles result from their military training and combat
experience, which complicate their ability to function in civilian
schools. While there is little evidence of antimilitary bias on
college campuses, Moore demonstrates the ways in which college
programs that conflate support for veterans with support for the
institutional military lead to suppression of campus debate about
the wars, discourage antiwar activism, and encourage a growing
militarization.
'Well written and persuasive ...objective and
well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the
standard biography' **** Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true
judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in
this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified
to make it ... a balanced portrait' Sunday Times 'Solid scholarship
and admirable advocacy' Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single
most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his
armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But
within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never
recovered. In this fascinating biography, Professor Gary Sheffield
reassesses Haig's reputation, assessing his critical role in
preparing the army for war.
This is a flying adventure book set within the framework of the
Cold War and told through the lens of the RAF Pilot's Flying Log
Book. Philip Keeble's logbooks cover ten different types of
aircraft: from learning to fly in a Chipmunk trainer in 1965, right
through to flying the Tornado F3 Fighter in 1994. These true tales
are told as anecdotal yarns, ones that put flesh on the bare bones
of a logbook in an exciting, amusing and self-deprecating way. The
narratives stir up memories of escapades and the events leading up
to them. They depict exciting sorties, dangerous emergencies,
stupid moments, funny occurrences, and operational practices, but
also show the balance and contrast of operating in the Cold War.
Keeble got into more than a few scrapes. He flew very high, very
low, and very fast with a foolhardiness that at times was culpable.
The memories of these events will make you chuckle, break out in a
cold sweat, and some may even cause a lump in your throat. The
author can vouch for the veracity of every single tale, even the
shocking ones. Strap yourselves in securely and hold on tight-for
this could be quite a ride.
The First World War was a watershed in global history. Both
terrible and terrifying, it shredded the social order and ushered
in a bleak new world. Inevitably, the war led to major advances in
military strategy and tactics that were reflected in the weapons
used on the battlefield. This book offers an extended introduction
to the arms and armour of the Great War, with particular focus on
iconic weapons such as the Maxim machine gun. It is a unique
insight into the material culture that not only enabled the horrors
of the Somme, Passchendaele and Gallipoli but also provided the
means to bring peace in 1918.
The Honoris Crux (Cross of Honour) was South Africa's premier
gallantry decoration awarded to members of the SA Defence Force
between 1952 and 2003. The stories behind over 300 of these awards
and other medals for bravery are graphically told - ranging from
outstanding valour in all types of warfare to exceptional heroism
displayed in saving lives. For these soldiers, sailors and airmen
the common denominator was courage. The heroism of the Special
Forces, or Recces, became legendary. We read the unbelievable but
true stories of two-man teams who crept into enemy camps, sometimes
hundreds of kilometres from their bases, to gather vital
information. If discovered they had to extricate themselves from
impossible situations, such as the frogman team which attacked an
enemy bridge then fought their way out - against small arms fire
and hand grenades, as well as against crocodiles! The Naval heroes
range from the seaman who remained inside the sinking SAS President
Kruger to rescue friends, to the frogmen who went inside the
sinking MV Oceanos to ensure that no one remained behind. Two of
them dived into the stormy sea to rescue floating passengers and
crew, thereby ensuring the success of the greatest sea rescue of
the century. One of the survivors had won the DCM in World War II,
while his son had earned the Honoris Crux in 1983. The awards were
made irrespective of race, colour or creed - despite most of the
events taking place during the Apartheid years. Men from diverse
backgrounds learnt to live and fight together, especially among the
Special Forces, where their lives often depended on each other. The
award of the HC Gold to a black Recce attests to that. During a
period of five months on five occasions he approached the enemy on
his own and fought to the death, thereby displaying total disregard
for his own safety. This new edition has been thoroughly revised
and updated, to include not only new information but additional
photographs, too.
Silver was the codename for the only quintuple spy of the Second
World War, spying for the Italians, Germans, Japanese, Soviets and
the British. The Germans awarded him the Iron Cross, Germany s
highest military decoration, and paid him 2.5 million in today s
money. In reality Silver deceived the Nazis on behalf of the
Soviets and the British. In 1942 the Russians decided to share
Silver with the British, the only time during the war that the
Soviets agreed to such an arrangement. This brought him under the
control of Peter Fleming who acted as his spy master. Germans also
gave Silver a transmitter which broadcast misleading military
information directly to Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. Silver was
one of many codenames for a man whose real name was Bhagat Ram
Talwar, a Hindu Pathan from the North West Frontier province of
then British India. Between 1941 and 1945 Silver made twelve trips
from Peshawar to Kabul to supply false information to the Germans,
always making the near-200-mile journey on foot over mountain
passes and hostile tribal territory.Once when an Afghan nearly
rumbled him, he invited him to a curry meal in which he had mixed
deadly tiger s whiskers killing the Afghan. "
"Lands of Lost Borders carried me up into a state of openness and
excitement I haven't felt for years. It's a modern classic."-Pico
Iyer A brilliant, fierce writer, and winner of the 2019 RBC Taylor
Prize, makes her debut with this enthralling travelogue and memoir
of her journey by bicycle along the Silk Road-an illuminating and
thought-provoking fusion of The Places in Between, Lab Girl, and
Wild that dares us to challenge the limits we place on ourselves
and the natural world. As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the
career she craved-to be an explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and
metaphysician-had gone extinct. From what she could tell of the
world from small-town Ontario, the likes of Marco Polo and Magellan
had mapped the whole earth; there was nothing left to be
discovered. Looking beyond this planet, she decided to become a
scientist and go to Mars. In between studying at Oxford and MIT,
Harris set off by bicycle down the fabled Silk Road with her
childhood friend Mel. Pedaling mile upon mile in some of the
remotest places on earth, she realized that an explorer, in any day
and age, is the kind of person who refuses to live between the
lines. Forget charting maps, naming peaks: what she yearned for was
the feeling of soaring completely out of bounds. The farther she
traveled, the closer she came to a world as wild as she felt
within. Lands of Lost Borders, winner of the 2018 Banff Adventure
Travel Award and a 2018 Nautilus Award, is the chronicle of
Harris's odyssey and an exploration of the importance of breaking
the boundaries we set ourselves; an examination of the stories
borders tell, and the restrictions they place on nature and
humanity; and a meditation on the existential need to explore-the
essential longing to discover what in the universe we are doing
here. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer, Kate Harris offers a
travel account at once exuberant and reflective, wry and rapturous.
Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the
wildness of the self that can never fully be mapped. Weaving
adventure and philosophy with the history of science and
exploration, Lands of Lost Borders celebrates our connection as
humans to the natural world, and ultimately to each other-a
belonging that transcends any fences or stories that may divide us.
Colin Powell epitomizes the American success story, yet his heroism
is uncommon and unique. Born in New York City to Jamaican-immigrant
parents, Powell entered a recently desegregated army, rising to
become its highest-ranking member. He is a Republican at a time
when a vast majority of African Americans consider themselves
Democrats. He is one of the most famous Americans alive, yet has
spent much of his professional life in behind-the-scenes positions.
Beginning with his humble origins, this biography traces Powell's
experiences from childhood, moving from his early days in the
military through his climb to the highest echelons of power in
Washington D.C. A timeline clarifies the key events in Powell's
life and career, and a bibliography covers print and electronic
sources for further research. This concise biography is ideal for
students and general readers interested in the story behind one of
America's most important and respected citizens, and the struggles
an African American must face and overcome to succeed in
contemporary America.
An army marches on its stomach, observed Napoleon. One hundred and
fifty years later General Rommel remarked that the British should
always be attacked before soldiers had had an early morning cup of
tea. This book, written to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund
and with a Foreword by General Lord Dannatt, sets out the human
story of the food and "brew-ups" of the front-line soldier from the
Boer War to Helmand. Throughout, the importance of the provision of
food, or even a simple mug of tea, for morale and unit fellowship,
as well as for the need of the calories required for battle is
highlighted with many examples over the century. For many, until
1942, the basis of food was"bully beef" and hard biscuit,
supplemented by whatever could be found locally, all adequate but
monotonous. Sometimes supply failed, on occasions water also. The
extremes of hardship being when regiments were besieged, as in
Ladysmith in the Boer War and Kut el-Amara in Iraq in the 1914-18
war. At Kut soldiers had, at best, hedgehogs or birds fried in
axle-grease with local vegetation. On the Western Front the Retreat
from Mons in August 1914 was almost as severe. The inter-war years
experiences of mountaineers and polar explorers, supplemented by
academic diet studies of the unemployed in London and Northern
England led to the introduction of the varied composite, or 'compo'
rations, marking an enormous improvement in soldiers' food, an
improvement commented upon by the bully beef and biscuits-fed 8th
Army advancing into Tunisia from Libya on meeting the 1st Army
which had landed in Algeria with tins of compo. Soldiers landing in
Normandy and fighting on into Germany were generally well fed even
during a hard 1944-45 winter. The worst suffering, though, fell on
soldiers in the Burma campaign, especially in the Chindit columns.
In one unit the only food available at one time was the chaplain's
store of Communion wafers. Many men died unnecessarily from the
results of poor feeding. The work has been compiled from documents
in the Royal Logistic Corps Museum at Deepcut, from memoirs,
letters and interviews, and from the superb collection of
regimental histories in the library of the Royal Military Academy
Sandhurst. All royalties from this book will be given to the Army
Benevolent Fund.
This book is above all, history. For the first time an author has
covered the actions of a single Marine company in Vietnam and their
5+ year deployment. The content of Loss of Innocence is the result
of 15 years of official document research, taped interviews, and
meetings with those who served within the company's ranks. From
beginning to end, the reader will discover the horror, boredom, and
humor of America's most controversial war. The reader, veteran or
non-veteran, will find meaning and new understanding about a war
fought largely by those 18 to 21 years of age. For current
information about Hotel Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines in
Vietnam, visit www.hotel27vietnam.com.
In 2016, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) centralized
distribution of the disability compensation claims workload through
the National Work Queue, which prioritizes and distributes claims
to regional offices based on their capacity; however, there are
gaps in VBA's guidance for processing claims with errors. Chapter 1
examines (1) how VBA manages workload and performance for the
disability compensation claims process, (2) how well VBA's
timeliness and accuracy measures capture its regional offices'
performance in processing these claims, and (3) how well selected
regional offices communicate with VSOs and congressional
caseworkers about these claims. The Department of Veterans Affairs'
(VA) plan for implementing a new disability appeals process while
attending to appeals in the current process addresses most, but not
all, elements required by the Veterans Appeals Improvement and
Modernization Act of 2017 (Act). Chapter 2 examines the extent to
which VA's plan (1) addresses the required elements in the Act, and
(2) reflects sound planning practices identified in prior GAO work.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 focus on the extent to which VA's plan:
addresses the required elements in the Act, and reflects sound
planning practices previously identified. Chapter 6 examines (1)
what is known about the quality and timeliness of VBA contracted
exams; (2) the extent to which VBA monitors contractors'
performance; and (3) how VBA ensures that its contractors provide
qualified and well-trained examiners. Chapter 7 addresses: (1) what
is known about the quality and timeliness of VBA contracted exams;
(2) the extent to which VBA monitors contractors' performance to
ensure that they provide high quality and timely exams; and (3) how
VBA ensures that its contractors provide qualified and well-trained
examiners.
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