- Reaction score
- 2,848
- Points
- 940
Any mention of the Pope?FJAG said:
[it's an inside joke
]
What book are you reading now?
- Thread starter Ex-Dragoon
- Start date
[it's an inside joke
]
FJAG
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
- 13,780
- Points
- 1,160
Journeyman said:Any mention of the Pope?
[it's an inside joke
I had to look up the "inside joke" (thanks Google search).
While not expressed, the tenor of much of his narrative supports that it was an apt nickname.
Thanks for adding that fact.
:cheers:
FJAG
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
- 13,780
- Points
- 1,160
Finished two this week.
FOBBITT published 2012 by David Abrams http://www.amazon.com/Fobbit-David-Abrams/dp/0802120326 is a piece of fiction set in Iraq circa 2005 and follows the lives of various characters at a US FOB. In short the story is very much in the style of Catch-22 and while I didn't like Catch-22 I quite like FOBBIT probably because I could relate to its characters much more.
The Things They Cannot Say published 2013 by Kevin Sites http://www.amazon.com/The-Things-They-Cannot-Say/dp/0061990523 consists of various narratives (including the author's own) from individuals who participated in various recent wars including mostly Iraq but also Vietnam, Israel and the first Gulf War. The aim of the book is to detail how the individuals were effected by their actions, their wounds or simply what they observed and how they coped after the conflict.
Unfortunately, for me the author spent too much time on his own plight (he admits that writing the book was a cathartic activity to help him purge his own demons) and, while there are some scholarly articles quoted, it is somewhat lacking in analysis. The chapter on the Israeli officer and how he successfully copes with combat leads you down the road to speculation (valid or not) that our PTSD issues may simply arise out of a modern western society that has an underlying victim mentality that fails to build adequate copying skills in our youth. This would have been a good angle for the author to explore, unfortunately the next and final chapter is devoted to himself and his own issues. I sometimes got the feeling that I was reading a book by the narcissistic Roland Hedley character in the Doonesbury comic strip.
FOBBITT published 2012 by David Abrams http://www.amazon.com/Fobbit-David-Abrams/dp/0802120326 is a piece of fiction set in Iraq circa 2005 and follows the lives of various characters at a US FOB. In short the story is very much in the style of Catch-22 and while I didn't like Catch-22 I quite like FOBBIT probably because I could relate to its characters much more.
The Things They Cannot Say published 2013 by Kevin Sites http://www.amazon.com/The-Things-They-Cannot-Say/dp/0061990523 consists of various narratives (including the author's own) from individuals who participated in various recent wars including mostly Iraq but also Vietnam, Israel and the first Gulf War. The aim of the book is to detail how the individuals were effected by their actions, their wounds or simply what they observed and how they coped after the conflict.
Unfortunately, for me the author spent too much time on his own plight (he admits that writing the book was a cathartic activity to help him purge his own demons) and, while there are some scholarly articles quoted, it is somewhat lacking in analysis. The chapter on the Israeli officer and how he successfully copes with combat leads you down the road to speculation (valid or not) that our PTSD issues may simply arise out of a modern western society that has an underlying victim mentality that fails to build adequate copying skills in our youth. This would have been a good angle for the author to explore, unfortunately the next and final chapter is devoted to himself and his own issues. I sometimes got the feeling that I was reading a book by the narcissistic Roland Hedley character in the Doonesbury comic strip.
- Reaction score
- 3,106
- Points
- 1,160
Revisiting Under The Dome by Stephen King, I wish he wouldn't let television writers get hold of his material, the discrepancies between the book and the series are huge, and only 175 pages in.
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 330
FJAG said:
Agree with the assessment. Sears is one of the more accessible writers in this field without dumbing down the academic rigor. I'd also advise that prior to reading this book, read Chancellorsville also by Steven Sears. These two books taken together given an excellent narrative of the critical summer of 1863 and the mindsets of both Lee on one side and the various commanders of the Army of the Potomac on the other.
Retired AF Guy
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 923
- Points
- 1,160
The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada, Fifth Edition, by Patrick Malcolmson and Richard Myers.
Absolutely an amazing book! An essential guide to how the Canadian political system works.
Absolutely an amazing book! An essential guide to how the Canadian political system works.
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
- Reaction score
- 11,928
- Points
- 1,160
http://dinmerican.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/memali-a-policeman-remembers/
An interesting read on how not to carry out a police op in a developing country. I note that the target of the arrest was schooled in Deobandism, which is the same school that much of the hardcore Taliban abide by. I suspect the governments concerns about his future actions where valid.
An interesting read on how not to carry out a police op in a developing country. I note that the target of the arrest was schooled in Deobandism, which is the same school that much of the hardcore Taliban abide by. I suspect the governments concerns about his future actions where valid.
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 410
Just finished My Friend The Mercenary, by James Brabazon
http://www.amazon.com/My-Friend-Mercenary-James-Brabazon/dp/B005EP2H6Q
It describes his relationship with Nick du Toit a former member of 5 Recce of the SADF. Brabazon initially hires him as a bodyguard when he goes to Liberia to film the civil war there. They become unlikely friends. Du Toit a former member of EO later tells Brabzon about his involvement in a upcoming coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea and offers him the rights to film it. The coup fails and leaves Du Toit , Simon Mann and about 70 other former EO and/or SADF soldiers now turned mercenaries imprisoned in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. Oferall excellent read on the events in Western Africa in the late 1990's early 21st Century.
http://www.amazon.com/My-Friend-Mercenary-James-Brabazon/dp/B005EP2H6Q
It describes his relationship with Nick du Toit a former member of 5 Recce of the SADF. Brabazon initially hires him as a bodyguard when he goes to Liberia to film the civil war there. They become unlikely friends. Du Toit a former member of EO later tells Brabzon about his involvement in a upcoming coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea and offers him the rights to film it. The coup fails and leaves Du Toit , Simon Mann and about 70 other former EO and/or SADF soldiers now turned mercenaries imprisoned in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea. Oferall excellent read on the events in Western Africa in the late 1990's early 21st Century.
