Afghanistan, March 2002. In the early morning darkness on a frigid mountaintop, a U.S. soldier is stranded, alone, surrounded by fanatical al Qaeda fighters. For the man’s fellow Navy SEALs, and for waiting teams of Army Rangers, there was only one rule now: leave no one behind. In this gripping you-are-there account–based on stunning eyewitness testimony and painstaking research–journalist Malcolm MacPherson thrusts us into a drama of rescue, tragedy, and valor in a place that would be kn...

In the late 1980s, a female baby elephant was born into a herd that lived on the plains of southern Africa. Her mother has carried her for two years, and normally she would have nursed her for five more. But the close-knit family of wild elephants was to face a predator for which it was no match--humans. In a "cull," her family was slaughtered in a few moments. Only the newborn female's life was spared. Terrified and bewildered the young elephant was transported to America to be sold. Ther...

“Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware, beware,” goes the chorus of an old sailors’ sing-along that celebrates the allure and danger of the seafaring life. But make no mistake–there truly is much to beware for those who are drawn to risk their lives and seek their fortunes upon the waves. And perhaps none take more chances than the men and women who brave the tempestuous, bountiful waters of the Bering Sea. Season after season, they bond and battle with its icy depths, determ...

The Blood of His Servants is a remarkable true story. In the whole range of Holocaust literature it stands apart, for it recounts the search by one survivor for the single Nazi murderer of his family—a man who had once been their friend.In prewar Poland, Bibi Krumholz, the nephew of prosperous Jewish landowners, is befriended by the wealthy Dutchman Pieter Menten. Largely due to Menten’s wordly influence, Bibi leaves for Palestine in 1935. In the years before the war, Ment...

For the US Navy’s elite team of SEALs, the mission seemed straightforward enough: take control of a towering, 10,240-foot mountain peak called Takur Ghar, a key post in their plan to smash Taliban al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan. But the enemy was waiting, and when the Special Forces chopper was shredded by enemy fire, a red-haired SEAL named Neil Roberts was thrown from the aircraft. Roberts’ fellow SEALs were determined to bring him out—no matter what the cost. This harrowing true accoun...

A small team from the US Navy arrives in Vietnam in the spring of 1962. At first, its members only hear whispers about what they are supposed to accomplish. The unit goes by the name MTT 10-62 because its mission is so secret. This is the first Sea, Air and Land team—later known as the SEALs—and it’s gearing up to train a group of volunteers from the Vietnamese Junk Force in counterinsurgency and maritime warfare. Told mostly through the perspective of Chris “Doc” David—a first class hospi...

Flying at 120 knots with the unique roar from its aerodynamic rotors and twin turbines the AH64 Apache is the world's most fearsome attack helicopter its pilots refer to it as 'Riding the Dragon'. The Taliban would more often than not flee rather than suffer its 30mm cannon, 2.75 rockets or Hellfire missiles. Some of the Apache systems are truly amazing such as being able to read a car number plate at 4.2Km away with its 127 times-magnification day TV camera. A thermal camera so powerful i...

While the raid that killed Osama bin Laden cemented SEAL Team Six as the American military's reluctant media darling, a broader look at the Global War on Terror suggests that it's been the Army's Delta Force that has quietly spearheaded the most ambitious special operations campaign in modern history.Formerly a highly trained but seldom used tool in America's arsenal, over the past decade 'the Unit' has been unleashed on the nation's enemies the world over. In SHAPING THE WORLD FRO...

In a remote, enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them…The team was caught in a deadly ambush that not only threatened their lives, but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them. With total disregard f...

Award-winning combat journalist Sean Naylor reveals a firsthand account of the largest battle fought by American military forces in Afghanistan in an attempt to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.At dawn on March 2, 2002, America's first major battle of the 21st century began. Over 200 soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Division flew into Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot Valley—and into the mouth of a buzz saw. They were about to pay a bloody price for strat...

Amid ferocious fighting that many times nearly took his life, Sergeant Dillard "C. J." Johnson and his crew are recognized by Pentagon reports to have accounted for astonishing enemy KIA totals while battling inside and out of the "Carnivore," the Bradley Fighting Vehicle Johnson commanded during Operation Iraqi Freedom. After miraculously beating stage-three cancer (caused by radiation exposure from firing armor-piercing depleted-uranium rounds during combat), he returned to his platoon i...

Jenna Butler draws on her own experiences of her grandmother's disappearance into senile dementia to reassemble a sensual world in longpoem form that positively crackles with imagery and rhythm. Identities and memories flow and flicker as she strings together fragments of narrative into stories that comprise one woman's life. It entwines her disappearing life with that of the persona of the woman's granddaughter through a choreographed confusion of identities: of she's and I's. Few poets c...