Non-Fiction

Title: One Bullet Away – The making of a Marine Officer
Author: Nathaniel Fick
Genre: Non-Fiction, Military, Memoir
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): B002ECETVS

If the Marines are “the few, the proud,” Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick’s career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon— two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he’ll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and military practice, which can mock those ideals.

Title: A Year Of Absence
Author: Jessica Redmond
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0965748316

A Year of Absence follows the lives of six women whose husbands, all members of the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division based in Germany, deploy to Iraq in April 2003. A young lieutenant’s wife comes dangerously close to alcoholism. Marriages are pushed to the breaking point by the constant strain of fifteen months apart. Each morning the women anxiously scan the headlines, wondering if they still have a husband, if their children still have a father. Some form friendships that become their lifeline. Others somehow find courage despite their isolation. Through tearful goodbyes, long-awaited communication from the front, and joyful yet troubled reunions, A Year of Absence captures what life is like for many families of deployed soldiers: the ever-present fear of death, the pressures of single-parenthood, and the strength and comfort that come with the support of close friends. Book excerpt Jena was strolling home from walking the dog when she noticed an official U.S. Army car carrying two soldiers in Class A uniforms heading toward her street. She felt her pulse quicken and, without meaning to, she started doing the math. If the soldiers stopped at her building, there was a one-in-twenty-four chance that Adam was dead. If they stopped at her stairwell, it was one-in-eight. Don’t come down here, she prayed silently. Please let it be somebody else.

Title: Psychic Warrior – Inside the CIA’s Stargate Program: The True Story of a Soldier’s Espionage and Awaking
Author: David Morehouse
Genre: Non-Fiction, Military
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0312964137

Unwittingly plunged into a paranormal nightmare...

David Morehouse-A highly decorated, exemplary Army officer, special operations infantryman, and elite Airborne Ranger Company Commander. Wounded by machine-gun fire during a training mission, Morehouse began to have inexplicable visions and haunting nighmares-an experience that would redirect his military career and land him in the government's top-secret Stargate Program. His life would never be the same...

Stargate-For nearly two decades, the United States military intelligence community delved into the dark world of psychic espionage, recruiting a team of psychic spies to serve as "remote viewers," individuals who used their paranormal gifts to transcend time and space and uncover the highly guarded military secrets of other nations.

Unable to tell the shocking truth for fear of death-until now...

When David Morehouse walked through the doors of the Stargate Program, he had little idea what awaited him: a paranormal hell that would bring him to the front lines of some of the most horrific disasters in recent history-and nearly destroy him. In chilling detail, Morehouse describes his psychic espionage work as a remote viewer, from the shattering explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 to the choking smoke of Desert Storm, even further back in time to Hiroshima and the darkest days of Nazi Germany. And more startling yet is his account of the U.S. government, an organization bent on the destructive use of psychic powers-and on stopping the one man who was brave enough to blow the lid off their top-secret Stargate Program.

Title: The Vietnam Worm
Author: James E. Johnson, III
Genre: Non-Fiction, Collection
Reviewer: Bill McDonald

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

The Vietnam Worm” is a collection of stories based on the actual experiences of the author and the men he served with. The central character is Sergeant Tom Danville, a man fighting not only the Vietcong, but the combat sickness, ‘The Worm’, that is slowly and secretly invading his brain. From cobras and man-eating tigers, to dealing with incompetent officers and booby traps, the book tells of the daily life ofDanville and his men as they strive to survive not only the horrors of war, but the transition of returning home to a country that neither appreciated nor understood the suffering and sacrifices they had made.

The Vietnam War is all but forgotten now except by the thousands of men who were called and went, or volunteered because they truly believed it was the right thing to do. Many of these men still suffer now because they saw their duty and did it.