[PDF] Joys Of War eBook

Author : John-Paul Jordan
Publisher : Casemate Publishers
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 47,63 MB
Release : 2018-10-30
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1526743159

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A Special Forces veteran and former Legionnaire tells of his military adventures—and of the personal battle that followed him home. In war, John-Paul Jordan was the first to batter down the door, whether he was facing bullets or bombs. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the young Irishman set off to join the French Foreign Legion. He would go on to provide security in Iraq, serve his country in Afghanistan, and protect journalists on the front line in Libya. He was decorated for his leadership and bravery—but his biggest fight would come after he left the battlefield. In this memoir he recounts the camaraderie, action, and danger he experienced—and how he later found himself of prisoner of war to PTSD. Dehumanized by the professionals he turned to for help, this Special Forces veteran and former Legionnaire was brought to his knees. His marriage was over; his home was lost. In isolation, his world unraveled, and the seeds of destruction had been well and truly sown. Knowing he would never see military action again and faced with the realization of the war raging within him in the spiral of PTSD, John-Paul felt condemned as a man. But, on April 1, 2016, he surrendered. He asked for help . . . and found the answers within. His story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit: to get back up and to lead from the front. He did not go through all that just to go through all that. This is the story of his return to freedom and joy. Buckle up, because this veteran doesn’t do anything in half measures.

Author : Le Ly Hayslip
Publisher : Anchor
Page : 389 pages
File Size : 47,58 MB
Release : 2011-04-13
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0307790576

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The inspiring story of an immigrant's struggles to heal old wounds in the United States, this is the sequel to When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, Le Ly Hayslip's extraordinary, award-winning memoir of life in wartime Vietnam.

Author : David L. Robbins
Publisher : Bantam
Page : 514 pages
File Size : 36,52 MB
Release : 2009-12-16
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0307575373

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For six months in 1942, Stalingrad is the center of a titanic struggle between the Russian and German armies—the bloodiest campaign in mankind's long history of warfare. The outcome is pivotal. If Hitler's forces are not stopped, Russia will fall. And with it, the world.... German soldiers call the battle Rattenkrieg, War of the Rats. The combat is horrific, as soldiers die in the smoking cellars and trenches of a ruined city. Through this twisted carnage stalk two men—one Russian, one German—each the top sniper in his respective army. These two marksmen are equally matched in both skill and tenacity. Each man has his own mission: to find his counterpart—and kill him. But an American woman trapped in Russia complicates this extraordinary duel. Joining the Russian sniper's cadre, she soon becomes one of his most talented assassins—and perhaps his greatest weakness. Based on a true story, this is the harrowing tale of two adversaries enmeshed in their own private war—and whose fortunes will help decide the fate of the world.

Author : Joyce Hibbert
Publisher : Dundurn
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 46,58 MB
Release : 1985-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1554881692

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The young girl from the Ottawa Valley who served as a nurse in North Africa with only a helmet of fresh water a day, the teenage soldier from Fredericton who stole pig swill to survive in a Hong Kong prisoner of war camp, the English woman who survived the sinking of the Athenia to become a war-bride, and an Alberta airman who crashed off the icy coast of Greenland, these are but only four of the thirty compelling personal accounts of war experiences. Many private photographs from their own albums illustrate these stories, which reflect the world wide aspect of the war from the Indian Ocean to the North Atlantic, from Poland to the Middle East, and the varied activities and duties of these young men and women. Their hardships, their adventures, frustrations, fears, joys and romances are chronicled in a poignant and often humorous manner.

Author : David Grossman
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 661 pages
File Size : 32,35 MB
Release : 2010-09-21
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0307594343

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A stunning novel that tells the powerful story of Ora, an Israli mother, and her extraordinary love for her son, Ofer, in a haunting meditation on war and family. “One of the few novels that feel as though they have made a difference to the world.” —The New York Times Book Review Just before his release from service in the Israeli army, Ora’s son Ofer is sent back to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, so that no bad news can reach her, Ora sets out on an epic hike in the Galilee. She is joined by an unlikely companion—Avram, a former friend and lover with a troubled past—and as they sleep out in the hills, Ora begins to conjure her son. Ofer’s story, as told by Ora, becomes a surprising balm both for her and for Avram.

