Liberators from Wendling: The Combat Story of the 392nd Bombardment Group (H) of the Eighth Air Force During World War Two

Customer Reviews:

A Tribute To Heroes.......2004-07-22

Liberators is a great documentary that became a political football, because it challenged the idea of WWII as a white man's war (the Japanese alone would disagree) and showed the undisputed fact that segregated Black units, which were supposed not to have fought, not only did well, and participated in the Battle Of The Bulge, but liberated several concentration camps on their way to Berlin. These units faced hardships not encountered by White units, in that they were subject to the discrimination of the day, and were denied time away from the front until the end of the war. One of the unfair, but vicious, attacks are that this documentary is "a hoax", or "exaggerated". Well let us see. Benjamin Bender, who certainly believed he was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp, saw Black tankers and troopers when he was liberated. This is pretty hard to explain away. Then, there is the charge that the units in question were "too far away". Well, according to the CO of the 183 Combat Engineers, Lt. Colonel Lawrence J. Fuller, at any time, his troops were dispersed over an area of 100 miles. The same for the 761st, who had units attached to whatever unit needed them. This was the result of a conscious decision to keep them apart as much as possible. Being headquartered within 60 miles of Dachau, the 761st's Sherman M4 tanks had a cruising range of 120 miles - you do the math on that one. In the end, to be extremely charitable, maybe the camp they liberated went by another name (Gunskirchen has been mentioned) than Dachau. That does not make this documentary "a hoax". Even if the tankers who went back with Benjamin Bender to pay their respects in the documentary, were merely in the same unit and were not the ones who actually helped liberate the camp or him, that doesn't make them anything less than heroes. The real question is: what is the fuss all about? Why the hatred and vehemence? Only the lowest form of racist would deny these heroes their achievements. I believe mr. Bender.

This book demeans its subject.......2003-09-15

How do you give no stars?

This book is the worst form of racist patronization.

Among combat veterans, your deeds speak for you. The deeds of this TD Battalion - and many other units, both "colored" and all white - have gone too long unacknowledged. But to shamelessly manufacture "exploits" is the lowest form of boasting, and simple demeans these men's true accomplishments.

To paraphrase (only because I cannot recall the exact words) the words of one of the unit veterans who decried this book, "What we did speaks for itself". I don't think anything else need be said about this bogus history.

Its a Hoax! No "all-black units" Liberated Buchenwald........2000-07-31

I have read "Liberators: Fighting On Two Fronts in World War II" and although I fully agree with its authors' criticism of the scandalous manner in which the African-American GIs were treated during World War II, I violently disagee with their concoction of a hoax according to which two so-called "all-black units" would have liberated Buchenwald and Dachau.

I am particularly familiar with that subject considering that, in addition to the fact that I am a Buchenwald survivor who was there on April 11, 1945... the day of that camp's liberation... I have also been researching the history of the concentration camps since 1969.

First of all, as far as Buchenwald is concerned, it was not liberated by a unit of the U,S. Army but by the 900 members of that camp's underground organization and was subsequently discovered by a four-man patrol of the 6th Armored Division.

The two "all-black units" involved could not possibly have been there considering that, according to the Morning Reports obtained from the Army Reference Branch of the National Personnel Center, the locations of these units were as follows:

(1) 183RD ENGINEER COMBAT BATALION.-

On April 11, 1945, the locations of the sub-units of the above battalion were: (a) Mommenheim (192 miles from Buchenwald)for the Headquarters and Service Company; (b)Hocheim am Main (183 miles from Buchenwald) for Company A; (c) Loerzweiler (192 and 1/2 miles from Buchenwald) for Company B and (d) Boppard (284 miles from Buchenwald) for Company C.

(2) 761ST TANK BATTALION.-

On the day of Buchenwald's self-liberation, the sub-units of the 761st were stationed at: (a) Hildburghausen (70) mles from Buchenwald) for the Headquarters Company, the Service Company and Companies A and D; (b) Oeslau (79 miles from Buchenwald)for Company B and (c) Rottenbach (69 and 1/2 miles from Buchenwald) for Company C.

