Military

Title: Recall! Return of the IRR
Author: Doug DePew
Genre: Non-Fiction memoir
Reviewer: Jim Greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1466216468

There hadn't been a full-scale recall of the Individual Ready Reserves since the Korean War. In January of 1991, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, many people believed it would take World War III to trigger a recall of the IRR. Many people were wrong. They came from cities and farms and towns in every corner of the country. With only a few days' notice, they quit their jobs, dropped out of college, kissed their girlfriends or wives, and got on planes to Atlanta, Georgia with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They had long hair, beards, and bad attitudes. They descended by the thousands on Fort Benning, Georgia, and they were not happy about it at all.

In this entertaining, true story, the author relates his own experiences as one of the twenty-thousand IRR recalls who were ordered back to active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm. In a story reminiscent of "The Dirty Dozen" times ten thousand, the author takes you through the entire experience from beginning to end. He carries you along for the ride and explains exactly what it was like to be a recall. With the many IRR recalls over the last ten years of warfare, this first hand account could shed some light on how the current era of recalls began.

Title: The Deguello
Author: Scott Zastrow
Genre: Military Army
Reviewer: Jim Greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1257058266

We simply call it 9/11 now. That day means something different to so many people, but for ten Green Berets, it means even more. Just days after the horrific attacks in New York, a handful of Green Berets from the decorated 5th Special Forces Group were secretly inserted deep behind enemy lines in Northern Afghanistan to set the stage for the upcoming War on Terror. Their mission was to seek out and kill as many Taliban and Al Qaida forces as they could find. Go inside the legend of one of Americas most elite units in this exciting and sometimes humorous account of their avenging the most horrific terrorist attack we have ever experienced.

Written as a fictional story and firsthand account of the actual events that transpired for the first Special Forces A-Team into Afghanistan after 9/11, The Deguello pulls the reader into the actual Team. You get the feeling you are right there with them as they infiltrate Afghanistan, attack enemy forces, get ambushed, train the Northern Alliance and move on the capitol city of Kabul. You get a sense of the camaraderie and brotherhood of being on a Special Forces A-Team and how these men train and fight.

Not written like a typical military historical book, this is a story based on the actual events that occurred to start the War on Terror. The reader is brought along from the very beginning and watches the entire story unfold before their eyes from the attacks of September 11th all the way through the dramatic and exciting conclusion of the assault on Kabul.

“This book is for Joe,” says the author, Scott A. Zastrow, a former Green Beret with more than 20-years in the Army. “With all the books out there by military historians written for the small group of intellectuals who enjoy them, Joe is kind of left out in the cold. He’s bored by statistics, random facts of supposed historical significance, and overblown dramatics that they will easily call bullsh*t on. When reading the Deguello, Joe will say ‘I can see that happening; I’ve done that; I’ve said that; I want to do that.”

When asked why this book is different than other historical military books about Afghanistan, Zastrow says, “It’s not your typical hubristic story of ‘look how cool I am’. It’s a real story about real men doing what they get paid to do. A bunch of jackasses who are good at their jobs and who made the best of the situations they were put in. It just so happens these jackasses were called to do their jobs at a pretty significant time in American history, and they did it very well.”

Nothing we know of the War in Afghanistan would be possible had it not been for what these men did. Bagrahm Air Base is now the largest Coalition Base in Theater and was held by the enemy when this Team arrived. Read how it all began in this exciting, action packed and sometimes humorous account of one our Nation’s most elite Special Operations units. They accomplished what no unit or larger force has ever done before……..or ever will again.

Title: Letters From Long Binh: Memoirs of a Military Policeman in Vietnam
Author: Randy Mixter
Genre: Non-Fiction Memoir
Reviewer: Jim Greenwald

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1466426993

I boarded the plane to Vietnam at exactly midnight on January 1st, 1967. I was a 19 year old soldier with pen and paper in hand. I began to write.
“Letters from Long Binh gives the reader an honest appraisal of the everyday life of an MP in Vietnam. Sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, but always gripping, the book is written with a deep sense of respect for his fellow brothers-in-arms in a war-torn county.” Lou Fantauzzi - Vietnam 1966-67