"On previous flight ops, when a launch was delayed, we usually passed the time telling jokes or exchanging the latest scuttlebutt. Tonight was different. Each of us sat silently with our own thoughts. All of us, I'm sure, made impossible promises to God, and I was one of them. My gut was wound so tight, it was hard to breathe, no less talk. For the umpteenth time, I tightened the harness of my chute. I remember praying, 'Whatever else happens, don't make me bail out of this thing '"
With little to no recognition from the general public, navy enlisted aircrewmen performed heroically in the Korean War. Manning radios and radar, they were indispensable to the success of missions. Aviation Electronics Technician Second Class Jack Sauter was one such aircrewman. Assigned to the USS "Midway" and the USS "Lake Champlain," he flew twenty-one early warning and antisubmarine missions from the backseat of a Douglas Skyraider with Task Force 77 off Korea in support of our troops.
From the excitement and thrill of being catapulted from the deck of an aircraft carrier to the tedium of service at sea, the author describes in detail his service in the Korean air war.

The Korean Language Flagship Center (KLFC) aims to produce professionals who can function in Korean in their chosen fields. After two years of intensive Korean language training customized to their fields, graduates of this program are expected to take their place among the next generation of global professionals as Korea specialists, commanding professional-level proficiency in Korean. Successful completion of the program and demonstration of the ability to use Korean at a professional level (ILR 3, ACTFL Superior) lead to the Master of Arts degree in Korean for Professionals. This monograph series is a compilation of the students' research critical and controversial issues in Korea or Korea-US relations. The series is issued every year and includes scholarly papers written by all graduates.

Here is the firsthand account of a member of one of the United States Army's three-man Tactical Psychological Operations Teams, groups of men tasked with winning the hearts and minds of Iraq's civilian population through leaflets, loudspeakers, conversation, and bribery. Transcribed from and inspired by Russell Snyder's personal wartime journal, it is a story of introspection, relating how the feelings of eagerness and uncertainty in a young man unfamiliar with war were replaced with the dread knowledge that, buried within his soul, beneath a facade of goodwill and morality, lurked the capacity to kill his fellow men. There are scenes of battle retold within the pages of Hearts and Mines, descriptions of the feelings of seeing once-familiar human bodies destroyed beyond recognition. Some days are described as being full of hope and appreciation for the beauty of the world, others with despair for the omnipresent cruelty and destruction which has a habit of consuming men when they feel unaccountable for their actions. It captures the sensory experience of living in a singular environment full of strange plants and animals, friends true and false, and determined enemies, encapsulating the existential fear of mortar and rocket attacks, as well as the ridiculousness of military bureaucracy, such as was demonstrated by a sergeant major's decision to punish graffiti artists by removing the doors of all the camp's toilets.

Preparation for warfare materially reshapes rural landscapes and environments; this is a comparative history and geography of militarized landscapes. The black smoke billowing from burning oil wells during the Gulf War of 1990-91 directed media and public attention towards war's devastating environmental impact. Yet even before the first bomb is dropped, preparation for warfare materially and imaginatively reshapes rural landscapes and environments. This volume is the first to explore the comparative histories and geographies of militarized landscapes. Moving beyond the narrow definition of militarized landscapes as theatres of war, it treats them as simultaneously material and cultural sites that have been partially or fully mobilized to achieve military aims. Ranging from the Korean DMZ to nuclear testing sites in the American West, and from Gettysburg to Salisbury Plain, "Militarized Landscapes" focuses on these often secretive, hidden, dangerous and invariably controversial sites that occupy huge swathes of national territories.

Known as the graveyard of empires, Afghanistan has now been singled out as Obama's "just war," the destination for an additional thirty thousand US troops in an effort to shore up an increasingly desperate occupation. Nick Turse brings together a range of leading commentators, politicians, and military strategists to analyze America's real motives and likely prospects. Through on-the-spot reporting, clear-headed analysis and historical comparisons with Afghanistan's previous occupiers-Britain and the Soviet Union, who also argued that they were fighting a just and winnable war-The Case for Withdrawal From Afghanistan carefully examines the current US strategy and offers sobering conclusions. This timely and focused collection aims at the heart of Obama's foreign policy and shows why it is so unlikely to succeed.

