Inspirational books posted by veterans, active military, family & friends sharing their Military experiences. You can upload a link to your book, novel, or short story so other veterans can find you! Add your book now.
An autobiography about a boy growing up in Nacogdoches, Texas, his youthful adventures, and his joining the Army Air Corps during WWII. The author describes his pilot training and his 35 bombing missions as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot based in Cerignola, Italy. After completing his tour of combat, the author remained in Italy as a cargo pilot based at Capodichino Air Base in Naples, Italy where he married an Italian War Bride before returning to Nacogdoches to finish his college education.
If the title alone doesn't intrigue you, the content will. This is a true story about family, friendship and an unseen guiding power. It's not just a story about Vietnam, but rather an account of an emotional journey that leads you to ponder fate, miracles and a sense of having guardian angels watching over a soldier's life.
This book chronicles the adventures of Alan Miller and his boyhood pal Steve McQueen. (They call themselves the Musketeers). From high school to Vietnam. How their paths continually intersected at home, overseas and in California. Stories about Marine Corps boot camp, infantry training and the close relationships with fellow Marines, particularly a close knit group who called themselves the Amigos. Heart breaking narratives of friends lost in war and Marines the author met while in hospitals in Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan and Okinawa. Day to day accounts of a Marine rifleman in Vietnam. How he faced the hostilities of war and came home to the hostilities of peace.
It Wasn't Just A Job; It Was An Adventure by Donald Johnson
Have you ever wondered what your sailor husband, wife or friend does at sea or at that overseas Navy facility? This book will tell you some of the things that go on. You will read about "The Perfect Storm", practical jokes, Navy food, the loss of a shipmate at sea and much, much more. Sit back and read these Sailors' stories.
My Dying Breath is the tale of Tuck Richard (REE-shard), a gravely wounded Marine, who looks back on the journey that has whisked him and his friends from the Cajun country of south Louisiana, hardened them through the rigors of training, and flung them into the jungles of 1969 Vietnam. Struggling to survive the elements and a wily enemy, Tuck, Donnie-Boy Hebert (AY-bear) and Johnny Robert (ROH-bear) drive unwittingly toward a tragic showdown with the infamous Col. Pham Van Bui. This NVA super-patriot, however, must survive his own enemies from within - his teen-aged nephew, Pham Thuc Trai, who seeks revenge, and a veteran Eurasian, Louie, who is trying to escape the futility of war.
Western Sunrise is a future history, including and ending with the successful conclusion of the next Gulf War, which begins in the summer of the year 2004. The precipitating event of that war will not be described here; it would give away too much. The technology involved is similar to that which might be featured in one of many techno-thrillers. The narrative begins with the end of the Vietnam Conflict, touches on the Panamanian invasion of 1988, describes a Mideast assignment, Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and peacetime service in the Army Medical Department. The realism, twists, turns, counterplots and colorful characters (such as Old Franz, the headwaiter, late of the 11th SS Armored Division, and Miss MacTavish who may or may not be an agent of MI6) make this short volume a page-turner, impossible to put down. It is told from the viewpoint of a career military surgeon, assigned out to pasture, or so he believes, after Desert Storm, until it's time for him to retire. Except that his various mundane jobs' requirements are highly classified and contradictory. When he tries to connect the dots, he's quickly ordered not to proceed further. Without a plausible explanation, he is kept on active duty long after his date of retirement in support of something mysterious, compartmented and unexplained until the last ten pages of the novel. Buy it for a man who likes action-packed stories; if he likes W.E.B. Griffin, he'll love Western Sunrise
The story of a 17 year old boy from Seattle joining the Navy during a cold war with newspaper memories of frozen foxholes in the Frozen Chosin. His adventures and misadventures. His growing into manhood in a Navy that was changing and never to be seen again. It is available only through the author.
Two Brothers, veterans of WW2, John a bombardier on B17s , was wounded over Germany on his 13th mission. Paul, a sailor on board the USS Cape Esperance, survived Typhoon Cobra, of December 18, l944 when 790 sailors were lost to the wind and the waves of the China Sea. Three destroyers were sunk by the violent storm with very few survivors. After discharged from the military, the two brothers and their families set out on an adventuresome pioneer/missionary endeavor in the Green Hell of the Amazon River country in Brazil. The brothers worked with Brazilians along the Amazon river, and with a primitive tribe called Ticuna. The two families were a hundred miles from supplies and medical help, depending on God and a dugout canoe with a 5 hp outboard for transportation. The brothers did what they could to help the people with medicines, tooth extraction, and education. After 40 years on the job, hundreds of formerly illerate people could read, churches were established with their own national pastors, and schools taught by their own people were functioning in each of the surrounding villages. Fishing in jungle lakes was fabulous. The book has three sections of photos.
