On September 29, 2006, Michael Monsoor and three SEAL snipers watched vigilantly for enemy activity from their rooftop post in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. When a grenade thrown from insurgents bounced off Michael's chest, he could have escaped. Instead, he threw himself onto the live grenade, shielding his fellow soldiers from the immediate explosion. Michael died thirty minutes later, having made the ultimate sacrifice. As George Monsoor (Michael's father) and Rose Rea show us in Defend Us in Battle, Michael had prepared for this selfless act all his life--a life that inspires us to have a similar generosity of heart. This fast-paced, compelling biography tells the true story of a quiet boy from California who achieved his dream of becoming a Navy SEAL and saved numerous lives throughout his deployment recounts how Michael's childhood of asthma and being bullied made him a staunch defender of justice and passionate about never quitting draws on interviews, military documents, and eyewitness accounts to detail Michael's remarkable military career and devotion to God and others is an ideal gift for readers of military biographies such as American Sniper, the Last Punisher,and Unbroken,as well as for anyone eager to remember that this world still has heroes In addition to the Medal of Honor, Michael received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star Medal, and the Purple Heart for his years serving his country. But his greatest legacy is in the hearts of those he inspired to live, and even die, for the sake of brotherly love.

Practicing Oral History with Military and War Veterans focuses predominantly on conducting oral history with men and women of recent wars and military conflicts. The book provides a structured methodology for building interest and trust among veterans to conduct interviews, design oral history projects, and archive and use these oral history interviews. It includes background on the evolution of veterans oral history, the nuts and bolts of interviewing, ethical guidelines, procedures, and the overall value of veterans oral history. The methodology emphasizes how memory evolves over the years - when a veteran becomes more distant from the events of war, the experiences become individualized and personalized for each veteran based on location, time, place, and purpose of their service. The book also aims to improve understanding of the personal, ethical, and psychological issues involved in listening compassionately to veterans' stories that may contain issues of trauma, gender, socio-economics, race, dis/ability, and ethnicity. Practicing Oral History with Military and War Veterans is an invitation to community scholars, students, oral historians, and families of veterans to actively participate in the oral history process and to embrace methodology that may help with designing and conducting oral history projects and interviewing war veterans.

The Veterans Treatment Court Movement provides a comprehensive, empirical analysis of the burgeoning veteran's court movement from genesis through to operation, and concluding with comments on its societal relevance. Beginning with the unlikely convergence of therapeutic jurisprudence with the oft-misunderstood warrior ethos that undergirds the entire movement, the text examines every component of veterans courts, weighing the cultural, legal, and practical strengths and limitations of these programs. Each chapter assesses key components of the court, including the participants, law enforcement, judges, prosecution, defense counsel, court administration, data management, the Veterans Justice Outreach Officer (VJO), probation, mentors, and the community. The book concludes with recommendations on how these courts can further integrate with communities, maximize efficiency, and improve. The book shows how veterans courts seek to serve veterans' legal, social, and psychological needs, and how they serve more than just offending veterans by allowing law-abiding veterans, many of whom suffered greatly when they transitioned out of military service, to exorcize their own demons and integrate their experiences into a socially recognized system of care. Incorporating program evaluation with sociological considerations, this monograph offers a comprehensive, considered examination of how - and why - these courts operate, and provides a foundation for future development. The volume provides essential background for scholars studying law and the criminal courts, as well as policymakers, judges, academics, students, and practitioners concerned with effective jurisprudence.

Large data sets arriving at every increasing speeds require a new set of efficient data analysis techniques. Data analytics are becoming an essential component for every organization and technologies such as health care, financial trading, Internet of Things, Smart Cities or Cyber Physical Systems. However, these diverse application domains give rise to new research challenges. In this context, the book provides a broad picture on the concepts, techniques, applications, and open research directions in this area. In addition, it serves as a single source of reference for acquiring the knowledge on emerging Big Data Analytics technologies.

This book examines the politics of military families in relation to the tensions between the state, military organization, and private life. It elaborates on the tensions between the advent of challenging worldwide deployment for the military and the prominence of the home front. The volume aims to understand the dynamics of conflict and change within triad figurations at the macro (society), meso (organizational), and micro (family) level and is guided by the following overarching research questions: What are the key issues in the three-party dynamics? What tensions exist in these dynamics? How do actors seek to arrive at a balance? What initiatives for change are made? With contributions from international scholars, who examine the workings of politics in military families at all three levels, the book argues that members within military families deal with shifting power balances and these are impacted by demands from organizations and the state. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, organizational studies and politics.

