Biography

Title: Beyond All Price
Author: Carolyn Poling Schriber
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: John R. R. Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0982774508

Beyond All Price is a historical novel, based on the life story of Nellie M. Chase, a Union nurse during America's Civil War. She was strong enough to escape from an abusive relationship and resourceful enough to find a job as wardrobe mistress for a theater. The actress with whom she shared a room in a squalid tenement took an overdose of opium in an effort to escape a life of prostitution. Nellie joined the Union Army, because life in the midst of a war seemed safer than the one she had been living. She found a home with the 100th Pennsylvania Regiment, known as "The Roundheads" because of their religious beliefs. Her skill and compassion led one of her patients to write, "Even here, amid the roar and carnage, was found a woman with the soul to dare danger; the heart to sympathize with the battle-stricken; sense, skill, and experience to make her a treasure beyond all price." * She was equally at home managing a southern plantation full of abandoned slaves, a battlefield operating station, or a 600-bed military hospital. After the war, her deep-seated need to dedicate her life to a worthy cause continued to drive her efforts until she faced an enemy more lethal than war.

Title: True Blue: A Tale of the Enemy Within
Author: Joe Sanchez and Mo Dhania
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1601790120

Joe has been trying to tell this story for a some time. It's his story, but not his alone. It's also the story of those who lived and died alongside him, in Viet Nam and in that other battle, for justice and safety under the shield of the law, that is fought daily in the streets of every big city by every honest cop. In his case, the city was the Naked City and the cop was a Latino. And the battle was neither for the civilians alone, not just against the bad guys in the street. Sometimes the bad guys were in the Department. And sometimes the people who needed protection were the honest cops.

Title: An American Knight
Author: Norman Fulkerson
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): ISBN / EAN

This first cradle-to-grave biography of Colonel John W. Ripley provides readers with the complete story about a great man who is considered by Marines, such as General Carl Mundy, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, to be on the same level as legends Chesty Puller and Dan Daly.

Colonel Ripley is most commonly known for his heroics in Vietnam during the Easter Offensive of 1972, where Colonel Gerald Turley ordered him to hold and die, in the face of over 30,000 North Vietnamese and 200 enemy tanks. John Ripley proceeded to blow the Dong Ha bridge, preventing the enemy from crossing. He unhesitatingly obeyed and earned the nation s second highest honor, the Navy Cross.

As stunning as the Dong Ha story is, there was much more to Colonel John Ripley. An American Knight: The Life of Colonel John W. Ripley, USMC narrates his early life and the influences which shaped his personality.

In youth, he was a rambunctious Huckleberry Finn who spent his days getting into all kinds of mischief in Radford, Virginia. The stories from this time period, so well narrated in An American Knight, will leave the reader with at least a smile, if not a laugh.

After his mischievous Huckleberry Finn days in Radford, he learned to discipline his wild side and, in spite of his intellectual weaknesses, went on to graduate from the Naval Academy. The strength of will with which he accomplished this task was later applied on the battlefield, where he earned the status of legend during his first tour in Vietnam as a 28-year-old Captain.

Readers will also get to know about John Ripley, the father, but more importantly the chaste husband. When he was approached by people wanting to make a movie about his life he agreed as long as his character was not portrayed as having a romantic relationship in Vietnam. I have never been, he said, nor will I ever be unfaithful to my wife.

The final chapters narrate the struggle Colonel Ripley endured with a bad liver. He would finally undergo two liver transplants, the last one of which was defined as the most dramatic in history.

If a young officer or Marine ever asks what is the meaning of Semper Fidelis Colonel Ripley once told a friend, tell them my story.

This is his story!

Title: An American Family in World War II
Author: Sandra O'Connell, Ralph L. Minker, Harry Butowsky
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Dave Brown

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1595710817

An American Family in War II is the story of a young B-17 pilot, his parents and sisters, captured in the extraordinary collection of 800 letters that tell the story of one family's daily struggle to keep faith and hope alive. Starting in February 1943, Lee Minker writes from eight different U.S. Army Air Corps training camps, the voices of the family come from mother's kitchen, dad's office, Shirley's dorm room, Bernice on the front porch. The letters capture daily events as they happened; race riots, theft at the rationing board, black-outs, military stalemate in the Pacific and Europe, the lonely holidays and missed birthdays. And then, the conversation gains new tension as their son and brother leaves for a base "somewhere in England."

Unlike any other story of World War II, An American Family is the diary of an entire family from February 1943 to the end of the war. Eighteen year old Lee Minker's letters contain complete detail of the rigors of pilot training, as he progressed through flying the Piper cub at age 18 to taking command of a B-17 crew just after his 20th birthday and then flying missions 37 missions over Nazi Germany. The letters from the homefront nurtured and sustained him, all the while leaving a highly detailed record of life in America, totally changed by war. This is our history, as people lived it, their voices poignantly speaking to us. The timeless correspondence of the five members of the Minker family will resonate not only with those who remember those years, but with those separated from loved ones in war zones today.

Title: This is Latch: The Story of Admiral Roy L. Hoffmann
Author: Weymouth Symmes
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1575101378

This is Latch is a biography of Rear Admiral Roy F. Hoffmann, who served in three wars (WW II, Korea and Vietnam). Adm. Hoffmann commanded four ships in his career. He was the gunnery officer aboard the USS Pirate when she struck a mine during the Korean War and sank in less than five minutes. Admiral Hoffmann was the Commander of Task Force 115 (the Market Time forces) in Vietnam, which included U.S. Navy Swift Boats. during the advent of the SEALORDS operation under Admiral Zumwalt. In retirement, Admiral Hoffmann founded and led Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth during the 2004 election. This is Latch has 529 pages, and 162 photos, three maps, 60 plus interviews, a glossary, sources and index. It is a hardbound edition.