Now,as far as Dachau is concerned, some of the veterans of the 761st Tank Battalion have made the ludicrous claim that they liberated both Buchenwald and Dachau, however, the latter camp was liberated on April 29, 1945 by the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions.

On the day of Dachau's liberation, the sub-units of the 761st Tank Battalion were located at (A) Straubing (78 miles from Dachau) for the Headquarters Company, the Service Company and Company D; (B)Eltheim (83 miles from Dachau) for Companies A and B and (C) Salching (73 miles from Dachau) for Company C.

The liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau by these two battalions is a fabrication of historical fiction and there is no doubt in my mind that it was concocted for the purpose of improving relations between the African-American and Jewish communities... a worthy cause which should not have been served in such an unethical way.

A particularly disgusting aspect of that charade is that the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum has been supporting and promoting the handful of veterans of those two battalions who have been involved in publicizing that hoax.

Pierre C.T. Verheye Buchenwald Political Prisoner No. 126637 July 4, 2000

This books presents a subject that has long been ignored........1999-10-17

This book presents a subject that has long been ignored by the rest of America. The shameful events Black soldiers had to endure have been swept under the rug for to many years. This book lightly touches on the prejudice that took place during the WWII. There is still much that needs to be told. However, the records are basically kept secret. Due to again to the powers that be in DC and the monumental cost of obtaining these records.

Awesome Book a must in anyone's library.......1999-06-14

My father served in Patton's third Army and I can tell you that many of the conquests now being reported happened, many of the records stored about the campaigns these valiant men fought were lost in a warehouse fire in St Louis,MI. So the records are from the ones who had original documents before the fire and eyewitness accounts. The Book is a fantastic account of what the 761st conquered from the vantage point of the war front and their home front.. It vindicates the unjustices done to the memory of the fallen ones and it places credit where it is due; into the hands of these great men who fought with courage,honor and faith... A must in anyone's library.. Have amazon track this out of print book through their used book purveyors.. I am so glad it's in my bookshelf, I often reach for it reading parts to better understand what man like my father went through...

TWO-MAN AIR FORCE: Don Gentile and John Godfrey: World War II Flying Legends (Pen & Sword Aviation)

Average customer rating:

Two Man AF generally ok

TWO-MAN AIR FORCE: Don Gentile and John Godfrey: World War II Flying Legends (Pen & Sword Aviation)
Philip Kaplan
Manufacturer: Pen and Sword
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Spirit of the Blue: A Fighter Pilot's Story
The Few
Spitfires, Thunderbolts, and Warm Beer: An American Fighter Pilot Over Europe (The Warriors)
Young Man, You'll Never Die
Spitfire Pilot: A Personal Account of the Battle of Britain

ASIN: 1844151778

Book Description

American volunteers Don Gentile and John Godfrey flew together as leader and wingman respectively, with the USAAF 4th Fighter Group based at Debden near Cambridge. At the end of their missions with the 4th the two of them had accounted for over 58 enemy aircraft destroyed. Major Gentile had scored 22 air and 6 ground kills before he was returned to the USA to help raise money for the war effort. Major Godfrey was credited with 18 air and 12 ground kills before he was shot down and taken prisoner of war.

This is the story of their amazing adventures and wartime partnership from their basic training in Canada and then onto England where they first flew the Supermarine Spitfire. It continues with their transfer to the USAAF 4th Fighter Group when the US entered the war.

These two ace pilots loved life as much as flying - and as well as being hell-bent on destroying the enemy in the skies of Europe they also lived life to the full in their off-duty time in England.

Customer Reviews:

Two Man AF generally ok.......2006-07-08

My biggest problem with this book is it's poorly organized and doesn't stick to the primary topic very well. The book is about 170 pages long and has about 20 pages devoted to Godfrey and Gentile, their tactics and their interaction with each other and the rest of their group. The great majority of the book covers their development in their youth (helps showing how they got there), the personalities of their unit and other units within the 8th AF in England in WW II. I bought this book with an eye to see how these men developed their tactics and how their personalities shapped it. I have the great bulk of this book contained in a substantial collection of books about the Eagle Squadrons and 4th Fighter Group.

Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History

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This is a MUST Civil War Read
Interesting Look at the Two Largest Confederate Armies
Interesting contrast between two armies
Very Well Written and Insightful
One side or another?

Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History
Richard M. McMurry
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Battle Tactics of the Civil War (Yale Nota Bene)
Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862
Civil War Command And Strategy: The Process Of Victory And Defeat
Why the North Won the Civil War
Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage

ASIN: 0807845698
Release Date: 1996-01-17

Book Description

Richard McMurry compares the two largest Confederate armies, assessing why Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was more successful than the Army of Tennessee. His bold conclusion is that Lee's army was a better army--not just one with a better high command.

Customer Reviews:

This is a MUST Civil War Read.......2007-03-31

To be concise--this is one of the best books on the Civil War. It is accurate, informative and very easy to read.

Interesting Look at the Two Largest Confederate Armies.......2006-07-18

Richard McMurry takes a look at the two largest armies in the Confederacy in what is, as the title indicates, an extended essay. The Army of Northern Virginia, ably led by Robert E. Lee, was able to compile a large number of impressive victories during the war. The Army of Tennessee, led by various men of less than stellar ability, was only able to win at Chickamauga, and even that victory proved barren strategically. The author considers various factors that affected the two, including geography, logistical concerns, leadership on all levels (particularly among lower level officers), pre-war militia systems in Virginia and Tennessee, and even the Federals who faced each army. He concludes that in every case, the Army of Northern Virginia benefited from these factors while the Army of Tennessee was negatively affected. I have seen it stated in several places that McMurry is saying that the men of the Army of Northern Virginia were better than the men of the Army of Tennessee. I did not get this sense from my reading of the book. Instead, McMurry is stressing that the men in leadership positions in each army were very different. The vast majority of the men who had graduated from military schools such as West Point, VMI, and the Citadel were concentrated in the Army of Northern Virginia to that army's immense benefit. The Army of Tennessee started out with many men who were untrained in the art of war, and that army's problems were exacerbated as casualties started to deprive it of even the small number of leaders who had that previous military experience. In other words, McMurry believes the raw material was there to work with, but the Army of Tennessee did not have experienced men available in large enough numbers to work with this raw material.

The last chapter of the book discusses the views of historians Thomas Connelly and Albert Castel on Robert E. Lee and also looks at the ways in which the Confederate government, specifically Jefferson Davis, could have prosecuted the war. McMurry sides with Castel in defending Lee from Connelly's attacks, and stresses that the Confederates were right to try to win the war in the east. With that said, the author believes the war was eventually won in the west by the Federals. I found it somewhat odd that McMurry would quote Connelly's entirely negative opinions on the western generals and agree with them while at the same time defending Lee from the same negative opinions. In a way, this did make sense, as it fits McMurry's own views on the generals of each theater. Perhaps Connelly is just a negative historian in general, however. Reading this book has increased my interest in Connelly's two volume history of the Army of Tennessee, and that set has moved much higher up my reading list as a result.

Overall, I enjoyed McMurry's short work, finishing it over one weekend in just three sittings. It really is startling to see how many trained military men ended up in the Army of Northern Virginia for various reasons at the expense of other Confederate armies. Likewise, it was illuminating to see all of the other advantages, intentional or otherwise, which were routinely provided to the Confederacy's largest army. This particular book is directed at students of these two largest Confederate armies and of Confederate grand strategy during the Civil War. I definitely recommend it to any student of the war.

Interesting contrast between two armies.......2000-06-06

Mr. McMurry's purpose in writing this book was to try and explain why the Army of Northern Virginia was so successful, and why the Army of Tennessee so awful. Although I did not agree with some of his conclusions, he does provide some compelling evidence to support his arguments.

I found this book to be very informative, and an easy read. I recommend it for anyone looking to better understand how the South fought the war, why the two great rebel armies had such different levels of success on the battlefield, and possibly why they did not have the ability to win the war.

