John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest U.S. fighter pilot ever -- the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft -- the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu. They know only half the story. Boyd, more than any other person, saved fighter aviation from the predations of the Strategic Air Command. His manual of fighter tactics changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights. He discovered a physical theory that forever altered the way fighter planes were designed. Later in life, he developed a theory of military strategy that has been adopted throughout the world and even applied to business models for maximizing efficiency. And in one of the most startling and unknown stories of modern military history, the Air Force fighter pilot taught the U.S. Marine Corps how to fight war on the ground. His ideas led to America's swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War and foretold the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On a personal level, Boyd rarely met a general he couldn't offend. He was loud, abrasive, and profane. A man of daring, ferocious passion and intractable stubbornness, he was that most American of heroes -- a rebel who cared not for his reputation or fortune but for his country. He was a true patriot, a man who made a career of challenging the shortsighted and self-serving Pentagon bureaucracy. America owes Boyd and his disciples -- the six men known as the "Acolytes" -- a great debt. Robert Coram finally brings to light the remarkable story of a man who polarized all who knew him, but who left a legacy that will influence the military -- and all of America -- for decades to come. ..

Title: Political inquiries: to which is added, a plan for the general establishment of schools throughout the United States.Author: Robert CoramPublisher: Gale, Sabin Americana Description: Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more.Sabin Americana offers an up-close perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late 15th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Covering a span of over 400 years in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions and momentous events of the time. It provides access to documents from an assortment of genres, sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature and more.Now for the first time, these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++SourceLibrary: Huntington LibraryDocumentID: SABCP00985900CollectionID: CTRG93-B393PublicationDate: 17910101SourceBibCitation: Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to AmericaNotes: "This work is intended merely to introduce a better mode of education, than that generally adopted in the country schools, throughout the United States."--Verso of t.p.Collation: 107 p.; 23 cm

During the course of his military career, Bud Day won every available combat medal, escaped death on no less than seven occasions, and spent sixty-seven months as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, where his roommate was John McCain. Despite incredible torture, Day would not break. He became a hero to POWs everywhere - a man who fought without pause, a prisoner at war. Despite receiving the Medal of Honour and becoming the most highly decorated American in uniform, Day found himself passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, and he retired. But with his children grown and a lifetime of service to his country behind him, he engaged in his mightiest - and most surprising - battle of all. One day in 1995, Day was told by his pharmacist that his pain medication would no longer be free. He was furious and shocked; after all, he and his generation of veterans were promised free lifetime medical care when they signed on with the military. Propelled by his conscience and sense of duty, he dusted off his law degree and sued the U.S. government on behalf of 1.5 million powerless veterans.

From the earliest days of his 34-year military career, Victor 'Brute' Krulak displayed a facility for applying creative ways of fighting to the Marine Corps. He went on daring spy missions during the Second Sino-Japanese War, pioneered the use of amphibious vehicles and masterminded the invasion of Okinawa. In Vietnam, his Marines were more successful than the Army and many think that Vietnam might have been different had all US forces employed Krulak's ideas. And yet it can be argued that all of his wartime accomplishments pale in comparison to what he did after World War II: he single-handedly stopped the U.S. government from abolishing the Marine Corps. Now the biographer Robert Coram presents us with a remarkably rounded and deeply intimate portrait of the legendary marine who receives much of the credit for America's victory in the Pacific, the successful D-Day landing and ultimately America's triumph in World War II. Coram gained unprecedented access to the man behind the military myth - and besides revealing the full extent of his achievements, reveals his deepest secret-one that he feared could have destroyed his career.

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"The military services should welcome more people like Colonel John Boyd. He was something of a legend in the Pentagon—for his willingness to swim against the tide and to challenge service orthodoxy."
-James Schlesinger, former secretary of defense

John Boyd may be the most remarkable unsung hero in all of American military history. Some remember him as the greatest fighter pilot in American history-the man who, in simulated air-to-air combat, defeated every challenger in less than forty seconds. Some recall him as the father of our country's most legendary fighter aircraft-the F-15 and F-16. Still others think of Boyd as the most influential military theorist since Sun Tzu.

They only know half the story.

Boyd, more than any other person, saved fighter aviation from the predations of the Strategic Air Command. His manual of fighter tactics improved the way every air force in the world flies and fights. He discovered a physical theory that forever changed the way fighter planes were designed. Later in life, he developed a theory of military strategy that has been adopted throughout the world and even applied to business models for maximizing efficiency. And in one of the most startling and unknown stories of modern military history, the Air Force fighter pilot taught the U.S. Marine Corps how to fight war on the ground. His ideas led to America's swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War and foretold the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

On a personal level, Boyd rarely met a general he couldn't offend. He was loud, abrasive, and profane. A man of daring, ferocious passion and intractable stubbornness, he was that most American of heroes—a rebel who cared not for his reputation or fortune but for his country. He was a true patriot, a man who made a career of challenging the shortsighted and self-serving Pentagon bureaucracy. America owes Boyd and his disciples—the six men known as the "Acolytes"—a great debt.

Robert Coram finally brings to light the remarkable story of a man who polarized all who knew him, but who left a legacy that will influence the military—and all of America—for decades to come.