Originally published in 1975, The Volunteer Force is a study of the part-time military force which came into being to meet the mid-nineteenth century fear of French invasion. It survived and grew for fifty years until in 1908 it was renamed and remodelled as the Territorial Force. Composed initially of middle-class and often middle-aged gentlemen who elected their own officers and paid for their own equipment, the Volunteer Force soon became youthful and working-class, with appointed middle-class officers, a Government subsidy, and a minor military role as an adjunct to the Regular Army. This book examines the origins of the Force, the transformation in its social composition, the difficulties in finding officers who were 'gentlemen', the ambiguous status, of the Force both in the local community and in the Regular Army, and the political influence which the Force exerted in the early twentieth century. Above all it is concerned with the reasons for and the implications of enrolment; publicists argued that the Force was the embodiment of patriotism, and an indication of working-class loyalty to established institutions.

This volume synthesises the latest scholarship on First World War veterans in post-war Britain and Ireland, investigating the topic through its political, social and cultural dynamics. It examines the post-war experiences of those men and women who served and illuminates the nature of the post-war society for which service had been given. Complicating the homogenising tendency in existing scholarship it offers comparison of the experiences of veterans in different regions of Britain, including perspectives drawn from Ireland. Further nuance is offered by the assessment of the experiences of ex-servicewomen alongside those of ex-servicemen, such focus deeping understanding into the gendered specificities of post-war veteran activities and experiences. Moreover, case studies of specific cohorts of veterans are offered, including focus on disabled veterans and ex-prisoners of war. In these regards the collection offers vital updates to existing scholarship while bringing important new departures and challenges to the current interpretive frameworks of veteran experiences in post-war Britain and Ireland.

This landmark publication commemorates the centenary of the Great War's Gallipoli campaign, 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916. ANZAC Treasures approaches the subject of Gallipoli not only from a military perspective but also in terms of its social impact and its role in commemoration and nation building. It does so through the Memorial's immensely rich and varied National Collection, which provides a tangible link to ANZAC and gives an unparalleled insight into its many facets. The legend and reality of ANZAC are encapsulated within the relics, photographs, artworks, documentary records, personal diaries and letters that are displayed to dramatic and moving effect in a beautifully designed and produced commemorative volume.

The Victoria Cross is Britain and the Commonwealth's most prestigious gallantry medal for courage in the face of the enemy. It has been bestowed upon 1,355 heroic individuals from all walks of life since its creation during the Crimean War. Lord Ashcroft, who has been fascinated with bravery since he was a young boy, now owns 200 VCs, by far the largest collection of its kind in the world. Following on from the bestselling Victoria Cross Heroes, first published in 2006 to mark the 150th anniversary of the award, Victoria Cross Heroes: Volume II gives extraordinary accounts of the bravery behind the newest additions to Lord Ashcroft's VC collection - those decorations purchased in the last decade. With nearly sixty action-packed stories of courageous soldiers, sailors and airmen from a range of global conflicts including the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 and the First and Second World Wars, this book is a powerful testament to the strength of the human spirit and a worthy tribute to the servicemen who earned the Victoria Cross. Their inspirational deeds of valour and self-sacrifice should be championed and never forgotten.

"Unlike cricket, which is a polite game, Australian Rules Football creates a desire on the part of the crowd to tear someone apart, usually the referee." This is only one of the entertaining and astute observations the U.S. military provided in the pocket guides distributed to the nearly one million American soldiers who landed on the shores of Australia between 1942 and 1945. Although the Land Down Under felt more familiar than many of their assignments abroad, American GIs still needed help navigating the distinctly different Aussie culture, and coming to their rescue was "Instruction for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942," The newest entry in the Bodleian Library's bestselling series of vintage pocket guides, this pamphlet is filled with pithy notes on Australian customs, language, and other cultural facts the military deemed necessary for every American soldier.
From the native wildlife--a land of "funny animals"--to the nation's colonial history to the general characteristics of Australians--"an outdoors sort of people, breezy and very democratic"--"Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia" gives a concise yet amazingly informative overview of the island nation. Regarding Aussie slang, it notes that "the Australian has few equals in the world at swearing. . . . The commonest swear words are 'bastard' (pronounced 'barstud'), 'bugger, ' and 'bloody, ' and the Australians have a genius for using the latter nearly every other word." The pamphlet also contains a humorous explanation of the country's musical traditions--including an annotated text of "Waltzing Matilda"--as well as amusing passages on sports, politics, and the Aussies' attitudes toward Yanks and Brits.
A fascinating look at a neglected Allied front in the Southern hemisphere, "Instructions for American Servicemen in Australia, 1942" follows its successful predecessors as a captivating historical document of a pivotal era in history.

