Military

Title: South of Heaven: My Year in Afghanistan
Author: Daniel Flores
Genre: Military Army
Reviewer: Terry Shoptaugh

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 1462024386

A memoir of an Army Apache helicopter pilots tour of duty in the Afghanistan war. The book follows the author's life from enlisting in the Army as an infantry soldier. Then continues as the author goes through flight school then incredibly survives a devastating crash only months after getting married. The author then continues his training until he is activated for the Afghanistan campaign, in the Global War on Terror. Believing that the only fighting is in Iraq he is then suprised and challenged at the resurgence of the Taliban and the escalating battles throughout the year, 2006. This memoir is a gripping insight to the incredible helicopter war going on in the rugged yet beautiful Hindu Kush mountains. The reader will finish this memoir with a first hand account of flying and fighting the Apache helicopter and the patriotic heroic decisions and challenges facing a husband, father and God fearing Christian in the war in Afghanistan.

Title: Dog Tags: The History, Personal Stories, Cultural Impact, and Future of Military Identification
Author: Ginger Cuculo
Genre: Non-Fiction & Fiction
Reviewer: Joyce Faulkner

ISBN (links go to the MWSA Amazon store): 0983305706

The 100 year anniversary of the official use of American personal identity tags, affectionately known as Dog Tags, recently passed without fanfare. We are currently in a war where the Dog Tag is once again a highly personal item to warriors of every service and to their families as well. Every Dog Tag carries its own human interest story. Receiving it, hanging it around the neck, and feeling it is a silent statement of commitment. The tag itself individualizes the human being who wears it within a huge and faceless organization. While the armed forces demand obedience and duty to a higher cause, the Dog Tag, hanging under each service member's shirt and close to their chest, becomes a part of them. It brings comfort to that fear of every soldier facing death: I do not want to be forgotten; I will not become an "unknown."

Understanding and sharing the history of Dog Tags and their deeply personal meaning in today's world is at the core of this book.