Army Green is a fictional study encompassing the lives of two friends from Kansas City, as they encounter the events and situations of the last half of the 20th Century. Their backgrounds are similar, yet differ enough to provide an intriguing level of contrast. It is the sequel to "Century's Child". The two men meet as teenagers in the Kansas National Guard of 1954. Their lives develop over the next 50 years, separately for the most part, but along parallel career and family lines. The protagonist, Bill Anderson, begins his post-high school life intending (and wanting) nothing more than to have a "steady lifetime job" at Sears, Roebuck's gigantic mail order plant in Kansas City, Missouri. Thirty-five years later he has developed a completely-unexpectedly steady lifetime job as one of the Army's seniormost enlisted logisticians. He describes his life as a series of accidents which turned out well. The reader can't avoid the conclusion that the narrator made those incidents bear fruit, and his protestations to the contrary, chance had only a small part in their outcome. The turning point of his story is the crucial accident of his activation and posting to Vietnam in the wake of 1968's Tet Offensive. After that, even with twelve years' seniority, Sears doesn't have a chance.
At last, someone has written a book of eyewitness accounts of Americans in South Korea, both civilian and military, who were present when the North Korean Communists attacked on June 25, 1950. In SOS KOREA 1950 Raymond Maurstad gives us a glimpse of the conditions in South Korea prior to the Korean war. Few Americans know of the great efforts of the United States to aid the South Koreans following World War II. In 1945, South Korea was an economic, social and military basket case. America spent millions of dollars to aid them, and the South was well on its way in economic development when the North attacked . "Maurstad gives his readers a description of the utter chaos and confusion that resulted in South Korea following the attack. General MacArthur in Tokyo was for a time cut off from communication with his officials in Korea. During this time, Ray and some of his friends kept MacArthur's Headquarters informed about the deteriorating military situation in the South using their own personal amateur radio equipment. Yes, it was dangerous! "
Personal memoirs of an RAF pilot trained as a Naval Aviator at NAS Pensacola in 1941 and of combat experiences as a U-boat hunter in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Oceans under the title "The Last Generation," published in 2000. The story of a young man involved in the great struggle that became known as World War II, and of his loss of innocence without doubting the cause he embraced. This is not a story of heroics, but rather a telling of the day to day events that make up the life of a flying boat captain, of one man's duties as a submarine hunter in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Indian Oceans. It is a story that is typical of the young men who grew to manhood in the years between 1938 and 1946, and of how they persevered through the long years of a war that was, without doubt, the last of its kind.
Century's Child is the saga of the Richards family, whose protagonist describes the interaction of his family, typical of tens of thousands like it, with the military and political history of this country, from 1900 to 1998, with a single flashback to November, 1864 (Sherman's March to the Sea), and a flash-over to the Somme, July 1, 1916. The setting is principally a Midwestern city, but over half the action takes place at multiple scattered Army posts, in South Vietnam, and in Arabia. The first-person protagonist is determined to break out of the blue-collar world, to break the mold of generations of skilled labor, and feels driven to see just how far he can rise. He wants to do something to make the world better, and perhaps to make a difference in its history. And it is not in him to say "die."
My Dad, Everyone's Soldier is the true story of one family's experience in having a family member called up from the U. S. Army Reserves to active duty in today's uncertain times. Told through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, the story explores topics including love, loss, and longing in a simple yet powerful way. The little boy expresses in his own descriptive way what over 250,000 families in America are coping with today.
At twenty four, Sisene Segler is a single mother who realizes true love may not be found during her lifetime. Sisene begins transforming her life on her own terms. After graduating from nursing school she joins the Army where she meets Enrique Carerras, Mr. Right. The only problem is that Mr. Right is still a teenager. A month after reporting to her duty station at Fort Hood Texas, she leaves on a humanitarian mission to Somalia with a 'Rapid Deployment' unit. Soon she is promoted to Sergeant and quickly realizes that without any formal training she will have to master the leadership skills necessary for survival. When she returns to Fort Hood, Enrique has since celebrated his twentieth birthday. Sisene tries to terminate their relationship, however, the deadly virus she returns from Somalia with may end their love and their future together before she does.
Twelve years ago CW2 Tom Haigler was attached to the unit that would spearhead the 7th Corps into Iraq. As a Physician Assistant his mission was to ready not only his medics, but himself, to care for the more than 200 casualties the ground war promised. 131 Days was created from his daily journal and gives a first hand account of what the medics in a frontline aid station face. There were many aspects to the war fought in Iraq. One was witnessed daily on CNN; precision guided missiles, spectacular explosions, the burning skies of Baghdad. Another is the battle of the mind; the emotions, the fear, the anger, the relief, the guilt. This is the aspect of the war he describes. 131 Days is an important reminder of what soldiers face on a personal level when combat is inevitable.