Very Well Written and Insightful.......2000-04-20

I'm not a student of the Civil War, so I cannot comment on the merit of McMurry's main points, but as a student of the Old South I thoroughly enjoyed this book. McMurry's analysis of the two armies is very well organized and easy to read. Simply, it's a page turner. This book is at once both highly focused on a single topic and illuminate of larger Civil War issues. I really enjoyed this book and will read it every so often in the years to come. I recommend McMurry's book without reserve.

One side or another?.......2000-02-21

The title definately underscores how masterful Mr. McMurray has been in detailing the main differences between the Army of Northern Virginia and The Army of Tennessee. From the basics of command on through key strategy and deployment, both armies are beautifully dissected by McMurray's research, mirrored with an easy to understand style of writing.

This book not only discusses how important the upper command structures were to both armies but how the various infrastructures such as railroads, food supply, communication and weapons production differed from east to west.

This book can be summed up as an impressive literary study of the two great armies. It sheds light on the many differences as well as similarities and gives the reader new insight into the complex study of military history.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in an intense study of both armies.

Well done Mr. McMurray!

The voices of guns: The definitive and dramatic story of the twenty-two-month career of the Symbionese Liberation Army, one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of the American Left
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Fascinating!

Voices of Guns account of the Symbionese Liberation army

The voices of guns: The definitive and dramatic story of the twenty-two-month career of the Symbionese Liberation Army, one of the most bizarre chapters in the history of the American Left
Vin McLellan , and Paul Avery
Manufacturer: Putnam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Every Secret Thing

Guerrilla - The Taking of Patty Hearst

Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties and Seventies

SDS/WUO, Students For A Democratic Society And The Weather Underground Organization

ASIN: 0399117385

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating!.......2005-06-28

I'll get the flaws out of the way first. First, the author alternates frequently between the SLA members' actual names and their code names. That was a little confusing. Probably it was his intention to make the reader familiar with both.

Secondly, the book was very thorough on details. But maybe it was a little too thorough, particularly on the biographical detail of the key SLA players. Also, in the period following the siege of the LA house that resulted in the deaths of most of the original SLA, there was an infusion of new members and a complex web of shifting loyalties. In these aspects, I think the authors should have saved some of that minutia for appendices. If you're using this as a research project source, the more detail the better. But for the casual reader, it's a lot of detail to wade through. You can do some selective skimming and the whole of the book remains coherent.

But those are minor flaws, and even as flaws they're erring on the side of completeness. This book reads very well; I couldn't put it down. The book opened with background about the politicization of prisoners in California due to outside volunteer groups, in the hopes of rehabilitation. Very perceptive of the authors to recognize the role this phenomenon played.

The authors presented an enlightening analysis of just what the SLA's ideology was; what motivated these people to do what they did. At the point in the story where Patty Hearst joined the SLA and transformed to Tania, the authors presented some helpful background about "brainwashing" (to the extent that such a phenomenon as the public conceives it even exists).

In short, not only is the research of the facts excellent, but the analysis is superb. It's objective. It's not overly stylized nor overly speculative. (None of which can be said for the sickly account, "Exclusive! The inside story of Patricia Hearst and the SLA" by Marilyn Baker. ) The book's power to engross relies on its substance.

Voices of Guns account of the Symbionese Liberation army.......2000-10-23

This is one of the two key accounts of the Symbionese Liberation Army. The other is the Patricia Hearst autobiography "Every Secret Thing" (rereleased as "Patty Hearst"). Voices of Guns is an excellent book on the SLA considering that it was released in 1977 before all of the information on the case became public. The most notable error: VOG correctly stated that after the Hearst guilty verdict the DA's said that Hearst began cooperating with police AFTER being given a 35 year preliminary sentence. In actuality Hearst had beeen secretly cooperating with two FBI agents soon after her capture. The original judge knew this but the prosecutors didn't. Other than that the authors seemed like they didn't want to burn bridges with their sources so there is a bit of transparent pandering but this is easy to notice and work around. Overall, an excellent book on the SLA that is very balanced.