A hard-hitting history of the U.S. airborne unit who made a name for themselves in the unforgiving jungles of South Vietnam. "It was easier killing than living." Third Battalion 506th Airborne veteran Drawing on interviews with veterans, many of whom have never gone on the record before, Ian Gardner follows up his epic trilogy about the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment in World War II with the story of the unit's reactivation at the height of the Vietnam War. This is the dramatic history of a band of brothers who served together in Vietnam and who against the odds lived up to the reputation of their World War II forefathers. Brigadier General Salve Matheson's idea was to create an 800-strong battalion of airborne volunteers in the same legendary "Currahee" spirit that had defined the volunteers of 1942. The man he chose to lead them was John Geraci, who would mold this young brotherhood into a highly cohesive and motivated force. In December 1967, the battalion was sent into the Central Highlands of Lam Dong Province. Geraci and his men began their Search and Destroy patrols, which coincided with the North Vietnamese build-up to the Tet Offensive and was a brutal introduction to the reality of a dirty, bloody war. Gardner reveals how it was here that the tenacious volunteers made their mark, just like their predecessors had done in Normandy, and the battalion was ultimately awarded a Valorous Unit Citation. This book shows how and why this unit was deserving of that award, recounting their daily sanguinary struggle in the face of a hostile environment and a determined enemy. Through countless interviews and rare personal photographs, Sign Here for Sacrifice shows the action, leadership, humor and bravery displayed by these airborne warriors.

A vivid account of the opening weeks of war by a volunteer despatch rider who may have prevented a swift German victory. Of Anglo-German stock, Roger West was conflicted when the war broke out but volunteered out of the strong sense of duty that was characteristic of his class. His linguistic skills led to his being commissioned into the Intelligence Corps but he was seconded as a despatch rider to the 19th Brigade, which bore a great brunt of the fighting in the first few weeks in 1914. West was in the thick of things despite being crippled with a badly-damaged foot, often riding round the clock, delivering despatches and directing and assisting soldiers separated from their units and disoriented stragglers. Discovering that a critical bridge had been left open to the German advance he volunteered to ride back and blow it up, preventing the retreating Fifth French Army from being taken in the flank, something that could have fulfilled the Schlieffen Plan's aims and won the war for Germany.

Art Therapy with Military Veterans: Trauma and the Image provides a comprehensive framework for understanding and applying art therapy with former and serving armed forces personnel who have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This book brings together experienced contributors in one volume to provide the range of information essential to those seeking to understand the complexities of working in this context. In recent years, art therapy has received increasing attention as a promising treatment for veterans with PTSD. This cutting-edge book provides vital background information on PTSD, military culture and mental health provision, and an effective art therapy working model. The text explores creative partnerships with other disciplines, in different settings, and includes first-hand accounts from veterans about the role art therapy has played in their recovery. This accessible book is a timely response to growing recognition of the value of art therapy with veterans, and it also addresses issues relevant to the wider population of people whose lives have been detrimentally affected by trauma. With chapters authored by leading clinicians in this field, Art Therapy with Military Veterans: Trauma and the Image will be of interest to all art therapists and mental health professionals working with traumatised veterans.

Northern 'Q': The History of Royal Air Force, Leuchars takes its title from the long standing primary role as one of the oldest airfields in the UK. Leuchars began its links with military aviation as far back as 1911 with the arrival of the Royal Engineers who established a balloon squadron for reconnaissance training. Following the outbreak of war in 1939, the station was identified as an ideal location to launch maritime operations under Coastal Command. By the end of the war, Leuchars, like so many other airfields, was under the threat of redundancy as many airfields were rendered surplus to requirements. The developing international situation placed a shift in defence with the Cold War and Leuchars was once more deemed to be in an ideal and vital position. From 1950, this corner of north-east Fife has been on permanent guard with every type of operational interceptor in RAF service. Now politics from austerity to Scottish independence, rather than sound judgement, is setting the agenda as the RAF leave for Lossiemouth in Moray.

This is the first book to bring together an interdisciplinary, theoretically engaged and global perspective on the First World War through the lens of historical and cultural geography. Reflecting the centennial interest in the conflict, the collection explores the relationships between warfare and space, and pays particular attention to how commemoration is connected to spatial elements of national identity, and processes of heritage and belonging. Venturing beyond military history and memory studies, contributors explore conceptual contributions of geography to analyse the First World War, as well as reflecting upon the imperative for an academic discussion on the War's centenary. This book explores the War's impact in more unexpected theatres, blurring the boundary between home and fighting fronts, investigating the experiences of the war amongst civilians and often overlooked combatants. It also critically examines the politics of hindsight in the post-war period, and offers an historical geographical account of how the First World War has been memorialised within 'official' spaces, in addition to those overlooked and often undervalued 'alternative spaces' of commemoration. This innovative and timely text will be key reading for students and scholars of the First World War, and more broadly in historical and cultural geography, social and cultural history, European history, Heritage Studies, military history and memory studies.

During the first half of the twentieth century, European countries witnessed the arrival of hundreds of thousands of colonial soldiers fighting in European territory (First and Second World War and Spanish Civil War) and coming into contact with European society and culture. For many Europeans, these were the first instances in which they met Asians or Africans, and the presence of Indian, Indo-Chinese, Moluccan, Senegalese, Moroccan or Algerian soldiers in Europe did not go unnoticed. This book explores this experience as it relates to the returning soldiers - who often had difficulties re-adapting to their subordinate status at home - and on European authorities who for the first time had to accommodate large numbers of foreigners in their own territories, which in some ways would help shape later immigration policies.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.