- Reaction score
- 3,106
- Points
- 1,160
Danjanou said:
Shades of Dogs of War, can he whistle Spanish Harlem?
Gorgo
Full Member
- Reaction score
- 38
- Points
- 330
Believe & Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine by Christian Ingrao
http://www.amazon.ca/Believe-Destroy-Intellectuals-War-Machine/dp/0745660266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377904991&sr=8-1&keywords=Believe+%26+Destroy
There were eighty of them. They were young, clever and cultivated; they were barely in their thirties when Adolf Hitler came to power. Their university studies in law, economics, linguistics, philosophy and history marked them out for brilliant careers. They chose to join the repressive bodies of the Third Reich, especially the Security Service (SD) and the Nazi Party’s elite protection unit, the SS. They theorized and planned the extermination of twenty million individuals of allegedly ‘inferior’ races. Most of them became members of the paramilitary death squads known as Einsatzgruppen and participated in the slaughter of over a million people.
Based on extensive archival research, Christian Ingrao tells the gripping story of these children of the Great War, focusing on the networks of fellow activists, academics and friends in which they moved, studying the way in which they envisaged war and the ‘world of enemies’ which, in their view, threatened them. The mechanisms of their political commitment are revealed, and their roles in Nazism and mass murder. Thanks to this pioneering study, we can now understand how these men came to believe what they did, and how these beliefs became so destructive.
The history of Nazism, shows Ingrao, is also a history of beliefs in which a powerful military machine was interwoven with personal experiences, fervour, anguish, utopia and cruelty.
http://www.amazon.ca/Believe-Destroy-Intellectuals-War-Machine/dp/0745660266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377904991&sr=8-1&keywords=Believe+%26+Destroy
There were eighty of them. They were young, clever and cultivated; they were barely in their thirties when Adolf Hitler came to power. Their university studies in law, economics, linguistics, philosophy and history marked them out for brilliant careers. They chose to join the repressive bodies of the Third Reich, especially the Security Service (SD) and the Nazi Party’s elite protection unit, the SS. They theorized and planned the extermination of twenty million individuals of allegedly ‘inferior’ races. Most of them became members of the paramilitary death squads known as Einsatzgruppen and participated in the slaughter of over a million people.
Based on extensive archival research, Christian Ingrao tells the gripping story of these children of the Great War, focusing on the networks of fellow activists, academics and friends in which they moved, studying the way in which they envisaged war and the ‘world of enemies’ which, in their view, threatened them. The mechanisms of their political commitment are revealed, and their roles in Nazism and mass murder. Thanks to this pioneering study, we can now understand how these men came to believe what they did, and how these beliefs became so destructive.
The history of Nazism, shows Ingrao, is also a history of beliefs in which a powerful military machine was interwoven with personal experiences, fervour, anguish, utopia and cruelty.
OldSolduer
Army.ca Relic
- Reaction score
- 15,543
- Points
- 1,260
Just purchased the SAS Survival Handbook - the small one, for $11.
My grandson and I will put this to good use!
My grandson and I will put this to good use!
- Reaction score
- 9,940
- Points
- 1,360
Fireforce: One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry - By Chris Cocks
FJAG
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
- 13,780
- Points
- 1,160
3 Para by Patrick Bishop 2007 Harper Collins London.
This is Patricks first book and concerns the Brits first tour in Helmand. (A subsequent tour by 3 Para is called Ground TRuth: 3 Paras Return to Afghanistan and concerns the battalion's tour in 2008)
Nice tight book balancing the overall tactical narrative with intimate looks at the Toms who did the fighting.
http://www.amazon.com/3-Para-PATRICK-BISHOP/dp/0007257783
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Para-Return-Afghanistan/dp/1407913999
:cheers:
This is Patricks first book and concerns the Brits first tour in Helmand. (A subsequent tour by 3 Para is called Ground TRuth: 3 Paras Return to Afghanistan and concerns the battalion's tour in 2008)
Nice tight book balancing the overall tactical narrative with intimate looks at the Toms who did the fighting.
http://www.amazon.com/3-Para-PATRICK-BISHOP/dp/0007257783
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Para-Return-Afghanistan/dp/1407913999
:cheers:
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 410
Two simultaneously ( they both arrived from Amazon the same day)
Dixie Victorious: An Alternate History of the Civil War
http://www.amazon.ca/Dixie-Victorious-Alternate-History-Civil/dp/161608460X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378752192&sr=8-1&keywords=Dixie+Victorious%3A+An+Alternate+History+of+the+Civil+War
The Rhodesian War: A Military History
http://www.amazon.ca/Rhodesian-War-Military-History/dp/0811707253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378752142&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Rhodesian+War%3A+A+Military+History
Dixie Victorious: An Alternate History of the Civil War
http://www.amazon.ca/Dixie-Victorious-Alternate-History-Civil/dp/161608460X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378752192&sr=8-1&keywords=Dixie+Victorious%3A+An+Alternate+History+of+the+Civil+War
The Rhodesian War: A Military History
http://www.amazon.ca/Rhodesian-War-Military-History/dp/0811707253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378752142&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Rhodesian+War%3A+A+Military+History
- Reaction score
- 4,265
- Points
- 1,260
George Orwell's "Burmese Days: A Novel" apparently based on his time in Burma as a Brit colonial cop.
