The speaker in these poems attempts to understand her situation within the long history of military wives left to wait and wonder. These poems are dazzling in their use of form, their sensual imagery, and their learnedness, and possess a level of subtlety and control rarely found in the work of a young poet.

I DON'T KNOW ANYBODY who has ever done such a daring thing as I have done, twenty-two-year-old Aileen Kilgore of Brookwood, Alabama, wrote in her diary in January 1944, after enlisting in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. From basic training in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, to her discharge in late 1945, Kilgore served as one of more than 150,000 American women who joined the Women's Army Corps - the first group of women other than nurses to serve in the ranks of the United States Army. Aileen Kilgore Henderson has now collected and edited diary entries and personal letters that recount in an engaging narrative style her twenty-three months of experiences in the army. Recording the excitement and anxiety of enlisting, along with the camaraderie, challenges, and monotony of military life and labor, Henderson had a keen eye for the newness of her undertakings. She worked as one of only six female airplane mechanics at Ellington Air Force Base and as a photo lab technician, and she provides a detailed document of daily life in the service. Additionally, Henderson reveals the public scrutiny and criticism WAC members faced as they assumed nontraditional roles. A fascinatin

The Vickey Joins the Military Series is a story of how a call to serve went from two to twenty years. The books depict the journey from the initial decision to join the military through the many stops along the way. In this series of books, you will get a front row seat to how a 30-year-old journalist made a U-turn onto a vastly different career path. The tours of duty would not be a straight path of European tours back-to-back or back-to-back stateside tours. The reader will zigzag across countries and continents with the author, getting a first-hand look at a very interesting and dynamic career. The journey traverses across twelve countries, three continents, and varies other locales. Each book in the eight book series travels through varies duty stations reviewing moments that put a spotlight on how a two-year enlistment led to a twenty-year career.

Nick Moultrie is drafted into the US Army at the height of the Vietnam War. By dumb luck, the new lieutenant avoids being shipped to Vietnam and is assigned to Fort Benjamin McCulloch, Texas. As a pencil pusher for the military police on base, he is safe from the mortal perils of ambushes and booby traps in Southeast Asia, yet he faces other perils almost daily in his mostly desk job stateside. His poorly disciplined unit more resembles the Keystone Cops than professional law enforcement personnel. Lieutenant Moultrie finds himself surrounded by incompetent or corrupt commanding officers, and he never knows when the mind-numbing tedium of his job will suddenly erupt into a crazy, senseless episode in which people are killed and military careers are destroyed. Nick finds refuge and solace in a few friends and honorable commanders whom he can trust. Seeking relief from loneliness, he looks up a buxom girlfriend (Samantha Starr) with whom he had a fling in college, and, while on a few days' leave, proposes to her. Soon he finds himself enjoying the pleasures and tiptoeing through the minefields of matrimony. Gradually his lust for what he first regarded as a sex object turns into genuine love for a peer and an intelligent, intuitive friend. A terrifying dream six months into her first pregnancy convinces Samantha she will die if she gives birth in the ramshackle Army hospital. She goes to live with her parents, where the dream proves prophetic as she narrowly escapes death even in the better-equipped Phoenix hospital. When a callous Red Cross official refuses to inform Nick of these developments, he explodes in anger and retribution, resulting in persecution from his superiors in command. The final insult is his being relieved of duty for a very minor infraction committed while saving the lives of his men in a shootout with an antiwar terrorist group. Nick must somehow find a way to avoid ending his military service in disgrace. As he leaves Fort McCulloch a much wiser-and jaded-man, Nick looks back on the unbelievable events he has endured. His entertaining tale is humorous, eye-opening, and unexpectedly uplifting.

On 1 April 1972 West Ham United made sporting history by becoming the first club from the highest echelon of English football to field three black players in League competition. What seems commonplace now was unheard of at the time. Their manager, Ron Greenwood, picked: Clive Charles (born in Canning Town, just a few miles from the Hammers' Upton Park home); Ade Coker (from Nigeria); and Clyde Best, who had made his way to London's Docklands from Bermuda. Together, these three players smashed a social barrier playing for this most romantic and enigmatic of clubs.East End Heroes, Stateside Kings tells of the origins of these players, that fateful day in '72 and their lives over the following 30 years as they became pioneering figures in the success of the North American Soccer League.After being named by Pele in the all-time greatest NASL team, Charles managed the leading College side Portland Timbers, guided the American Women to World Cup glory and achieved historic results in Olympic competition with the US Under-23s.Coker was another leading light in the modern American game and represented the USA at international level, overcoming devastating injury problems.Best grew to be a legend in the NASL and, along with Charles, was one of only four former West Ham players to manage at international level when he took over the Bermudian national side. He has recently been awarded an MBE.Painstakingly researched and including a foreword and interview with Kenny Lynch, one of Britain's best-loved entertainers and lifelong West Ham fan, this book tells the story of three young black men who genuinely broke the mould.