Best Afghan & Iraq War Biographies

The uplifting and unforgettable true story of a US Marine, the stray dog he met on an Afghan battlefield, and how they saved each other and now travel America together, "spreading the message of stubborn positivity." A poignant and inspiring tale of hope, resilience, and optimism, with a timeless message at its heart—"it is not what happens to us that matters, but how we respond to it"— Craig & Fred is a shining example of the power of love to transform our hearts and our lives. Fred not only stole Craig’s heart; he won over the RECON fighters, who helped Craig smuggle the dog into heavily fort-ified Camp Leatherneck.

New York Times Bestseller A stirringly evocative, thought-provoking, and often jaw-dropping account, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O’Neill’s awe-inspiring four-hundred-mission career, which included his involvement in attempts to rescue “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and which culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. An interesting and insightful book about some of the most historic moments in modern American military history." "Enlightening about military special forces, especially the SEAL component . “Intensely moving and awe-inspiring, The Operator captures as few other books have the essence of being a frogman: utterly unimaginable fatigue followed by intense exhilaration followed by a weary emptiness—and then back for more. O’Neill wrote himself into American history with the three shots he fired into Osama bin Laden, but if you think that operation was intense wait till you read about the ones that preceded it. There is a saying, ‘Great battles are only given to great warriors.’ Rob was repeatedly given great battles, and he represented accordingly.” —Marcus Luttrell, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Lone Survivor and Service. What O’Neill has written is unique, surprising, a kind of counternarrative, and certainly the other half of the story of one of the world’s most famous military operations . In the larger sense, this book is about how to be alive—how to be human while in the very same moment dealing with death, destruction, combat.” —Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers.

NOW A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MINISERIES EVENT. ABC News’ Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz shares remarkable tales of heroism, hope, and heartbreak in her account of “Black Sunday”—a battle during one of the deadliest periods of the Iraq war. Raddatz, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, has also spent considerable time not on the White House lawn or in the pressroom but covering, in person, the war in Iraq. But here Raddatz infuses, with a professional elan belying the fact that this is her first book, her observations with the immediacy and even the discomfort that a novel would be expected to bring home to the reader (the discomfort being an unavoidable but perhaps necessary byproduct of any realistic depiction of war).

The uplifting and unforgettable true story of a US Marine, the stray dog he met on an Afghan battlefield, and how they saved each other and now travel America together, "spreading the message of stubborn positivity." A poignant and inspiring tale of hope, resilience, and optimism, with a timeless message at its heart—"it is not what happens to us that matters, but how we respond to it"— Craig & Fred is a shining example of the power of love to transform our hearts and our lives. Fred not only stole Craig’s heart; he won over the RECON fighters, who helped Craig smuggle the dog into heavily fort-ified Camp Leatherneck.

New York Times Bestseller A stirringly evocative, thought-provoking, and often jaw-dropping account, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O’Neill’s awe-inspiring four-hundred-mission career, which included his involvement in attempts to rescue “Lone Survivor” Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and which culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden. In frank and vivid detail and blunt and plain language, Mr. O'Neill describes some of the 400 counterterrorism operations and close quarter combat he experienced in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere through his career as a SEAL . Fans of battlefield narratives, such as Michael Golembesky's Level Zero Heroes , will relish this gripping perspective on 21st-century warfare." O’Neill wrote himself into American history with the three shots he fired into Osama bin Laden, but if you think that operation was intense wait till you read about the ones that preceded it. What O’Neill has written is unique, surprising, a kind of counternarrative, and certainly the other half of the story of one of the world’s most famous military operations . In the larger sense, this book is about how to be alive—how to be human while in the very same moment dealing with death, destruction, combat.” —Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of In Harm’s Way and Horse Soldiers Robert O’Neill was born and raised in Butte, Montana, and lived there for nineteen years until he joined the Navy in 1996. O’Neill helped cofound Your Grateful Nation, an organization committed to transitioning Special Operations veterans into their next successful career.

General Moore and Joseph Galloway, the only journalist on the ground throughout the fighting, have interviewed hundreds of men who fought there, including the North Vietnamese commanders. This devastating account rises above the specific ordeal it chronicles to present a picture of men facing the ultimate challenge, dealing with it in ways they would have found unimaginable only a few hours earlier. “A GUT-WRENCHING ACCOUNT OF WHAT WAR IS REALLY ALL ABOUT, which should be ‘must’ reading for all Americans, especially those who have been led to believe that war is some kind of Nintendo game.”. –GENERAL H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF.

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. " Radium Girls spares us nothing of their suffering; though at times the foreshadowing reads more like a true-crime story, Moore is intent on making the reader viscerally understand the pain in which these young women were living, and through which they had to fight in order to get their problems recognized...The story of real women at the mercy of businesses who see them only as a potential risk to the bottom line is haunting precisely because of how little has changed; the glowing ghosts of the radium girls haunt us still." "This timely book celebrates the strength of a group of women, whose determination to fight improved both labor laws and scientific knowledge of radium poisoning. Written in a highly readable, narrative style, Moore's chronicle of these inspirational women's lives is sure to provoke discussion-and outrage-in book groups." "Moore's well-researched narrative is written with clarity and a sympathetic voice that brings these figures and their struggles to life...a must-read for anyone interested in American and women's history, as well as topics of law, health, and industrial safety." "Like Da a Sobel's The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures, Kate Moore's The Radium Girls tells the story of a cohort of women who made history by entering the workforce at the dawn of a new scientific era. Moore sheds new light on a dark chapter in American labor history; the " Radium Girls ," martyrs to an unholy alliance of commerce and science, live again in her telling" - Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life and Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast.

When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author— Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.” — People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.” —The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.” —The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.” —The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.” — Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . nothing less than a marvel.” — Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.” —Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. Amazon Best Books of the Month, November 2010 : From Laura Hillenbrand, the bestselling author of Seabiscuit , comes Unbroken , the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a series of catastrophes almost too incredible to be believed. Growing up in California in the 1920s, Louie was a hellraiser, stealing everything edible that he could carry, staging elaborate pranks, getting in fistfights, and bedeviling the local police. But as a teenager, he emerged as one of the greatest runners America had ever seen, competing at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where he put on a sensational performance, crossed paths with Hitler, and stole a German flag right off the Reich Chancellery. Stationed on Oahu, he survived harrowing combat, including an epic air battle that ended when his plane crash-landed, some six hundred holes in its fuselage and half the crew seriously wounded. Drifting for weeks and thousands of miles, they endured starvation and desperate thirst, sharks that leapt aboard the raft, trying to drag them off, a machine-gun attack from a Japanese bomber, and a typhoon with waves some forty feet high. I found it in diaries, letters and unpublished memoirs; in the memories of his family and friends, fellow Olympians, former American airmen and Japanese veterans; in forgotten papers in archives as far-flung as Oslo and Canberra.