Leadership: Achieving Life-Changing Success from Within Review

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(More customer reviews)This author imparts insightful and inspirational advice. I'm only half-way through the book, but I am enjoying it very much. I'll write a longer review when I finish the book.

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"Take one look at him, listen to him speak, watch him act, and you'll follow him. Why? Because throughout his life and military career, Sergeant Major Al McMichael has proven himself to be a visionary who develops and nurtures ideas to fruition.... Anyone who is charged with leading, teaching, mentoring, managing or caring for people should read the inspiring story of Al McMichael in Leadership." -- Dean Mark Pizzo, National Defense University in Washington, D.C. There is only one sergeant major of the Marine Corps at any one time. It is the highest rank an enlisted Marine can achieve. From 1999 to 2003 the USMC's 14th sergeant major, and the first African American to attain the position, was Alford L. McMichael. Now, Sergeant Major McMichael shares how the values taught to him around the dinner table and in the hard times of his dirt-poor Southern childhood took him to the top of his field and made him one of the most respected and valued leaders of our time. This is not a guide that speaks only to military personnel. This is not a guide that only CEOs will cherish. The magic of McMichael's life lessons is that anyone can relate to and build success from them, because McMichael himself learned them in the most modest of beginnings: growing up in the 1950s with nine siblings in a single-parent, one-story home in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It was the best training he could have received for the Marines, and with down-to-earth practicality and an engaging anecdotal style, McMichael demonstrates how the morals, work ethic and self-discipline he learned from his mother and grandmother gave him the life skills for groundbreaking success. Practice dinner table values...Find your compass...Rely on intelligence over emotion...Prepare so you can prosper...Impress yourself first...Give power to your people...Lead from the heart...These are among the pragmatic and distinctive nuggets of truth McMichael imparts in Leadership, and whatever your walk in life, they are the foundation for making great things happen. Are you ready to experience the phenomenal results when you ask the best of yourself and those around you?

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The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier Review

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(More customer reviews)This diary reads very fast, maybe not so much because it's a small book with large-ish text but more because it is written with surprising skill-- surprising considering the author was a Napoleonic "foot" soldier, a non-officer (i.e. a common man that most likely had little access to a "quality" education). Walter himself mentions that many of the people he meets on his journey to Moscow are without any schooling whatever, even the simplest of religious teachings, and that many children can not read or write. That realization obviously attests to Walter's own level of learning compared to the average citizen, and Walter's writing is obviously well above that level -- even if it does not approach genius -- making this work very accessible.
What I appreciated most about this diary was the point of view, that of the poor, starving, battered, exhausted soldier in the ranks, which serves as a definite counterpoint to a commanding officer's battlefield or campaign memories. Reading an account by a Napoleonic general's aide on the building of bridges to cross a river during the Moscow retreat and reading Walter's impression of the same event is quite enlightening. The general's experience, one of honor, valor and sacrifice, seems world's away from Walter's experience of horror, squalor and pointless death. Without placing one account or type of account above the other in terms of "rightness," I view it as extremely valuable to be exposed to both.
Still, as interesting as this work is, it is necessary to point out that many, very many, of Walter's observations and assertions, particularly those involving his own motives, are questionable. The simple fact that the work was written some years after the wars -- which in itself seems to dissuade the use of the word "diary" -- allows for error in judgment and interpretation, but it seems that Walter is given to rationalization of hard actions and building up the correctness and moral certitude of his own character. In other words, this book, like all books, I suppose, should be read with circumspection.
Also, I enjoyed the account of the Moscow retreat most out of any section of the book, and I saw the added letters at the end as the least useful. It does have some valuable background in the introduction, but as it really lacks a sweeping account (and why should it have it?) this book should make up a small portion of a larger study of the Napoleonic Wars

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The Mission, The Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander Review

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(More customer reviews)Finally a warrior writes about what really happened and the key life lessons we can all take away: `Always listen to the guy on the ground', `When in doubt, develop the situation', and my favorite, `It's not reality unless it's shared' are all embedded in these amazing real-world mission story's. His underlying premise is that the key to understanding the complex world around us is our ability to recognize, understand, and adapt to the underlying patterns that drive the behavior of everything around us, which I wholeheartedly agree with. But what really amazed about this book about patterns, is how many patterns there are in the book itself. Just about everything he writes about--from his childhood 'bombing cars' to his walk across the Gettysburg battlefield is linked to some other event, mission, or lesson somewhere else in the book. I read this book over the weekend, and I wrote so many notes in the margins on the patterns that I discovered, that I'm now going back through for the third time. He says things like `don't charge the machine-gun nest, go around it', and 'treat life like a movie, not a snapshot', that I have always believed in myself, but had never been able to put in words or phrases before. Pete writes about Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and yes, Montana, with a fresh narrative that makes each mission come to life in a unique never before heard way, while also making what actually happened much easier to understand. The chapter on Gorrilla (not a spelling error) Warfare in Bosnia is magnificent, as was his short story on what we should really have learned from John Walker Lindh--why wasn't this ever covered in the press? The chapter on Ali Mohamed (the wayward terrorist) should be read by our new President, so he doesn't get burned like his predecessors did. Finally, I want to point out that the maps in this book set a whole new standard for battlefield maps. Google earth technology was used to create maps that make you feel like you are flying over the battlefield with a birds-eye view of everything going on below. This may be the best book I've ever read.

