The three Wise boys grow up in El Dorado — the one near Hope in Arkansas, not the mythical one in South America — where Jeremy, Ben, and Beau are not “big on GI Joes” or “playing war.” However, their mother is a “walking encyclopedia” of US ...
Review: ‘Once a Warrior’ Is One From the Heart
Within a decade after graduating from University of Wisconsin-Madison, the author serves as a Marine in Afghanistan and Iraq, co-founds the nonprofit Team Rubicon — and writes his first book. His Take Command, Lessons in Leadership: How To Be a ...
Book Review: Frazzled Frenzy at a FOB in ‘Kilroy Was Here’
When Lt. Jared Rye and the rest of his Army squadron land at Bagram Air Force Base on Christmas Day, an Air Force master sergeant costumed — from the waist up — as Santa Claus greets them on the runway. The “enormous man by military standards — ...
Review: ‘Revolutions of All Colors’ Is a Revolution in Fiction
Be prepared to revel. Revolutions of All Colors: A Novel, a Marine veteran’s first book, is refreshingly unpredictable. Dewaine Farria’s auspicious literary debut is the audacious choice for the first Veterans Writing Award presented under the ...
Book Review: The Last Words Are Not Lost in ‘The Last Platoon’
Indefatigable, the Marine veteran of Vietnam and author Bing West is back with his 12th title, a work of suspense that is a page turner 400 times. The Last Platoon: A Novel of the Afghanistan War is not the first word in military fiction but is a ...
Review: Onward, Dissenting Soldiers, in ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore’
Glance at the subtitle that pairs deserters with dissenters and deserters with objectors, and you might scratch your head in bewilderment. What characteristics do a dissenter and a deserter share? What has a conscientious objector (CO) in common with ...
Review: Oh, the Stories They Tell in ‘Our Best War Stories’
For five years the nonprofit literary journal Line of Advance has organized a writing contest for service members and military veterans in memory of Army officer Darron Wright, who died in a training accident in 2013 — only a year after Osprey ...
Review: Images Command Attention, Demand Imagination in ‘Attention Servicemember’
During his second tour of Iraq, Ben Brody spends five days photographing and reporting the 101st Airborne’s fight in “the blasted hellscape” west of Iskandariyah. “Two soldiers got chopped up with shrapnel right in front of me,” and “civilians and ...
Review: ‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever’ Keeps Delivering
A guy walks into a bar. And when he walks out, he heads straight to Vietnam — but not to serve in uniform; he’s already been in the Marine Corps. (“I went in as a private and, four years later, I came out as a private.”) His mission as a ...
Review: In ‘The Wolves of Helmand,’ a Devil Dog Dances with Wolves in Afghanistan
Heads up, from the author himself: “Although this book is about our time at war, readers should not expect a nail-biting, shoot ’em up thriller.” With that accurate tip, Gus Biggio — “Jagras Gus” in Pashto — presents The Wolves of Helmand: A ...
Another Feat of Klay: Marine Veteran’s Novel Achieves the Promise of his Short Stories
When a dozen short stories by a Marine veteran of the Iraq War were published as Redeployment in spring 2014, the collection, the writer’s first book, commanded critical and commercial attention. Redeployment is mostly about people with Corps on ...
Review: In ‘I Marched With Patton,’ a Young Soldier Glimpses His Hero
Glance at the title, and you could easily think this book will tell the inside story of a soldier who is the right-hand man, perhaps an aide, to the notorious Gen. George S. Patton Jr. Think that and you will have been ...
Review: In ‘Drawing Fire,’ Bill Mauldin’s Cartoons Still Amuse, Still a Muse
Compare the drawing in a Maximilian Uriarte Terminal Lance or a Steve Leonard Doctrine Man or a C.F. Grant Bohica Blues with the art in a cartoon by World War II legend Bill Mauldin. You’ll notice a big difference in artistic style. War-comics ...
REVIEW: In ‘Fidelis,’ a Marine Wittily Comes of Age in Iraq — and in Angst
How to carry a rifle is a skill she learned in the Marine Corps. How to carry a torch is a habit she acquired all by herself. In Teresa Fazio’s first book, Fidelis, the woman with a doctorate in materials science and a master’s in writing ...