Non-Fiction

Title: Forty Missions and Home
Author: Maurice "Vic" Duvic and Lisa Uzzle Hadden
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewer: John Cathcart

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1605940461

It was a gutless, unprovoked attack on the United States and all it stood for. The hatred shattered the early morning calm and moved a nation from a time of peace to years of war and hardship. It prompted young men to offer their service, and many their lives, to defend their country and everything it stood for. It was a time of great uncertainty and fear. It was the original "day that will live in infamy."

Maurice "Vic" Duvic remembers it well. He lived it. He was twenty-two years old, standing on a Florida beach with his buddies the first time he heard the words "Pearl Harbor." He had no idea what those words would come to mean, but the uniform he wore assured him he would get a front row seat.

He went on to become a pilot in the Army Air Corps, traveled across the world and became a part of the Allied forces that would prove too much for Italy and Germany. While the words "Pearl Harbor" had a life-changing meaning for him, there was a number that would prove to be even more important: forty.

That was the number of combat missions he had to complete before he could get back home. While that sounds simple enough, he learned there is much truth to the saying, "It's not about the destination, but the journey." And what a journey it was.

Title: Inherited Freedom: A grandson's reflection on World War II through his grandfathers' experiences, and the translation of their service to the ... responsibilities of later generations
Author: Tim Drake
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1438958919

A grandson's reflection on World War II through his grandfather's experiences, and the translation of their service to the privileges and ultimate responsibilities of later generations.

My reason for writing this book is multifaceted. First, it is a contemplative look back into a distinctive time in America's history through the lives of my two grandfathers, Maurice Elmer Drake and Archibald Vance Houston; and an examination of their service to our great country during World War II. My life intersected these two men as a result of my parent's loving choice to adopt me as their son at the time of my birth. Second, it is a critical look into our present situation as a nation, as compared to and contrasted with our past, which I undertook with a burning desire due to the personal impact of my grandfathers' service. Lastly, this book is a consideration of the future of this great country as it lies in the hands of my generation and outlines our responsibilities: to protect it and to provide our descendants with the inherited freedom that was earned in blood by the Greatest Generation over sixty years ago. Please visit www.inheritedfreedom.com for more information.

Title: Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos
Author: Thomas Leo Briggs
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0984105948

Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos is a detailed accounting of a CIA program directed by a CIA operations officer that sent small teams of irregulars behind enemy lines in Laos to find, fix and destroy North Vietnamese Army units, capture NVA soldiers or encourage them to defect, intercept NVA radio communications, and recruit NVA soldiers to spy and report on their comrades.

It is a unique contribution to the history of the Vietnam War describing valuable experiences using surrogates to conduct intelligence and combat operations that have little or no adverse impact on the United States government's relations with the peoples and governments of other nations. An important lesson in the post 9/11 world of countering terrorism all over the globe where we do not have enough American troops to get the job done without political consequences.

The book also describes the daring and dangerous rescue of Raven 42, a U.S. Air Force forward air controller shot down while supporting Lao irregular surrogate forces fighting NVA main force units in Laos, attempts to infiltrate Cambodia to collect intelligence on the North Vietnamese in early 1970, the effort to uncover information about a missing Air America crewman captured in 1963, the tragic fatal crash of an aircraft carrying four of the author's best Thai operational assistants, and the uncovering of a mole hidden in a Royal Lao government military headquarters.

Here are intimate details that have never before appeared in print, recounting the planning and execution of a variety of special operations, conceived and carried out behind enemy lines by the CIA using only Lao irregular surrogates.

The CIA employed surrogates in southern Laos to force the North Vietnamese Army to keep combat units there to defend their logistical supply line rather than send them to fight U.S. and allied forces in South Vietnam. For the duration of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War the CIA succeeded in that goal.

Title: Margaret Mahler: A biography of the psychoanalyst
Author: Alma Bond
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Buddy Cox

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0786433558

Margaret Mahler was from a young age intrigued by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Hungarian psychoanalysts such as Sandor Ferenzci, with whom she became acquainted while a student in Budapest. Forced to flee Europe and rising anti-Semitism, Margaret and her husband, Paul, came to the United States in 1938. It was after this move that Mahler performed her most significant research and developed concepts such as the ground-breaking theory of separation-individuation, an idea which was given credence by Mahler's own relationship with her father.

This volume details the life and work of Margaret Mahler focusing on her life's ambition--her psychoanalytical work. Her experiences with the Philadelphia Institute and her definitive research through the Masters Children's Clinic are also discussed.

USA Book News Best Books Award Finalist and Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award Finalist

Title: When Whippoorwills Call
Author: John Bandy
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0595212727

A 16 year old, high school dropout leaves home to avoid incarceration in the juvenile detention center. Using a fraudulent birth certificate, he enlists in the army, where he finds an extremely hostile environment. Seeking refuge in the army he discovers that he cannot run away from himself and the family "curse."

As a member of the United States Constabulary in occupied Germany at the end of WW2 where he faces the greatest challenges of his life amid the war torn ruins of a conquered nation.

The book describes in lurid detail the misadventures of the men in the lower ranks of the military establishment and the effects of their relationships with the German population. As a fraudulent enlistee, he lives in constant fear of being discovered. He is further plagued by premonition of doom by the family "curse," the result of a terrible sin committed by his maternal grandfather.

Born in an impoverished, dysfunctional family in the midst of the Great Depression, he struggles to overcome the indoctrination of inferiority and social ostracism, the result of his mother's alcoholism,

The story traces the family history from his ancestors' 19th century Mississippi plantation to the early 1950's in segregated Birmingham, Alabama.