No Lack of Courage is the story of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Operation Medusa, the largely Canadian action in Afghanistan from 1 to 17 September 2006, to dislodge a heavily entrenched Taliban force in the Pashmul district of Afghanistans Kandahar Province. At stake, according to senior Afghan politicians and NATO military commanders, was nothing less than the very existence of the reconstituted state of Afghanistan, as well as the NATO alliance itself. In a bitterly fought conflict that lasted more than two weeks, Canadian, Afghan, and Coalition troops defeated the dug-in enemy forces and chased them from the Pashmul area.

In the end, the brunt of the fighting fell on the Canadians, and the operation that saved Afghanistan exacted a great cost. However, the battle also demonstrated that Canada had shed its peacekeeping mythology and was once more ready to commit troops deliberately to combat. Moreover, it revealed yet again that Canadian soldiers have no lack of courage.

Iraq: The Moral Reckoning applies classic just war theory to the U.S. decision to go to war in 2003. That theory, which evolved over several millennia, is a simple, profound tool for evaluating the rightness and wisdom of starting a war. The Bush administration and its supporters referred directly and indirectly to the theory in making a pro-war case to the world. The theory provides three core moral criteria for a just war: sovereign authority, just cause, and right intention (which includes an aim of peace). It adds three practical criteria: proportionality of ends, last resort, and reasonable chance of success. For a just war, each criterion should be substantially met. Since war is destructive and each country is presumed to have the right to live in peace, the evidence in favor of war must be clearly stronger than evidence against it. For each criterion, Iraq: The Moral Reckoning painstakingly weighs Bush administration statements, or those of its supporters, against evidence available at the time. A wide range of viewpoints and evidence is considered, and contrary arguments are refuted. One full chapter is given to neoconservative arguments on just war theory and its application from prominent war supporters. Each criterion, except sovereign authority, is shown not to have been met. The book concludes with a discussion of the implications of an unjust war for the United States and the world. The intensive weighing of each criterion against the facts and the balanced approach make the book unique. By demonstrating a comprehensive application of the theory to one war, it not only sets a new standard for evaluating the 2003 Iraq war, but also shows how present and future wars can be better evaluated in moral and practical terms, based on knowledge available at the time.

For nearly two decades, the US and its allies have prosecuted war and aggression in Iraq. "Erasing Iraq "shows in unparalleled detail the devastating human cost.

Western governments and the mainstream media continue to ignore or play down the human costs of the war on Iraqi citizens This has allowed them to present their role as the benign guardians of Iraqi interests. The authors deconstruct this narrative by presenting a portrait of the total carnage in Iraq today as told by Iraqis and other witnesses who experienced it first hand.

Featuring in-depth interviews with Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan and from Western countries, ""Erasing Iraq ""is a comprehensive and moving account of the Iraqi people's tragedy.

An Australian general; 300,000 troops; the bloodiest conflict of our time.The ultimate insider account about what really is going on in Iraq. It's the most controversial conflict of our time: a war which has divided citizens, politicians, and militaries, resulted in headlines about torture and suicide bombings, death and destruction. there's no single identifiable enemy and no exit strategy. So how will the war in Iraq be won? What will victory look like? In 2004, when Australian Major General Jim Molan was deployed to the war to oversee a force of 300,000 troops, including 155,000 Americans, he faced these and other questions on a daily basis. In Running the War in Iraq he gives a gripping insider's account of what modern warfare entails - the ghastly body count, the complex decisions which will mean life or death, the divide between political masters and foot soldiers - and the small, hard-won triumphs.

Based on audiotapes he recorded during the war and sent home to his family, Randy Zahn’s Snake Pilot recounts his experiences flying AH-1 Cobra helicopters during the Vietnam War. First deployed in Vietnam in 1967 and loaded with a formidable arsenal of weaponry, the Cobra was the first helicopter designed from inception as an attack aircraft. It dramatically changed the nature of the war in Vietnam by offering the Army, for the first time, its own powerful and highly accurate weapons platform for close-air-support missions. Randy Zahn arrived in Vietnam shortly before the 1970 U.S. invasion of Cambodia, one of the most impressive demonstrations by the Cobra in the war. He describes his stunning transformation from a naive, middle-class teenager from southern California to a hardened killer during his tour in Vietnam. Unlike the pilots who flew the fast-moving strike jets, Zahn experienced the war“up close and personal,� witnessing the grisly effects of the Cobra’s firepower on enemy soldiers. The author does not glorify killing but rather explains in sharp relief the kaleidoscope of emotions associated with combat: fear, revenge, hate, remorse, pity, and even ecstasy. He captures many of the ironies and nuances inherent in Vietnam, especially during the final years of the conflict. Zahn displays a sensitivity rarely found in memoirs written by battle-hardened warriors. This human element, combined with the vast amount of archival research and interviews with members of his former unit, ensures that Snake Pilot will become the definitive account of the role helicopters played in Vietnam.