Us Army Vehicles of World War Two (A Foulis Military Book)

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Us Army Vehicles of World War Two (A Foulis Military Book)
Jean Michael Boniface
Manufacturer: Haynes Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0854298118

An American Army of Two (Carolrhoda on My Own Books)

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good book, i guess

An American Army of Two (Carolrhoda on My Own Books)
Janet Greeson
Manufacturer: Carolrhoda Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Trail of Tears (Cornerstones of Freedom)
The Matchlock Gun
And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? (Paperstar)
The Secret Soldier: The Story Of Deborah Sampson (Scholastic Biography)
Buttons for General Washington (Carolrhoda on My Own Book.)

ASIN: 0876145470

Customer Reviews:

good book, i guess.......2002-01-11

this book had a good story. I did not like the way the author wrote about it, but the background was good.

Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala

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One of the Finest Microhistories of Revolutionary Warfare
An Accurate Analysis
Well written but confusing conclusion
Excellent Anthropologist...
A Realistic Analysis of Revolution and Counter-Rev'n

Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala
David Stoll
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope (California Series in Public Anthropology)
Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (American Encounters/Global Interactions)
I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

ASIN: 0231081839

Book Description

This book challenges how the human rights movement thinks about a country notorious for rightwing terrorism. David Stoll's reinterpretation of the civil war in Guatemala focuses on the Ixil Mayas of the Western highlands. Based on their testimony, he attributes Ixil support for guerrillas in the early 1980s not to revolutionary impluses but to dual violence -- the coercive pressures of military confrontation which Ixils describe as "living between two fires." As a study of a peasant neutralism under crossfire, Between Two Armies questions whether confrontational forms of human rights organizing reflect the wishes of survivors trying to rebuild civil society, that is, political space to make their own decisions.

Customer Reviews:

One of the Finest Microhistories of Revolutionary Warfare.......2007-07-09

In the early 1990's, I prepared political asylum petitions for numerous Mayan Indians that had fled the killing grounds of Guatemala. The single thing that surprised me most, were their stories of atrocities committed by the Guerillas. I had thought the "Army of the Poor" were fighting on behalf of the Mayan Indians against the Army and Guatemalan State. However, many of the stories I heard had to deal more with communal land struggles than Revolution against the State. I soon realized that the situation was vastly more complicated than I had thought.

Soon after the worst of the killings were over, the anthropologist David Stoll was doing fieldwork in one of the areas most devestated during the War. What he found is a more nuanced story than many of the accounts outsiders were hearing during this time period. By looking at revolution and counter-insurgency on a village by village, hamlet by hamlet basis, Stoll paints an extraordinary complicated picture of an Indian peasantry caught between a brutal Army and its own violent history of intercomunal conflict. More than any other type of warfare, revolution and counter-insurgency lends itself to the analysis of micro-history.

This book is an extraordinary account of a War that devestated Guatemala's indigenous people. David Stoll is to be commended for his personal bravery in gathering the local details of the War and his commitment to the unvarnished truth. One has to wonder how many more years it will take for the first anthropologists to be doing this same work in Iraq. Highly recommended.

An Accurate Analysis.......2006-04-01

I have spent the past several years of my life living and working in the Ixil region of Guatemala. During this time I have traveled to nearly all the places described in this book. I HAVE lived and worked with many former guerrillas and memebers of the "comunidades en resistencia" and I found Stoll's analysis of the Ixil region and its recent history to be both enlightening and accurate. His conclusions concerning the nature of the armed conflict in this region correspond very closely to my own experiences interacting with the people here.
Those who criticize Stoll are generally people who have only a very superficial knowledge of Guatemalan reality or those who try manipulate the country's history to confirm their own political fantasies of third world "noble savages" carrying out poplar utopian revolutions.
The only criticism I would offer to Stool is that he should have been much more vocal in his denunciations of the army's disgusting genocidal campaign against the Ixiles and the other indigenous peoples of Guatemala. By characterizing the army's campaign of mass murder as a simple reaction to a percieved threat, Stoll almost sounds as if he is excusing or rationalizing the unthinkable acts of this most horrible national institution.

