Army

Title: The Blue Angels: A Fly-By History
Author: Nicholas A. Veronico
Genre: Non-Fiction, Reference
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B003TU2KGK

It began in 1946 when Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ordered the formation of a flight demonstration team to keep the public interested in naval aviation. The Blue Angels performed their first air show less than a year later in June 1946 at their home base, Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville, Florida.

Today, sixty years later, the Blue Angels are a worldwide phenomenon, exemplary representatives of Navy and Marine Corps aviation and international ambassadors of goodwill seen by fifteen million awestruck spectators each year. The Blue Angels: A Fly-By History tells the story of this high-flying phenomenon from its inception through the present day.

Respected aviation writer Nicholas Veronico conducts readers through the Blue Angels history from the earliest Flight Leader, Roy "Butch" Voris, in his Grumman F6F Hellcat to the sleek McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F/A-18 Hornet that todays Angels fly. Along the way this profusely illustrated volume revisits the Blue Angels changing aircraft and role, including their incarnation as the nucleus of a fighter squadron known "Satans Kittens" during the Korean War and their flying of the McDonnell Douglas A-4F Skyhawk II in the Seventies.

Well over 300 million spectators have witnessed the Blue Angels airborne exploits. This book gives readers a close-up look at the remarkable team of flyers as it made history on the wing.

Title: Nobody Comes Back: A Novel of the Battle of the Bulge
Author: Donn Pearce
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B000KHXCD0

Donn Pearce, the author of Cool Hand Luke, again revisits the subject of men under tremendous pressure, living and dying according to oppressive circumstances. Now, he brings you another tragic hero, thrust out of the only world he knew and forced to create one on his own terms . . . or die trying.

Toby Parker was America's unwanted son. Only sixteen years old, he was too young to be enlisted in the army, but old enough to know that he didn't want to return to the life he knew: moving from new home to new home, neglected by his mother, ignored by his father, overlooked by everyone else.

The war overseas promised exotic locations and adventure, but what it delivered was something else entirely. The Nazis were beginning to fall back, and the war was all but over. But the fighting still raged on in pockets of Europe. Out of the critical focus on France, only one last position needed to hold: the city of Bastogne. Thrown into battle almost immediately upon arrival, he soon found himself wounded and alone, struggling to survive and looked upon to lead. It was here that Toby was to learn what war really was, and what kind of man he was destined to become.

Many American boys went into World War II, and each one lived their own nightmare, critically shaped by what they experienced. Out of the dead, even the survivors, Nobody Comes Back.

Told with gritty authenticity, Donn Pearce captures the very essence of what it means to be caught under the worst circumstances imaginable, while having the strength and humanity to rise above them.