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Pete Blaber knows what it takes to survive...and thrive. As a commander in Delta Force—the most elite counter-terrorist organization in the world—Pete Blaber has taken part in some of the most dangerous, controversial, and significant military and political events of our time. And he's learned and experienced more about the real world and how things really work than most people could imagine. Here, the ex-Delta Force warrior reveals his intimate knowledge of warfare: it's not the action—the blinding flash of a concussion grenade, or the stealthy approach of the night- vision clad commando—but the interaction, in the form of the way we think, the way we make decisions, and the way we operationalize those decisions, that provides the keys to success, and the truly meaningful lessons. In this book, you will learn the same lessons he learned, while experiencing what the life of a Delta Force Operator is like—from the extreme physical and psychological training to the darkest of shadow ops all around the world. With each mission he conducted, Pete Blaber has taken a life lesson back with him. You will learn these enlightening lessons as you gain insights into never-before- revealed missions executed across the globe. And when the smoke clears, you will emerge wiser, more capable, and better prepared to succeed in life than you ever thought possible.

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Avro Arrow: The Story of the Avro Arrow From Its Evolution To Its Extinction Review

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(More customer reviews)An exhaustive book on one of great "mystery" of jet fighter history.The aircraft program is fully narrated from the enthusiastic "go ahead" to the painfull termination.Direct testimonies of executives,engineers and test pilots make the plot really vivid showing the feelings behind this endeavour:the epilog still looks like the end of a dream. Illustrations,pictures,factory drawings are truly intriguing,since few were previously available.Particularly impressive is the "log",where significant figures are released on aircraft data and performances. Finally some light on a cold war aicraft that "might have been"!

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The illustrated memoir of the most advanced fighter jet of the 1950s.

At its creation in the mid-1950s, the Avro Arrow was a fighter jet without equal. This Cold War aircraft was twenty years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, political realities resulted in the complete termination of the Arrow project. Cancellation of the Arrow called for the destruction of all photos, drawings, models, specifications and tooling. Even the aircraft themselves were disassembled and destroyed.

Avro Arrow is a fascinating historical record with an extensive collection of rare and highly prized photos, drawings and diagrams. Using two hundred images, the book traces the story of the Arrow from its inception to roll out and flight test, including advanced proposals for the development of future version.

Primary sources include:
Taped interviews, test pilots' firsthand impressions, Avro officials and many plant personnel
Surviving company records
Declassified government documents.


Diagrams offer stunning details such as the North American strategic defense zones and interception tactics proposed for bomber attacks. This book concentrates solely on the vision, design and technical excellence of the airplane itself rather than the politics of its demise.

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Hope Is Not a Plan: The War in Iraq from Inside the Green Zone (Praeger Security International) Review

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(More customer reviews)In July 2004, the Major General in charge of the Strategic Political/Military section in Iraq asked the Superintendent of the Air Force Academy to send him some "Strategic Thinkers" to help with the war effort. Within two weeks, military academics with advanced degrees began arriving in Baghdad. They were embedded with headquarter units in the Green Zone and their assignment was to look at the planning process. "Hope is Not a Plan" is an anthology written by the participant observor academics. The book's scope is the critical months of late 2004 to early 2005.
What makes this book interesting is that it covers the operational aspects of the war. This is the critical intermediate step between the strategic and the tactical. The operational aspects of the war are not as inherently interesting as the behind scenes power struggles in Washington DC or as dramatic as the stories the men and women who are doing the fighting. Yet it is at the operational level that war is planned and ultimately either won or lost.
What Thomas Mowle and his fellow authors found was a disorganized planning effort that was not up to the task of rejuvinating a failed nation state. The irony is that a military that dedicated itself to learning the lessons of Vietnam discovered that at the critical moment it forgot nearly everything that it had learned about counter-insurgency in Vietnam. It is a depressing performance and one can only hope that American military is beginning to turn itself around in 2007.
"Hope is Not a Plan" is an academic work and it will require members of the general public to have patience to get through it. The United States military will be analyzing what went wrong in Iraq for a generation. The value of this book is that it is a first attempt to describe what went wrong at the operational level. "Hope is Not a Plan" will be a starting point for future historians. Recommended.


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From Here to Eternity Review

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(More customer reviews)I was in the U.S. Army for four years, '67-71. During those years, I did not read Jones, Mailer, or any other military-related novels. I was able to do so a couple of years later. From Here To Eternity struck me as no other novel had. Jones absolutely captured the depravity, decency, tenderness, and brutality of what it is to be a soldier. No one has ever done it better. I read the last page on a bus, and still feel the loss of it ending. I wish it had continued. As good as the other two books in the trilogy, Thin Red Line and Whistle, they do not approach the depth and truth of From Here to Eternity. One of the few great american novels.

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