Well written but confusing conclusion.......2003-02-04

David Stoll has written a book that opens much of the 1980's civil war torn Guatemala up to the reader. The details of village life, movement and to some degree, attitude is pertinent and important. Where the facts end and the theory begins is where the reader should take caution with Stoll's analysis.

Stoll seems to come to the conclusion that the Guerilla movement and the Guatemalan Army equally share blame for the strife of the country during this time period. While this is a truism, it is only a half-truism. Stoll neglects to dwell on the status of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala prior to the civil war and omits discussion of whether the war was justified or not justified. Stoll instead puts forth the rather obvious conclusion that neither the Guerillas or the Army represented all Mayans in Guatemala. While true, this situation of citizens caught between warring factions is usually a universal truth in war and does not shed any new light on Guatemala during this period.

The danger in Stoll's simple analysis in this book is that while he attempts to put forth the theory that the majority of Mayan citizens of Guatemala were "between two evils" he ends up promoting the theory that the majority of citizens were NOT aligned with the Guerillas. It is this point that is perpexling because Stoll does not directly interview any Guerilla combatant or get close to their camps. He does, however, include direct quotes from Army soldiers. Stoll can not hope to give a balanced viewpoint on the political scene with such a one-sided view of the situation. In fact, his very presence in Guatemala during this time would render the testimony given to him as less than factual. It is well known now that the US was involved in the Civil War in Guatemala during this time and many villagers have testified to human rights commissions that they saw Americans in both Guatemalan Army fatigues as well as American military fatigues. Stoll's presence then could be very unnerving to the very people he sought truths from. Stoll justifies this by saying that his interviewees talked badly about the Army and the Guerillas which lead him to the conclusion that they must be telling him the truth. Equally possible is the scenario that what he was hearing was not the truth at all as his subjects were wary of his questioning and would not put themselves at risk for his venture.

In the end, Stoll's book is a good source of general information but his conclusions are theories. And if one is to believe the massive volumes of human rights records on the issue - his theories are largely incorrect.

Excellent Anthropologist..........2002-05-03

I happen to have had him as a teacher in the early 90's. I also happen to have lived in Guatemala the whole of my formative year's. Fact is that his view's of why and how of that period, in this and other books about Guatemala, corelate with both my and my friends experiance in Guatemala. I highly recomend this and other books of his both for their informative value and their basic readability.

A Realistic Analysis of Revolution and Counter-Rev'n.......1998-05-08

This study of how Guatemala's civil war impacted the lives of everyday campesinos is one of the best and most realistic studies of revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) politics since Forrest Colburn's Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua. Stoll shows how both the guerrillas and the Guatemalan government share blame in putting peasants in the cross-fire of a war they didn't want. This book is sure to draw the ire of "romantic" revolutionaries that only see the Guatemalan conflict in terms of "good" vs. "evil."

2002 Complete Guide to Operation Enduring Freedom: The First Year of the American War on Terrorism ¿ News and Photo Galleries from Afghanistan, Battles Against al Qaeda (al-Qaida) Terrorists and the Taliban, Humanitarian Relief Flights, U.S. Central Command, Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Weapons (Two CD-ROM Set)

Average customer rating:

A bargain

2002 Complete Guide to Operation Enduring Freedom: The First Year of the American War on Terrorism ¿ News and Photo Galleries from Afghanistan, Battles Against al Qaeda (al-Qaida) Terrorists and the Taliban, Humanitarian Relief Flights, U.S. Central Command, Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Weapons (Two CD-ROM Set)
Department of Defense
Manufacturer: Progressive Management
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: 1592480527

Book Description

This up-to-date and comprehensive two-disc CD-ROM set provides a superb collection of official DOD documents, publications, and photographs on all aspects of Operation Enduring Freedom - the highly successful Bush Administration military campaign against al Qaeda terrorists and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan launched shortly after the attack on America, September 11, 2001. The set provides an invaluable history of the events of this historic military operation.

