It was a war that shaped the modern world, fought on five continents, claiming the lives of ten million people. Two great nations met each other on the field of battle for the first time. But were they so very different? For the first time, and drawing widely on archive material in the form of original letters and diaries, Peter Doyle and Robin Schafer bring together the two sides, 'Fritz' and 'Tommy', to examine cultural and military nuances that have until now been left untouched: their approaches to war, their lives at the front, their greatest fears and their hopes for the future. The soldiers on both sides went to war with high ideals; they experienced horror and misery, but also comradeship/Kameradschaft. And with increasing alienation from the people at home, they drew closer together, 'the Hun' transformed into 'good old Jerry' by the war's end. This unique collaboration is a refreshing yet touching examination of how little truly divided the men on either side of no-man'sland during the First World War.

When 25-year old Private Johnson Beharry won the Victoria Cross in 2005 for bravery under fire in Iraq, he was the first person to win Britain's highest military honour since the Falklands war in 1982 and the first living recipient since 1969, when two Australians were given the award for action in Vietnam. Born out of the squalor of the Crimean War in 1856 and the fragility of the monarchy at that time, the VC's prestige is such that it takes precedence over all other orders and medals in Britain. But while many books have been written about specific aspects of the VC and its recipients, none have asked why so many brave men who deserved the medal were denied it, and why no women have ever been awarded the VC, even though they are entitled. Military historian Gary Mead's vivid and balanced account of the VC's life and times exposes the hypocrisy behind one of the UK's last sacred cows, and explores its role as a barometer for the shifting sands of political and social change during the last 150 years.

The Napoleonic wars did not end with Waterloo. That famous battle was just the beginning of a long, complex transition to peace. After a massive invasion of France by more than a million soldiers from across Europe, the Allied powers insisted on a long-term occupation of the country to guarantee that the defeated nation rebuild itself and pay substantial reparations to its conquerors. Our Friends the Enemies provides the first comprehensive history of the post-Napoleonic occupation of France and its innovative approach to peacemaking. From 1815 to 1818, a multinational force of 150,000 men under the command of the Duke of Wellington occupied northeastern France. From military, political, and cultural perspectives, Christine Haynes reconstructs the experience of the occupiers and the occupied in Paris and across the French countryside. The occupation involved some violence, but it also promoted considerable exchange and reconciliation between the French and their former enemies. By forcing the restored monarchy to undertake reforms to meet its financial obligations, this early peacekeeping operation played a pivotal role in the economic and political reconstruction of France after twenty-five years of revolution and war. Transforming former European enemies into allies, the mission established Paris as a cosmopolitan capital and foreshadowed efforts at postwar reconstruction in the twentieth century.

In July 2009, Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan with the rest of The Firm – Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon – a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

As they fight furiously, are pushed to their limits, hemmed in by IEDs and hampered by the chain of command, Gez starts to wonder what is the point of it all. The bombs they uncover on patrol, on their stomachs brushing the sand away, are replaced the next day. Firefights are a momentary victory in a war they can see is unwinnable. Gez is a warrior – he wants more than this. But then death and injury start to take their toll on The Firm, leaving Gez with PTSD and a new battle just beginning.

This book explores the professional and social lives of the soldiers who served in the army of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. More than just a fighting force, this army was the setting in which hundreds of thousands of men forged relationships and manoeuvred for promotion. The officers of this force, from famous generals like Belisarius and Narses to lesser-known men like Buzes and Artabanes, not only fought battles but also crafted social networks and cultivated their relationships with their emperor, fellow officers, families, and subordinate soldiers. Looming in the background were differences in identity, particularly between Romans and those they identified as barbarians. Drawing on numerical evidence and stories from sixth-century authors who understood the military, Justinian's Men highlights a sixth-century Byzantine army that was vibrant, lively, and full of individuals working with and against each other.

Captain Ernie Blanchard left for work January 10, 1995, a successful officer. Respected by superiors and subordinates alike, his personal and professional values seemed perfectly aligned with the institution he served, the United States Coast Guard. By day's end his career was finished. At a speaking engagement at the Coast Guard Academy, Blanchard's icebreaker-a series of tasteless jokes-was met with silence. Within hours, an investigation was underway into whether his remarks constituted sexual harassment. Twelve days later, threatened with court-martial, he shot himself. The author investigates Blanchard's "death by political correctness" in context of the turmoil surrounding U.S. Armed Forces' gender inclusion struggles from the 1980s to the present. The experiences of Private Jessica Lynch and Lieutenant Colonel Kate Germano underscore how military women who elevate martial virtues over public relations are targeted for intimidation.

