A portrait of elite fighting men at their best that will appeal to a largely male readership.
Nuts-and-bolts accounts of Special Forces missions.
Military writers Zimmerman (First Command: Paths to Leadership, 2006, etc.) and Gresham (DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2006, etc.) recount seven operations of the past four decades, undertaken in places including Vietnam and Iraq. They show a SEAL team on the ground plucking two downed fliers from the midst of a major North Vietnam offensive after 14 air rescuers had already died in the attempt. They dissect a complex operation in which elite attack-helicopter teams flew far beyond their normal range to destroy Iraqi radar sites, opening the way for air strikes before the first Gulf War. In the Second Gulf War, half a dozen Green Berets slipped 350 miles inside Iraq, hid near a major road and military concentration site, called in intelligence and devastating air strikes, then withdrew after ten days without firing a shot. Some operations depicted here were misfires. A brilliantly executed 1970 operation to rescue prisoners in North Vietnam went off without a hitch, but the camp turned out to be empty. The operation known to most readers is the disastrous 1979 attempt to rescue American hostages held in Iran. The authors relate the excruciating details, emphasizing the lessons our forces learned and not neglecting the opportunity to criticize a Democratic president. Their narrative provides solid entertainment for military buffs with its densely technical descriptions of weapons, training and tactics, an avalanche of acronyms and the traditional purplish prose. Zimmerman and Gresham don’t conceal their contempt for the Hollywood version of special ops: colorful but insubordinate soldiers, missions described as suicidal, big explosions, a dazzling triumph despite crippling casualties. In the real world, they remind us, brains and teamwork trump heroism, and planners reject operations likely to fail. Five out of seven represents a reasonable success rate.
A portrait of elite fighting men at their best that will appeal to a largely male readership.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-312-36387-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2007
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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