As an asthmatic teenager in the 1950s, I longed for a life in a place more exotic and warm for my condition than the then dreary Britain. National Service seemed to offer such a chance to a stockbroker's clerk (office boy) such as me. It did. I ended up, after disappointments danger and drama, in Egypt. What could be more exciting to an 18 year old than the land of the Pharaohs, pyramids and permanent (almost) sun? Adventures and misadventures abounded there for me. I have tried to relate them in an as amusing a narrative as possible. Come with me on this sometimes hilarious, sometimes disastrous journey.

In 1914, the 2nd Line Territorial Force divisions experienced a difficult birth and faced an uncertain future. Deprived of men and equipment, and with the War Office patently biased towards the Kitchener Armies, the 2nd Line lived a Cinderella existence. Regularly the subject of querulous questions in parliament, the government and military authorities appeared to have had little clear idea of what they actually wanted from the 2nd Line. After more than two years on home defence duties, and now filled with Derbyites and conscripts rather than volunteer territorials, seven divisions deployed abroad. The six divisions which remained in the UK were either disbanded or by the transfer of individual units lost what little of their territorial affiliation had survived. When the seven divisions arrived on the Western Front opinion on their potential worth was very much divided. Their deployment had almost as much to do with demonstrating British commitment to the continental war as it did with boosting the Allied armies by the despatch of additional forces. This study examines the 2nd Line's struggles to reach establishment, discover a role, and achieve a degree of efficiency. These difficulties defined the emerging qualities and ethos of the formations and of their component units. Analyses of their performances in different battlefield scenarios affords assessments of the divisions' fighting power. Their acquisition of battlefield skills, their conceptual understanding of the war's evolving character, and their development of organizational and command structures are examined critically through the prism of both contemporary and modern doctrine. In addition to the experiences of general trench warfare, 2nd Line divisions fought at Fromelles, Bullecourt, Third Ypres, Cambrai, and in the German offensive of March 1918. In the same way as for many divisions, some of their engagements were poorly planned, ill-prepared, and badly executed; others demonstrated a developing maturity and willingness to learn from mistakes. While not appearing in recent historians' lists of 'best' divisions, the evidence suggests the sometimes derided 2nd Line formations generally did not warrant their often dubious reputations.

U.S. military conflicts abroad have left nine million Americans dependent on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) for medical care. Their "wounds of war" are treated by the largest hospital system in the country-one that has come under fire from critics in the White House, on Capitol Hill, and in the nation's media. In Wounds of War, Suzanne Gordon draws on five years of observational research to describe how the VHA does a better job than private sector institutions offering primary and geriatric care, mental health and home care services, and support for patients nearing the end of life. In the unusual culture of solidarity between patients and providers that the VHA has fostered, Gordon finds a working model for higher-quality health care and a much-needed alternative to the practice of for-profit medicine.

On a U.S. military base near Fallujah in war-torn Iraq, Col. John Folsom woke up one morning to the sound of a small, scruffy donkey tied up outside his quarters. He was charmed by this scrawny animal with a plaintive expression. Folsom and his fellow Marines took in the donkey, built him a corral and shelter, and escorted him on daily walks. One night, hanging out with the Marines as they relaxed after work, the donkey snatched someone's lit cigarette and gobbled it up, to the laughter of all. Suddenly, the donkey had a name: Smoke. More than a conversation topic for troops connecting with families back home, Smoke served as mascot, ambassador, and battle buddy. Smoke the Donkey recounts the strong friendship between Folsom and this stray donkey and the massive challenges of reuniting Smoke with Folsom in the United States following Folsom's retirement. After being given to a local sheik, Smoke wandered the desert before Folsom rallied an international team to take him on a convoluted journey to his new home. The team won a protracted bureaucratic battle to move Smoke from Iraq to Turkey, only to face a tougher fight getting him out of Turkey. Once in the States, Smoke became a beloved therapy animal for both children and veterans. Smoke's story, while tinged with sadness, speaks to the enduring bond between a man and an animal, unbroken by war, distance, or red tape.

The Royal Army Medical Corps was present during all engagements in the Second World War. From the frozen wastes of Norway through to liberation from the death camps of Germany and the Far East, RAMC personnel were frequently close to the front line, risking their lives to provide medical support to a mobile army in a mechanised war. Nearly 3,000 army medics were killed during the war as a result of enemy action and exposing themselves to dangerous tropical diseases. Using much previously unpublished material from public and private family archives, this book charts the story of those who remained true to the motto of the RAMC: Faithful in Adversity.