This book demonstrates through country case studies that, contrary to received wisdom, Latin American militaries can contribute productively, but under select conditions, to non-traditional missions of internal security, disaster relief, and social programs. Latin American soldiers are rarely at war, but have been called upon to perform these missions in both lethal and non-lethal ways. Is this beneficial to their societies or should the armed forces be left in the barracks? As inherently conservative institutions, they are at their best, the author demonstrates, when tasked with missions that draw on pre-existing organizational strengths that can be utilized in appropriate and humane ways. They are at a disadvantage when forced to reinvent themselves. Ultimately, it is governments that must choose whether or not to deploy soldiers, and they should do so, based on a pragmatic assessment of the severity and urgency of the problem, the capacity of the military to effectively respond, and the availability of alternative solutions.

A small town struggling, like many communities, with the question of how to remain vital and vibrant in the 21st century, took on another problem altogether: that of the difficult homecoming of Iraq, Afghanistan and other war veterans. Melanie Kline knows a little boy who tenses when his family goes to the airport. He's sure his father is headed for another deployment in Afghanistan. The child's father is dearer to him and his world a little less safe, since his country went to war on terror. No one in Kline's own family has been caught up in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but she has come to see that it affects her entire community. And she has rallied her small town to respond. Kline founded the Welcome Home Montrose project to offer mental health support, job and housing advice and other aid for returning warriors who are burdened by memories of war and uncertain of what their homecoming will mean. What she did not count on was how much the men and women who had served their country still had to give. Home of the Brave is about community and military service, and the possibilities born of creativity and commitment.

Several months after a 2014 operation in the Gaza Strip, fifty-three Israeli Defense Forces combatants and combat-support soldiers were awarded military decorations for exhibiting extraordinary bravery. From a gendered perspective, the most noteworthy aspect of these awards was not the fact that only 4 of the 53 recipients were women, but rather the fact that the men were uniformly praised for being "brave," being "heroes," "actively performing acts of bravery," "protecting," and "preventing terror attacks," while the women were repeatedly commended for "not panicking." This pattern is not unique to the Israeli case, but rather reflects the patriarchal norms that still prevail in military institutions worldwide. One might expect that, now that women serve on the battlefield as combatants, some of the gendered norms informing militaries would have long disappeared. As it stands, women in the military still face a double battle-against the patriarchal institution, as well as against the military's purported enemies. Drawing on interviews with 100 women military veterans about their experiences in combat, this book asks what insights are gained when we take women's experiences in war as our starting point instead of treating them as "add-ons" to more fundamental or mainstream levels of analysis, and what importance these experiences hold for an analysis of violence and for security studies. Importantly, the authors introduce a theoretical framework in critical security studies for understanding (vis-a-vis binary deconstructions of the terms used in these fields) the integration of women soldiers into combat and combat-support roles, as well as the challenges they face. While the book focuses on women in the Israeli Defence Forces, the book provides different perspectives about why it is important to explore women in combat, what their experiences teach us, and how to consider soldiers and veterans both as citizens and as violent state actors-an issue with which scholars are often reluctant to engage. Breaking the Binaries in Security Studies raises methodological considerations about ways of evaluating power relations in conflict situations and patriarchal structures.

This book describes the various tactics used in counter-recruitment, drawing from the words of activists and case studies of successful organizing and advocacy. The United States is one of the only developed countries to allow a military presence in public schools, including an active role for military recruiters. In order to enlist 250,000 new recruits every year, the US military must market itself to youth by integrating itself into schools through programs such as JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps), and spend billions of dollars annually on recruitment activities. This militarization of educational space has spawned a little-noticed grassroots resistance: the small, but sophisticated, "counter-recruitment" movement. Counter-recruiters visit schools to challenge recruiters' messages with information on non-military career options; activists work to make it harder for the military to operate in public schools; they conduct lobbying campaigns for policies that protect students' private information from military recruiters; and, counter-recruiters mentor youth to become involved in these activities. While attracting little attention, counter-recruitment has nonetheless been described as "the military recruiter's greatest obstacle" by a Marine Corps official.

After serving in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide and civil war, Lieutenant Colonel Stephane Grenier returned to Canada haunted by his experiences. Facing post-traumatic stress disorder and an archaic establishment, he spent ten years confronting -- and changing -- the military mental health system from within. Coining the term "Operational Stress Injury" to allow the military to see mental injury in the same light as a physical wound, Grenier founded the Operational Stress Injury Social Support program that provides help for mentally injured soldiers and veterans. Since retiring from the military in 2012, his groundbreaking approach has been adopted by civilian society. Through his social enterprise Mental Health Innovations, Grenier delivers his direct "walk the talk" method to improve mental well being in government and business.