Just some of the topics covered:

U.S. Air Force Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Noble Eagle; Operation Enduring Freedom Images (Armed Forces AFIS Collection); U.S. Army Operation Enduring Freedom; U.S. Central Command (CentCom) Photos including Operation Anaconda, Mine Clearing in Afghanistan, Operation Snipe Cave Demolition, Leaflets Dropped over Afghanistan; U.S. Central Command News and Description of OEF Activities; U.S. Navy Operation Enduring Freedom photos; Congressional Documents and Testimony on OEF and Afghanistan; Defend America Database on Weapons; OEF Preventive Medicine Briefing; Defense Link (DOD) Operation Enduring Freedom News Photos; Defend America News, Information, Stories, and Photo Essays; Senate Hearing: Political Future of Afghanistan; House of Representatives documents on Operation Enduring Freedom; AFIS OEF Images; Marine Corps Enduring Freedom and related operations; U.S. Navy Enduring Freedom and Noble Eagle News, Stories, Photographs; and the Terrorist Bombing of USS Cole (October 2000).

In all, the two-disc set has over 23,000 pages reproduced using Adobe Acrobat PDF software - allowing direct viewing on Windows and Apple Macintosh systems. Reader software is included on the CD.

Our CD-ROMs are privately-compiled collections of official public domain U.S. federal government files and documents. They are designed to provide a convenient user-friendly reference work utilizing the benefits of the Adobe Acrobat format to uniformly present thousands of pages that can be rapidly reviewed, searched by finding specific words, or printed without untold hours of tedious research and downloading. Vast archives of important public domain government information that might otherwise remain inaccessible are available for instant review no matter where you are. This book-on-a-disc makes a great reference work and educational tool. There is no other reference that is as fast, convenient, comprehensive, and portable - everything you need to know, from the federal sources you trust.

Customer Reviews:

A bargain.......2005-06-16

Well, it's a bargain of you consider that you can get most of this material for free but it would be an enormous pain in the neck to retrieve it yourself.

I've been reading this guide for more than two years and I'm only halfway through! That's because there must be more than 20,000 pages, some of them quite dense and technical, and most of it is out of date. But I will say that anyone interested in probing the mysterious death of Pat Tillman has got to read the 2002 COMPLETE GUIDE TO OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM. Did you know that they were going to call this revenge mission Operation Infinite Justice? That would have been a laugh. As it is, it's not a name that will go down in history for euphony or realism. The 2002 guide packs a punch, showing how George Bush rammed the proposal through Congress in October 2001 while Americans were too shell shocked to know what had really happened, and the truth is, as these documents reveal, we still don't really know what happened, and we never will, either. Operation Enduring Freedom was supposed to promote the cessation of terrorist activities in Afghanistan, and it included dropping lots of leaflets across the high deserts and mountains of that far away land. Many of these leaflets are reproduced in this handy guide, however, the context is missing so it's hard to gauge what kind of reaction General Franks expected to elicit from the ordinary Afghan man on the street with these bizarre flyers.

My hat is off to the brave men and woman soldiers who went there and met their deaths through danger. It now seems clear that Pat Tillman died not through enemy fire nor the operations of Al Qaeda, but he died of fratricide which the Army tried to cover up. In a way I don't blame them, but still it's discouraging when your own country lies to you and I expect his family are still in a state of shock, especially his brother Kevin who is still in Afghanistan last I heard. Though this 2002 COMPLETE GUIDE is out of date, and runs out of steam long before the timeline in which Tillman left football and joined the Armed Services, you don't have to read between the lines to see that "friendly fire" has been a huge problem in Operation Enduring Freedom. When will it end? Though the Taliban was removed from power by March 2002, anti-American forces still contend with our troops on a daily basis. The Tomahawk targeting cycle has its limits.

After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central Asia

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After Two Wars: Reflections on the American Strategic Revolution in Central Asia
Stephen Blank
Manufacturer: Strategic Studies Institute U. S. Army War Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1584871903

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