Based largely upon unpublished sources, Omer Bartov's study looks closely at the background of the German army on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. He describes the physical hardship, the discipline and morale at the front, and analyzes the social, educational, and political background of the junior officers who formed the backbone of the German army. Only with these factors in mind, together with the knowledge of the extent of National Socialist indoctrination, can we begin to explain the criminal activities of the German army in Russia and the extent of involvement of the army in the execution of Hitler's brutal policies.

The Centenary Classics series examines the fascinating time of change and evolution in the Ireland of 100 years ago during the 1916-23 revolutionary period. Each volume is introduced by Fearghal McGarry who sets the scene of this important period in Ireland's history. Victory and Woe is an account of life at the grassroots during the Irish War of Independence and the Civil War by the Officer Commanding, 2nd Battalion, West Limerick Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. Mossie Harnett (1893-1977), who fought on the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War, describes his early life on a farm in Tournafulla in the southwest corner of Limerick, his enrolment in the Irish Volunteers in 1915, and his involvement in the conflict until his release from a Free State prison in 1923. In an appendix, the British troops' little-known and short-lived practice of taking hostages in order to protect themselves is vividly described by Mossie's cousin, Dr Edward Harnett, who was taken hostage in spring 1921. An introduction by Harnett's son-in-law, James H. Joy, places his father-in-law's text in the context of the revolutionary period.

In medieval times an individual often needed to defend his life, his family and his property. Mercenaries earned their living by hiring out their skills, while feudal noblemen regularly mustered their men-at-arms and their subordinate vassals and tenants to provide military service, even to the point of leading them on Crusades to the Holy Land and elsewhere. In the later medieval period the growing cities required their citizens to take up arms as militia in defence of the community during times of external threat. In The Medieval Fighting Man - Europa Militaria Special No 18, meticulous use is made of the sources available to enable the materials, colours and patterns used for reconstructed clothing to represent the 'real thing' as accurately as possible. Fortunately, great numbers of medieval weapons and pieces of armour survived and can now be viewed in displays, and these form the basis of the arms presented in this book.

This book is the first part of a two-volume investigation into the clothing orders of the British late Georgian army, combined and contrasted with an analysis of fashion in the same army - comparing the regulated dress with the 'modes of the army' as revealed by contemporary writing and illustrations. The first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a refinement of fashionable masculine dress that has not since been surpassed. Military tailoring inspired a parallel flowering of uniform splendour that continued into the 1830s and sparked an enduring fascination with military costume that still rages today. The army that operated in these cumbersome uniforms managed to achieve fame as one of the most effective British fighting forces ever recognised, and is still remembered and honoured for its achievements. These three strands: the flowering of late Georgian civilian tailoring; of its martial equivalent; and of military excellence on campaign, have gripped the interest and the imagination of the public, and are endlessly revived and recycled through popular culture, on television, film, through books and all of the other new media. The reader then might properly ask why another book on uniforms of this period is necessary. Quite simply, it is because the amount of material available to the researcher has increased exponentially since the advent of the internet, especially in regard to the now widely available digital archive files of institutional collections. The huge amount of accessible material makes the task of assembling accurate information much longer and much harder, but the results are consequentially more satisfying and accurate than hitherto.

The second part of an investigation into the clothing orders of the late-Georgian British Army, combined and contrasted with an analysis of fashion in the same army - comparing the regulated dress with the 'modes of the army' as revealed by contemporary writing and illustrations. The first quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a refinement of fashionable masculine dress that has not since been surpassed. Military tailoring inspired a flowering of uniform splendour that continued into the 1830s and sparked an enduring fascination with military costume that still rages today. The army that operated in these cumbersome uniforms managed to achieve fame as one of the most effective British fighting forces ever recognised, and is still remembered and honoured for its achievements. These three strands: the flowering of late Georgian civilian tailoring; of its martial equivalent; and of military excellence on campaign, have gripped the interest and the imagination of the public, and are endlessly revived and recycled through popular culture, on television, film, through books and all of the other new media. The reader then might properly ask why another book on uniforms of this period is necessary. Quite simply, it is because the amount of material available to the researcher has increased exponentially since the advent of the internet, especially in regard to the now widely available digital archive files of institutional collections. The huge amount of accessible material makes the task of assembling accurate information much longer and much harder, but the results are consequentially more satisfying and accurate than hitherto. This, the second of two books on the topic, pays particular attention to the 'Prince's Regulations,' of 1812, which exhibit the full extent of the Prince Regent's excursions into military taste.

