Soldier's Heart PDF Download

Author: Elizabeth D. Samet
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429933194
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Elizabeth D. Samet and her students learned to romanticize the army "from the stories of their fathers and from the movies." For Samet, it was the old World War II movies she used to watch on TV, while her students grew up on Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. Unlike their teacher, however, these students, cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, have decided to turn make-believe into real life. West Point is a world away from Yale, where Samet attended graduate school and where nothing sufficiently prepared her for teaching literature to young men and women who were training to fight a war. Intimate and poignant, Soldier's Heart chronicles the various tensions inherent in that life as well as the ways in which war has transformed Samet's relationship to literature. Fighting in Iraq, Samet's former students share what books and movies mean to them—the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the fiction of Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee, the epics of Homer, or the films of James Cagney. Their letters in turn prompt Samet to wonder exactly what she owes to cadets in the classroom. Samet arrived at West Point before September 11, 2001, and has seen the academy change dramatically. In Soldier's Heart, she reads this transformation through her own experiences and those of her students. Forcefully examining what it means to be a civilian teaching literature at a military academy, Samet also considers the role of women in the army, the dangerous tides of religious and political zeal roiling the country, the uses of the call to patriotism, and the cult of sacrifice she believes is currently paralyzing national debate. Ultimately, Samet offers an honest and original reflection on the relationship between art and life.

Author: David H. Hackworth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743246136
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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The commanding officer of an infantry battalion in Vietnam in 1969 recounts how he took over a demoralized unit of ordinary draftees and turned it into an elite fighting force, and describes its accomplishments.

Author: Jim Frederick
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307450988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
“Riveting. . . a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters.”—New York Times Book Review This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives. Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.

Author: Gina Wilkins
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488017263
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
A family for her daughter? Elle O’Meara’s happy being a single mom to her adopted two-year-old, Charlotte. Even so, when Shane Scanlon starts coming in to her bakeshop, he becomes a bright spot in her days. The handsome former army medic even strikes up a friendship with her daughter, making Elle wonder if there’s room in her life for the excitement he could bring. Then Elle discovers why Shane’s really there: he’s Charlotte’s biological uncle and wants her in his family. Elle prefers to believe he won’t take Charlotte away, but he’s already lied once. Now she doesn’t know if her connection with Shane was real—or just another lie.

Author: Tammy Ryan
Publisher: Broadway Play Publishing Incorporated
ISBN: 9780881456707
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 82

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Book Description
"Tammy Ryan's poignant SOLIDER'S HEART shines a light on the struggles facing woman warriors...a tense, raw, troubling and no-nonsense examination of what happens to soldiers, particularly female soldiers, serving in the military...This is not an easy play to watch. Nor is it meant to be." Alice Carter, Tribune "Portrayls of soldiers wrecked by war date to the ancient Greeks (see Aeschylus), but Ms Ryan adeptly reworks the time-tested recipe from a woman's perspective to make it seem fresh again...Briskly written in brief scenes that easily flash back and forth...the subject of sexual assault in the military gives the play weight and merit. Ms. Ryan deftly layers critical incidents that culminate in a forceful climax...Frank, colloquial language delivers a strong sense of spontaneity." Michael Sommers, New York Times "Ryan brings a searing story to life about the high cost of war...Ryan's play could border on political [but] it's all about relationships: what you give up in times of war and how families are destroyed in the process...a disturbing, topical production, building on the terror and sacrifices that never-ending wars entail." Liz Keill, The Alternative Press "Ryan brings a heart-wrenching experience into alignment with the blisteringly traumatic aftershock of rape...It is a story worth telling." Simon Saltzman, Curtain Up "Tammy Ryan has written an intense drama that grabs you from the first scene and doesn't let go until the lights go down two hours later...a story with a strong dramatic arc...on an important subject with which we must deal decisively, now." Ruth Ross, NJ Arts Maven ..".richly nuanced, three-dimensional characters and a neatly constructed, riveting story. Ryan has done her homework." Bob Rendell, Talkin' Broadway

Author: James B. Stewart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439188270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart comes the extraordinary story of American hero Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley security director and a veteran of Vietnam and the British colonial wars in Rhodesia, who lost his life on September 11. When Rick Rescorla got home from Vietnam, he tried to put combat and death behind him, but he never could entirely. From the day he joined the British Army to fight a colonial war in Rhodesia, where he met American Special Forces’ officer Dan Hill who would become his best friend, to the day he fell in love with Susan, everything in his remarkable life was preparing him for an act of generosity that would transcend all that went before. Heart of a Soldier is a story of bravery under fire, of loyalty to one’s comrades, of the miracle of finding happiness late in life. Everything about Rick’s life came together on September 11. In charge of security for Morgan Stanley, he successfully got all its 2,700 men and women out of the south tower of the World Trade Center. Then, thinking perhaps of soldiers he’d held as they died, as well as the woman he loved, he went back one last time to search for stragglers. Heart of a Soldier is a story that inspires, offers hope, and helps heal even the deepest wounds.

Author: Gary Paulsen
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
ISBN: 0440228387
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure. The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."

Author: Uzodinma Iweala
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061844543
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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“Remarkable. . . . Iweala never wavers from a gripping, pulsing narrative voice. . . . He captures the horror of ethnic violence in all its brutality and the vulnerability of youth in all its innocence.” —Entertainment Weekly (A) The harrowing, utterly original debut novel by Uzodinma Iweala about the life of a child soldier in a war-torn African country As civil war rages in an unnamed West-African nation, Agu, the school-aged protagonist of this stunning novel, is recruited into a unit of guerilla fighters. Haunted by his father’s own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family, still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality continues to spin further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. In a powerful, strikingly original voice, Uzodinma Iweala leads the reader through the random travels, betrayals, and violence that mark Agu’s new community. Electrifying and engrossing, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary writer.

Author: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062333836
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country’s cause In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.

Author: Marta Perry
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 142684574X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Wounded army officer Luke Marino was senthome, his career, his spirit shattered. Now hewanted only to be left alone, refusing even thephysical therapy he needed. But Mary Kate Flanagan Donnelly, a widowwith two children to raise on her own, needed Luke's case to prove herself as a capabletherapist. Despite the revival of feelings shethought dormant since their high schoolromance, she was determined to helpthe stubborn hero and keep mattersstrictly business….