The challenges facing military veterans who return to civilian life in the United States are persistent and well documented. But for all the political outcry and attempts to improve military members' readjustments, veterans of all service eras face formidable obstacles related to mental health, substance abuse, employment, and - most damningly - homelessness. Homelessness Among U.S. Veterans synthesizes the new glut of research on veteran homelessness - geographic trends, root causes, effective and ineffective interventions to mitigate it - in a format that provides a needed reference as this public health fight continues to be fought. Codifying the data and research from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) campaign to end veteran homelessness, psychologist Jack Tsai links disparate lines of research to produce an advanced and elegant resource on a defining social issue of our time.

This book takes a case-based approach to addressing the challenges psychiatrists and other clinicians face when working with American combat veterans after their return from a war zone. Written by experts, the book concentrates on a wide variety of concerns associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including different treatments of PTSD. The text also looks at PTSD comorbidities, such as depression and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other conditions masquerading as PTSD. Finally, the authors touch on other subjects concerning returning veterans, including pain, disability, facing the end of a career, sleep problems , suicidal thoughts, violence, , and mefloquine "toxidrome". Each case study includes a case presentation, diagnosis and assessment, treatment and management, outcome and case resolution, and clinical pearls and pitfalls. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Related Diseases in Combat Veterans is a valuable resource for civilian and military mental health practitioners, and primary care physicians on how to treat patients returning from active war zones.

The idea of late medieval arms and armour often conjures up images of lumbering warriors, clad in heavy plate armour, hacking away at with each other with enormous weapons - depictions perpetuated in both bad literature and bad movies. In this introductory guide, replete with fabulous photography and marvellous anecdotes, internationally-renowned edged weapons expert Robert Woosnam-Savage describes the brutal reality of personal protection and attack in the so-called 'age of chivalry'. From Bannockburn to Bosworth, Poitiers to Pavia, this book is an indispensable introduction to an iconic era.

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser, who have both served in the military, examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Robillard and Strawser offer an original normative theory of 'moral exploitation'-the notion that persons or groups can be wrongfully exploited by being made to shoulder an excessive amount of moral weight. They make the case that this exploitation accurately describes the relationship between the United States and the members of its military, and offer a thorough and in-depth analysis of some of the exploitative and misleading elements of present-day military recruitment, the moral burdens soldiers often bear, and the stifling effect that a 'Thank You for Your Service' and 'I support the troops' culture has had on serious public engagement about America's ongoing wars. Robillard and Strawser offer a piercing critique of the pernicious divide between military members and the civilians who direct them. They conclude by arguing for several normative and prudential prescriptions to help close this ever-widening fissure between the U.S. and its military, and within the U.S. itself. In so doing, their work gives a much needed and urgent voice to America's soldiers, the other 1%.

"No one writes with more authority or cool-eyed compassion about the experience of women in war both on and off the battlefield than Helen Benedict. In Wolf Season, she shows us the complicated ways in which the lives of those who serve and those who don't intertwine and how regardless of whether you are a soldier, the family of a soldier, or a refugee the war follows you and your children for generations. Wolf Season is more than a novel for our times; it should be required reading." Elissa Schappell, author of Use Me and Blueprints for Building Better Girls "Fierce and vivid and full of hope, this story of trauma and resilience, of love and family, of mutual aid and solidarity in the aftermath of a brutal war is nothing short of magic. Helen Benedict is the voice of an American conscience that has all too often been silenced. To read these pages is to be transported to a world beyond hype and propaganda to see the human cost of war up close. This is not a novel that allows you to walk away unchanged." Cara Hoffman, author of Be Safe I Love You and Running "Wolf Season delves into the complexities and murk of the after-war with blazing clarity. You will come to treasure these characters for their strengths and foibles alike." Matt Gallagher, author of Kaboom and Youngblood After a hurricane devastates a small town in upstate New York, the lives of three women and their young children are irrevocably changed. Rin, an Iraq War veteran, tries to protect her blind daughter and the three wolves under her care. Naema, a widowed doctor who fled Iraq with her wounded son, faces life-threatening injuries. Beth, who is raising a troubled son, waits out her Marine husband's deployment in Afghanistan, equally afraid of him coming home and of him never returning at all. As they struggle to maintain their humanity and find hope, their war-torn lives collide in a way that will affect their entire community. Helen Benedict is the author of seven novels, including Sand Queen, a Publishers Weekly "Best Contemporary War Novel"; five works of nonfiction about justice, women, soldiers, and war; and the play The Lonely Soldier Monologues: Women at War in Iraq. She lives in New York.