While the 6th Airborne Division had landed in France on D-Day and covered itself in glory, its counterpart, the 1st Airborne Division, had last seen action during an amphibious assault at Taranto on September 9, 1943, as part of the invasion of Italy. Returned to the UK in December 1943, it was held in reserve during the battle of Normandy and spent three months waiting for action, as plan after plan was proposed and then discarded, such was the speed of the Allied pursuit of the Germans. In September 1944, however, 1st Airborne played a leading role in Operation Market-the air component of Operation Market Garden, an audacious attempt by the Allies to bypass the Siegfried Line and advance into the Ruhr. It was to be 1st Airborne's last action of the war. Encountering more resistance than expected, including II SS Panzer Corps, the division landed too far from Arnhem bridge, and fought bravely but in vain. Held up en route, particularly at Nijmegen, XXX Corps' advance to Arnhem stuttered and ran late. After nine days of fighting, 1st Airborne had lost 8,000 men around Arnhem when the survivors retreated across the Lower Rhine to safety. During those nine days, however, they had created a legend: first as the small unit under Lt-Col John Frost held the "bridge too far" and then as the Oosterbeek perimeter came under sustained attack waiting for XXX Corps to arrive. The Past& Present Series reconstructs historical battles by using photography, juxtaposing modern views with those of the past together with concise explanatory text. It shows how much infrastructure has remained and how much such as outfits, uniforms, and ephemera has changed, providing a coherent link between now and then.

Known in health care circles for his ability to fix ailing hospitals, David Shulkin was originally brought into government by President Obama, in an attempt to save the broken Department of Veterans Affairs. When President Trump made him the first VA secretary without military experience-a fact Dr. Shulkin first learned from his television-he was as shocked as anyone. Yet this surprise was trivial compared to what Shulkin encountered as the VA secretary: a team of political appointees devoted to stopping anyone -- including the secretary himself -- who stood in the way of privatising the organisation. In this uninhibited memoir, Shulkin opens up about why the government has long struggled to get good medical care to military veterans and how the current government has stopped even trying. This is a book about the commitment we make to the people who risk their lives for our country, how and why we've failed to honour it and why the new administration is making things worse than they've ever been.

Due to its partitions and dissolution in the late eighteenth century, hundreds of thousands of Polish soldiers enlisted in distinct units in the armies of many countries - primarily those of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, but also that of the German Reich and the French Republic.

All these forces were uniformed and equipped by the parent armies, though often with explicitly Polish features. The collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917 and of the Central Powers in 1918 allowed these diverse forces to unite in a re-created Polish Army under the new-born Second Polish Republic in November 1918. With full colour illustrations of their unique and colourful uniforms as well as contemporary photographs, this is the fascinating story of the Poles who fought on both sides of the trenches in World War I and then united to fight for their freedom in the Russian Civil War.

Combines perspectives on aesthetics and embodiment to understand militarism in international politics This vibrant collection of essays reveals the intimate politics of how people with a wide range of relationships to war identify with, and against, the military and its gendered and racialised norms. It synthesises three recent turns in the study of international politics: aesthetics, embodiment and the everyday, into a new conceptual framework. This helps us to understand how militarism permeates society and how far its practices can be re-appropriated or even turned against it.

""Winter Soldiers "is an immensely valuable contribution to the history of the Vietnam War. It brings to life, through the words of the veterans themselves, the journey each individual made, through the crucible of combat, from warrior to protester."--Howard Zinn

"Stacewicz has captured the simple, rough-hewn elegance of the voices of Vietnam veterans. As in other wars, the ordinary soldier always has the most extraordinary words for history."--Stanley Kutler, editor of "The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War"

"By turns irreverent and painfully sincere, "Winter Soldiers "will transform stereotyped views of both veterans and the antiwar movement."--Marilyn Young

The Vietnam War left an indelible mark on those who took part in it and spawned an antiwar movement more popular than any other in US history. In all that has been written about the war, rarely do the worlds of the Vietnam veteran and the antiwar demonstrator come together. Yet in a small but articulate organization known as the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), the two made common cause.

"Winter Soldiers "recovers this moving chapter in the history of the Vietnam War era. Bringing together the voices of more than thirty former and current members of the VVAW, oral historian Richard Stacewicz offers an eloquent account of the impact of the war on the lives of individuals and the nation.

Richard Stacewicz teaches history at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Here is the first social history devoted to the common soldier in the Russian army during the first half of the 19th-century--an examination of soldiers as a social class and the army as a social institution. By providing a comprehensive view of one of the most important groups in Russian society on the eve of the great reforms of the mid-1800s, Elise Wirtschafter contributes greatly to our understanding of Russia's complex social structure. Based on extensive research in previously unused Soviet archives, this work covers a wide array of topics relating to daily life in the army, including conscription, promotion and social mobility, family status, training, the regimental economy, military justice, and relations between soldiers and officers. The author emphasizes social relations and norms of behavior in the army, but she also addresses the larger issue of society's relationship to the autocracy, including the persistent tension between the tsarist state's need for military efficiency and its countervailing need to uphold the traditional norms of unlimited paternalistic authority. By examining military life in terms of its impact on soldiers, she analyzes two major concerns of tsarist social policy: how to mobilize society's resources to meet state needs and how to promote modernization (in this case military efficiency) without disturbing social arrangements founded on serfdom. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