This is a history of Israel's expansionist policies, documenting Israel's policy of expelling Palestinians either by war or peaceful means. It demonstrates that the imperialist tendencies in Israel run the political gamut from Left to Right and are not limited to extremists alone. Masalha argues that the heart of the conflict between Zionist immigrants/settlers and the native Palestinians has always been about land, territory, demography and water. He documents how Israeli policy has made it a priority to expel the Palestinians, either by war or peaceful measures. But these imperialist tendencies are not restricted to extremist zealots. The author uncovers the expansionist policies found in Labour Zionism and Kookist ideology. Chapters cover the whole land of Israel movement, Zionist revisionism, parties and movements of the far Right and the evolution of Israeli Jewish public attitudes since 1967.

'Being a JTAC is the closest a soldier on the ground in the midst of battle can get to feeling like one of the gods - unleashing pure hellfire, death and destruction' - Duncan Falconer Meet Sergeant 'Bommer' Grahame, one of the deadliest soldiers on the battlefield. He's an elite army JTAC (Joint Terminal Attack Controller- pronounced 'jay-tack') - a specially trained warrior responsible for directing Allied air power with high-tech precision. Commanding Apache gunships, A10 tank-busters, F15s and Harrier jets, he brings down devastating fire strikes against the attacking Taliban, often danger close to his own side. Due to his specialist role, Sergeant Grahame usually operates in the thick of the action, where it's at its most fearsome and deadly. Conjuring the seemingly impossible from apparently hopeless situations, soldiers in battle rely on the skill and bravery of their JTAC to enable them to win through in the heat of the danger zone. Fire Strike 7/9 tells the story of Bommer Grahame and his five-man Fire Support Team on their tour of Afghanistan. Patrolling deep into enemy territory, they were hunted and targeted by the Taliban, shot at, blown-up, mortared and hit by rockets on numerous occasions. Under these conditions Sergeant Grahame notched up 203 confirmed enemy kills, making him the difference between life and death both for his own troops and the Taliban.

Canada's six-year military mission in Afghanistan's Kandahar province was one of the most intense and challenging moments in Canadian foreign affairs since the Korean War. A complex war fought in an inhospitable environment, the Afghanistan mission tested the mettle not just of Canada's soldiers but also of its politicians, public servants, and policy makers. In Adapting in the Dust, Stephen M. Saideman considers how well the Canadian government, media, and public managed the challenge. Building on interviews with military officers, civilian officials, and politicians, Saideman shows how key actors in Canada's political system, including the prime minister, the political parties, and parliament, responded to the demands of a costly and controversial mission. Some adapted well; others adapted poorly or - worse yet - in ways that protected careers but harmed the mission itself. Adapting in the Dust is a vital evaluation of how well Canada's institutions, parties, and policy makers responded to the need to oversee and sustain a military intervention overseas, and an important guide to what will have to change in order to do better next time.

Blaine Harden, New York Times-bestselling author of Escape From Camp 14, tells the riveting story of Kim Il Sung's rise to power and the young North Korean fighter pilot who dared to defy him. In the aftermath of World War II, Kim Il Sung plunged North Korea into war against the United States while the youngest fighter pilot in his air force was playing a high-risk game of deception-and escape. As Kim ascended from Soviet puppet to godlike ruler, No Kum Sok pretended to love his Great Leader. That is, until he swiped a Soviet MiG-15 and delivered it to the Americans, not knowing they were offering a $100,000 bounty for the warplane (the equivalent of nearly one million dollars today). The theft-just weeks after the Korean War ended in July 1953-electrified the world and incited Kim's bloody vengeance. During the Korean War the United States brutally carpet bombed the North, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and giving the Kim dynasty, as Harden reveals, the fact-based narrative it would use to this day to sell paranoia and hatred of Americans. Drawing on documents from Chinese and Russian archives about the roles of Mao and Stalin in Kim's shadowy rise, as well as from never-before-released U.S. intelligence and interrogation files, Harden gives us a heart-pounding adventure and an entirely new way to understand the world's longest-lasting totalitarian state.

