Marines

Title: Immediate Response
Author: Mark Hammond
Genre: Military, Marines
Reviewer: Dave Brown

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0141039043

2006 in Helmand saw British forces engaged in the most ferocious fighting since the Korean War. For much of the time they were hanging on by their fingertips, holed up in remote platoon houses, outnumbered, facing relentless assault and nearly overwhelmed. Only the Chinooks kept them in the game. But that meant their crews putting down in hot LZs, exposing their aircraft to withering attack from an enemy for whom downing one of the big helos would be the ultimate prize. They had been lucky. So far. Then they launched their biggest operation yet: a complicated, high-risk airborne assault that launched a fleet of heavily armed helicopters into the Afghan Heart of Darkness. And then a report came over the net that one of the Chinooks was down...In "Immediate Response", Major Mark Hammond, a Royal Marine flying with the RAF, tells the gripping inside story of the Chinook squadrons' war for the first time. It's a visceral, unputdownable combination of hi-tech and old-fashioned grit; an action-packed story shot through with a mix of aviation fuel and cordite...

Title: The Road to Iwo Jima
Author: Tom McGraham
Genre: Military, Marines
Reviewer: Joyce Gilmour

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 098279231X

Tom McGraham joined the Marines the day after Pearl Harbor. Throughout the next few years, he served in the Caribbean, but after he participates in the capture of a German Submarine crew, he is reassigned to the 4th Division in Hawaii. With his new buddies, he trains for some unknown but obviously big assault to come. It's not until he is on the ship, that he learns they are headed for Iwo Jima. This book is the story of that fateful event in his life -- and the years afterward.

Title: And My Mother Danced with Chesty Puller
Author: Bruce Hoffman
Genre: Military, Marine
Reviewer: Hodge Wood

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

Bruce Hoffman spent four years in the United States Marine Corps from 1964 to 1968. Two of those years were in Vietnam and Okinawa. This is a story about his adventures from Parris Island, serving in the rear with the beer, to flying as an Aerial Gunner in UH-1E Huey Helicopters. These four years left a lasting impression, some good some bad. It is a story worth telling.

Title: EMBEDDED: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army
Author: Wesley Gray
Genre: Military, Marine Corps
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1591143403

In 2006, 1st Lt. Wesley Gray was deployed as a U.S. Marine Corps military adviser to an Iraqi Army battalion in the Haditha Triad. For 210 days, he lived and fought beside Iraqi soldiers in the most dangerous and austere province of western Iraq. Al-Anbar was filled with an insurgent population traumatized by a recent massacre of twenty-four men, women, and children shot at close range by U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of one of their comrades in a roadside bombing. Despite the high tensions created by the shootings, Gray was able to form a bond with the Iraqis because he had an edge that very few U.S. service members possess -the ability to communicate in Iraqi Arabic. His language skills and his understanding of the culture led the Iraqi soldiers to call him a brother and fondly name him Jamal. By the end of his tour he was a legend within the Iraqi Army. Gray draws on the brutally honest and detailed record he kept during his tour, including extensive interviews with Iraqi soldiers and citizens. He offers a comprehensive portrait of the struggles of the Iraqi people to make their country a nation once again and includes a compelling report on the status and prospects of the U.S. government's strategy for success in Iraq.