How much power does the Soviet military exert on the politics of the Kremlin? This is one of the most controversial questions in the study of the Soviet Union, here addressed by eight top Western specialists on Soviet politics and security policy. While the authors assert that the civil-military relationship has been less turbulent than often believed, they also point out that Gorbachev's reforms threaten the system of buffers that have until now shielded the military-industrial world from disruption and change. Introduced by Timothy Colton's essay, "Perspectives on Civil-Military Relations," the volume discusses civil-military relations in relation to political change (Bruce Parrott), the KGB (Amy Knight), resource stringency and civil-military resource allocation (Robert Campbell), the defense industry (Julian Cooper), response to technological challenge (Thane Gustafson), social change (Ellen Jones), and consequences of external expansion (Bruce D. Porter). Gustafson has written a concluding chapter, "Toward a Crisis in Civil-Military Relations?" Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book is a full-scale study in English of tsarist civil-military relations in the last decades of the Russian Empire. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Donald Horowitz presents a case study of an attempted military coup in Sri Lanka. On the basis of interviews with twenty-three participants in this attempted coup--a mine of information rarely available for a study like this--he provides first-hand evidence of the way officers' motives interact with social and political conditions to foster coup attempts. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The nature of the military institution in Brazil, its relations with civilian governments up to 1964, and its use of power since the coup of that year are examined by Alfred Stepan. Throughout his study, while looking at the Brazilian experience, he tests and reformulates implicit and explicit models, propositions, and middle-range hypotheses in the literature of civil-military relations and in political development theory. Professor Stepan's analysis suggests that many of the expectations and hypotheses held by theoreticians and policymakers about the capabilities of the military in modernization need to be seriously qualified. His discussion of the socio-economic origins and career patterns of the officer corps and of the ideological changes within the Brazilian army makes extensive and systematic use of previously unexploited data: Brazilian military academy files, editorials, interviews with military and civilian leaders. Throughout, the experiences of Asian and African countries are compared to that of Brazil, thus providing a wide comparative framework. Contents: PART I: The Military in Politics: The Institutional Background. 1. Military Organizational Unity and National Orientation: Hypotheses and Qualifications. 2. The Size of the Military: Its Relevance for Political Behavior. 3. Social Origins and Internal Organization of the Officer Corps: Their Political Significance. PART II: The "Moderating Pattern" of Civil-Military Relations: Brazil, 1945-1964. 4. Civilian Aspects of the "Moderating Pattern." 5. The Functioning of the "Moderating Pattern"--A Comparative Analysis of Five Coups, 1945-1964. PART III: The Breakdown of the "Moderating Pattern" of Civil-Military Relations and the Emergence of Military Rule. 6. The Growing Sense of Crisis in the Regime, 1961-1964: Its Impact on the "Moderating Pattern." 7. The Impact of Political and Economic Crises on the Military: Growth of Institutional Fears, 1961-1964. 8. The Impact of Political and Economic Crises on the Military: The Escola Superior de Guerra and the Development of a New Military Ideology. 9. The Assumption of Power--The Revolution of 1964. PART IV: The Brazilian Military in Power, 1964-1968: A Case Study of the Political Problems of Military Government. 10. The Military in Power: First Political Decisions and Problems. 11. Military Unity and Military Succession: An Elite Analysis of the Castello Branco Government. 12. The Military as an Institution Versus the Military as Government. Index. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"As I am ingaged in this glories Cause I am will to go whare I am Called"-so Joseph Hodgkins, a shoemaker of Ipswich, Massachusetts, declared to his wife the purpose that sustained him through four crucial years of the American Revolution. Hodgkins and his fellow townsman Nathaniel Wade, a carpenter, turned out for the Lexington alarm, fought at Bunker Hill, retreated from Long Island past White Plains, attacked at Trenton and Princeton, and enjoyed triumph at Saratoga. One of them wintered at Valley Forge, and the other was promoted to command at West Point on the night that Benedict Arnold was revealed as a traitor. On countless nights of his long march Hodgkins wrote to his wife of his adventures, his fears and hopes; and she replied with homely details of family life in a wartime New England village. The letters that survive from the exchange, printed here as an appendix to the text, are a principal source for this intimate history of two company officers in Washington's army. This Glorious Cause is a heartwarming and stirring book, illuminating a significant part of our national experience and adding to our knowledge of why thousands of unknown patriots fought, how they fought, and what it meant to fight. Originally published in 1958. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.