Don't Mention the War examines Australian media coverage of the war in Afghanistan. The book demonstrates how the military's public affairs personnel have taken over many of the roles traditionally performed by reporters and shows the restrictive affect of this on media coverage. This tight media management is contrasted with the more open approach of Dutch and Canadian militaries in Afghanistan, a fact that is explained through reference to the different positions of the military within these different nations. As opposed to the Dutch and the Canadians, who had reputations to rebuild, the almost uniquely exalted position of the military in Australia has enabled and driven a media strategy tailored to defend the Australian military's high social standing. In Australian media coverage, the book goes on to argue, the war in Afghanistan has then functioned as another platform for the celebration of national military virtues. What has been offered is less a representation of action than an affirmation of identity; less a chronicle of unfolding events than a testament to immutable character. *** "Foster argues convincingly that the ADF's determination to keep an iron grip on information, based on an entrenched cultural distain for journalists, a resistance to scrutiny, and an obsession with protecting its reputation, meant that what it was actually doing in Afghanistan remained a mystery. While he attributes authorship of this mystery to the ADF hierarchy, supported at times by politicians, journalists don't escape his censure. His book is an indictment of the lack of commitment by Australian editors to covering the Afghan war." - Tom Hyland, Inside Story, January 2014

This excellent book is a painfully honest account of successive unwinnable wars. It is the text book Mr. Obama and others will need if Afghanistan is ever to be left to find its own peace and prosperity. --Jon Snow, Channel 4 News (UK) Jonathan Steele, an award-winning journalist and commentator, has covered the country since his first visit there as a reporter in 1981. He tracked the Soviet occupation and the communist regime of Najibullah, which held the Western-backed resistance at bay for three years after the Soviets left. He covered the arrival of the Taliban to power in Kabul in 1996, and their retreat from Kandahar under the weight of U.S. bombing in 2001. Most recently Steele has reported from the epicenter of the Taliban resurgence in Helmand. Ghosts of Afghanistan turns a spotlight on the numerous myths about Afghanistan that have bedeviled foreign policy-makers and driven them to repeat earlier mistakes. Steele has conducted numerous interviews with ordinary Afghans, two of the country's Communist presidents, senior Soviet occupation officials, as well as Taliban leaders, Western diplomats, NATO advisers, and United Nations negotiators. Comparing the challenges facing the Obama administration as it seeks to find an exit strategy with those the Kremlin faced in the 1980s, Steele cautions that military victory will elude the West just as it eluded the Kremlin. Showing how and why Soviet efforts to negotiate an end to the war came to nothing, he explains how negotiations today could put a stop to the tragedies of civil war and foreign intervention that have afflicted Afghanistan for three decades.

The gripping story of Private Bradley Manning, the soldier who is alleged to have leaked nearly half a million classified documents.

Bradley Manning was arrested, imprisoned in solitary confinement for nine months, and court-martialled for leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous “Collateral Murder” gunsight video. He was an intelligence analyst in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division, is twenty-four, and comes from Crescent, Oklahoma.

But who is Private First Class Bradley Manning? Why did he commit the largest security breach in American history—and why was it so easy? In this book, the astonishing leaks attributed to Bradley Manning are viewed from many angles, from Tunisia to Guantánamo Bay, from Foggy Bottom to Baghdad to small-town Oklahoma. Around the world, the eloquent act of one young man obliges citizens to ask themselves if they have the right to know what their government is doing.

In a world in which advanced communication technologies have made the reporting of disasters and conflicts (also in the form of breaking news) a familiar and 'normalised' activity, the information we present here about television news reporting of the 2003 war in Iraq has implications that go beyond this particular conflict. Evaluation and Stance in War News functions as a tool kit for the critical evaluation of language in the news, both as raw data in need of interpretation and as carefully packaged products of 'information management' in need of 'unpacking'. The chapters offer an array of theoretical and empirical instruments for revealing, identifying, sifting, weighing and connecting patterns of language use that construct messages. These messages carry with them world views and value systems that can either create an ever wider divide or serve to build bridges between peoples and countries.

Thomas E. Rick's news-breaking follow up to the #1 "New York Times" bestseller "Fiasco"
Now updated to fully document the inside story of the Iraq war since late 2005, "The Gamble" is the definitive account of the insurgency within the U.S. military that led to a radical shift in America's strategy. Based on unprecedented real-time access to the military's entire chain of command, Ricks examines the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that "the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened."