Author : Rick Atkinson
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 49,91 MB
Release : 2007-04-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1429900016

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From Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Rick Atkinson (Liberation Trilogy) comes an eyewitness account of the war against Iraq and a vivid portrait of a remarkable group of soldiers. "A beautifully written and memorable account of combat from the top down and bottom up as the 101st Airborne commanders and front-line grunts battle their way to Baghdad.... A must-read."—Tom Brokaw For soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, the road to Baghdad began with a midnight flight out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in late February 2003. For Rick Atkinson, who would spend nearly two months covering the division for The Washington Post, the war in Iraq provided a unique opportunity to observe today's U.S. Army in combat. Now, in this extraordinary account of his odyssey with the 101st, Atkinson presents an intimate and revealing portrait of the soldiers who fight the expeditionary wars that have become the hallmark of our age. At the center of Atkinson's drama stands the compelling figure of Major General David H. Petraeus, described by one comrade as "the most competitive man on the planet." Atkinson spent virtually all day every day at Petraeus's elbow in Iraq, where he had an unobstructed view of the stresses, anxieties, and large joys of commanding 17,000 soldiers in combat. Atkinson watches Petraeus wrestle with innumerable tactical conundrums and direct several intense firefights; he watches him teach, goad, and lead his troops and his subordinate commanders. And all around Petraeus, we see the men and women of a storied division grapple with the challenges of waging war in an unspeakably harsh environment. With the eye of a master storyteller, the premier military historian of his generation puts us right on the battlefield. In the Company of Soldiers is a compelling, utterly fresh view of the modern American soldier in action.

Author : Anne C. Voorhoeve
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 378 pages
File Size : 38,48 MB
Release : 2012-02-16
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 1101575212

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Winner of the Mildred L. Batchelder medal for most oustanding children's book in translation. Escaping Nazi Germany on the kindertransport changes one girl's life forever At the start of World War II, ten-year-old Franziska Mangold is torn from her family when she boards the kindertransport in Berlin, the train that secretly took nearly 10,000 children out of Nazi territory to safety in England. Taken in by strangers who soon become more like family than her real parents, Frances (as she is now known) courageously pieces together a new life for herself because she doesn't know when or if she'll see her true family again. Against the backdrop of war-torn London, Frances struggles with questions of identity, family, and love, and these experiences shape her into a dauntless, charming young woman. Originally published in Germany, Anne Voorhoeve's award-winning novel is filled with humor, danger, and romance.

Author : George L. Mosse
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 27,76 MB
Release : 1991-12-12
Category : History
ISBN : 0199923442

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At the outbreak of the First World War, an entire generation of young men charged into battle for what they believed was a glorious cause. Over the next four years, that cause claimed the lives of some 13 million soldiers--more than twice the number killed in all the major wars from 1790 to 1914. But despite this devastating toll, the memory of the war was not, predominantly, of the grim reality of its trench warfare and battlefield carnage. What was most remembered by the war's participants was its sacredness and the martyrdom of those who had died for the greater glory of the fatherland. War, and the sanctification of it, is the subject of this pioneering work by well-known European historian George L. Mosse. Fallen Soldiers offers a profound analysis of what he calls the Myth of the War Experience--a vision of war that masks its horror, consecrates its memory, and ultimately justifies its purpose. Beginning with the Napoleonic wars, Mosse traces the origins of this myth and its symbols, and examines the role of war volunteers in creating and perpetuating it. But it was not until World War I, when Europeans confronted mass death on an unprecedented scale, that the myth gained its widest currency. Indeed, as Mosse makes clear, the need to find a higher meaning in the war became a national obsession. Focusing on Germany, with examples from England, France, and Italy, Mosse demonstrates how these nations--through memorials, monuments, and military cemeteries honoring the dead as martyrs--glorified the war and fostered a popular acceptance of it. He shows how the war was further promoted through a process of trivialization in which war toys and souvenirs, as well as postcards like those picturing the Easter Bunny on the Western Front, softened the war's image in the public mind. The Great War ended in 1918, but the Myth of the War Experience continued, achieving its most ruthless political effect in Germany in the interwar years. There the glorified notion of war played into the militant politics of the Nazi party, fueling the belligerent nationalism that led to World War II. But that cataclysm would ultimately shatter the myth, and in exploring the postwar years, Mosse reveals the extent to which the view of death in war, and war in general, was finally changed. In so doing, he completes what is likely to become one of the classic studies of modern war and the complex, often disturbing nature of human perception and memory.