In many ways the end of the Vietnam War left the US army a spent force. Plagued by low morale, drug and race issues, and terrible public relations, the army faced an uphill climb in the effort to rebuild itself. The story of this reconstruction is mirrored in the rise of the Mechanized Infantryman. Deciding that the key to future conflict lay in highly trained and mobile warriors that could be delivered quickly to battle, the army adopted the mechanized infantryman as its frontline troops. This new, all-volunteer force was given the best training and equipment that money could buy. Most notably, they were to be deployed onto the battlefield from the new M2 Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle.
This new breed of American warriors got their first test in the First Gulf War. Fighting in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq, these soldiers proved that the US Army was once again a force with which to be reckoned. This book tells the complete story of the rise of the US mechanized infantryman, focusing on his recruitment, training, lifestyle and combat experiences in Iraq.

In this often moving, sometimes wry account of life in Baghdad during the first war on Iraq and in exile in the years following, Iraqi-born, British-educated artist Nuha al-Radi shows us the effects of war on ordinary people. She recounts the day-to-day realities of living in a city under siege, where food has to be consumed or thrown out because there is no way to preserve it, where eventually people cannot sleep until the nightly bombing commences, where packs of stray dogs roam the streets (and provide her own dog Salvi with a harem) and rats invade homes. Through it all, al-Radi works at her art and gathers with neighbors and family for meals and other occasions, happy and sad.

In the wake of the war, al-Radi lives in semi-exile, shuttling between Beirut and Amman, travelling to New York, London, Mexico and Yemen. As she suffers the indignities of being an Iraqi in exile, al-Radi immerses us in a way of life constricted by the stress and effects of war and embargoes, giving texture to a reality we have only been able to imagine before now. But what emanates most vibrantly from these diaries is the spirit of endurance and the celebration of the smallest of life’s joys.

Drawing on reinterpretations of melancholia and collective remembrance, Memory, Reconciliation, and Reunions in South Korea: Crossing the Divide explores the multi-layered implications of divided Korea's liminality, or its perceived "in-betweenness" in space and time. Offering a timely reconsideration of the pivotal period following the inter-Korean Summit of June 2000, this book focuses on a series of emotionally charged meetings among family members who had lost all contact for over fifty years on opposite sides of the Korean divide. With the scope of its analysis ranging from regional geopolitics and watershed political rituals to everyday social dynamics and intimate family narratives, this study provides a lens for approaching the cultural process of moving from a disposition of enmity to one of recognition and engagement amid the complex legacies of civil war and the global Cold War on the Korean Peninsula.

This classic history of the Korean War-from its origins through the armistice-is now available in a paperback edition including a substantive introduction that considers the heightened danger of a new Northeast Asian war as Trump and Kim Jung-un escalate their rhetoric. Wada Haruki, one of the world's leading scholars of the war, draws on archival and other primary sources in Russia, China, the United States, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan to provide the first full understanding of the Korean War as an international conflict from the perspective of all the actors involved. Wada traces the North Korean invasion of South Korea in riveting detail, providing new insights into the behavior of Kim Il Sung and Syngman Rhee. He also provides new insights into the behavior of Communist leaders in Korea, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and their rivals in other nations. He traces the course of the war from its origins in the North and South Korean leaders' failed attempts to unify their country by force, ultimately escalating into a Sino-American war on the Korean Peninsula. Although sixty-five years have passed since the armistice, the Korean conflict has never really ended. Tensions remain high on the peninsula as Washington and Pyongyang, as well as Seoul and Pyongyang, continue to face off. It is even more timely now to address the origins of the Korean War, the nature of the confrontation, and the ways in which it affects the geopolitical landscape of Northeast Asia and the Pacific region. With his unmatched ability to draw on sources from every country involved, Wada paints a rich and full portrait of a conflict that continues to generate controversy.

National Bestseller

One of the Best Books of the Year:

"New York Times," "Washington Post," "Los Angeles Times," "USA Today," "Boston Globe," and "Time"

An instant classic of war reporting, The Forever War is the definitive account of America's conflict with Islamic fundamentalism and a searing exploration of its human costs. Through the eyes of Filkins, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, we witness the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, the aftermath of the attack on New York on September 11th, and the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins is the only American journalist to have reported on all these events, and his experiences are conveyed in a riveting narrative filled with unforgettable characters and astonishing scenes.

Brilliant and fearless, The Forever War is not just about America's wars after 9/11, but about the nature of war itself.