"A memoir of active combat by an elite female helicopter pilot stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan vividly describes her division's high-risk battles and the ways they were challenged to perform under extreme duress, sharing additional insights into her experiences as a woman in a male-dominated unit, "--NoveList.

This manual, TRADOC Pamphlet TP 600-4 The Soldier's Blue Book: The Guide for Initial Entry Soldiers August 2019, is the guide for all Initial Entry Training (IET) Soldiers who join our Army Profession. It provides an introduction to being a Soldier and Trusted Army Professional, certified in character, competence, and commitment to the Army. The pamphlet introduces Solders to the Army Ethic, Values, Culture of Trust, History, Organizations, and Training. It provides information on pay, leave, Thrift Saving Plans (TSPs), and organizations that will be available to assist you and your Families. The Soldier's Blue Book is mandated reading and will be maintained and available during BCT/OSUT and AIT.This pamphlet applies to all active Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard enlisted IET conducted at service schools, Army Training Centers, and other training activities under the control of Headquarters, TRADOC.

One of the military's most celebrated branches, the United States Marine Corps participated in battles from the Civil War on. But the Corps came into its own during World War II, fighting the Japanese Army. Since then, Marines have played a central role in every conflict, including the war on terrorism. This riveting book moves from the Marines' origins up through modern operations. More than 200 action photographs capture recruitment and training today, along with Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The history of art has produced few works as ambitious and as valuable as the Amber Room. Famous throughout Europe as "the eighth wonder of the world," its vast and intricately worked amber panels were sent in 1717 by Frederick I of Prussia as a gift to Peter the Great of Russia. Erected some years later, they quickly became a symbol of Russia's imperial might. For more than two hundred years the Amber Room remained in its Russian palace outside St. Petersburg (Leningrad), but when the Nazi army invaded Russia and swept towards Leningrad in 1941, the panels were wrenched from the walls, packed into crates, and disappeared from view, never to be seen again. Dozens of people have tried to trace the whereabouts of the Amber Room, and several of them have died in mysterious circumstances. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have gone further along the trail of this great lost treasure than anyone before them, and have unraveled the jumble of evidence surrounding its fate. Their search catapulted them across eastern Europe and into the menacing world of espionage and counterespionage that still surrounds Russia and the former Soviet bloc. In archives in St. Petersburg and Berlin, amid boxes of hitherto unseen diaries, letters, and classified reports, they have uncovered for the first time an astounding conspiracy to hide the truth. In a gripping climax that is a triumph of detection and narrative journalism, The Amber Room shows incontrovertibly what really happened to the most valuable lost artwork in the world, and why the truth has been withheld for so long.

World War II was the greatest conflict in the history of mankind. The Military Atlas of World War II is a comprehensive visual guide to this complex conflict in a large folio edition that allows the fine detail of the maps to be seen clearly. It plots the exact course of the land, sea and air battles, enabling the reader to trace the ebb and flow of the fortunes of both sides. With the aid of 180 large full-color maps, every theater of war is covered. All the maps come with a key to help the reader decipher the action depicted.

The Amber Room was a phenomenon I came across many years ago. It is a story that has intrigued for centuries. Did it really have special powers, it certainly captured people's imagination and awe? Was it really lost at the end of the second world war? A lot of people think not, something so valuable would not be allowed to be destroyed. Then where is it? The Amber Room is a modern novel with a classic theme. The spirit of two main characters, a man and a woman are intertwined through generations of a dynasty with the fate of the Amber Room. Love, hate, life, death, the essence of humanity. Written so that the reader can enjoy several strands: mystery, adventure, history, romance and spirituality. Enjoy. The Amber Room has been found! At the end of a race and battle across a continent over millennia, it has been found! Good or bad, you decide! The Amber Room was beautiful, valuable, inspiring; made as magnificent mosaic of fascinating facets: so too this novel; fact, fiction, hope, despair, romance, war.

Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the acclaimed Outlander series, weaves an engrossing tale of war, history, and suspense in this original novella—now available as a standalone e-book—featuring returning hero Lord John Grey. London, 1759. After a high society electric-eel party leads to a duel that ends badly, Lord John Grey feels the need to lie low for a while. Conveniently, before starting his new commission in His Majesty’s army, Lord John receives an urgent summons. An old friend from the military, Charlie Carruthers, is facing court-martial in Canada, and has called upon Lord John to serve as his character witness. Grey voyages to the New World—a land rife with savages (many of them on his own side) and cleft by war—where he soon finds that he must defend not only his friend’s life but his own.

The historical narrative which unfolds in the following pages is almost completely unknown to Western readers. Guerilla Warfare on the Amber Coast is an authentic, factual history of Lithuanian resistance against Soviet and Nazi oppressors between 1940-1952. This report is based on first-person accounts supplied by people who lived in Lithuania and who were able to reach the West; on statements by defected Soviet officials and military personnel, on articles of the Lithuanian underground press; and on items which have appeared openly in official Communist releases. For the most part, the report concentrates on Lithuanian guerilla operations against the Soviet colonial administration in Lithuania between 1944 and 1952. Most of the first-hand experiences in this narrative were brought to the West by Juozas Luksa, a special emissary from the Lithuanian Freedom Army to Lithuanian institutions in the free world. As a freedom fighter he had used the aliases of Skrajunas, J. Daumantas, and Miškinis. In 1950 he returned to Soviet-occupied Lithuania to rejoin the LFA. According to Soviet sources, the NKVD captured and executed him in about October, 1951. This narrative is published for the record and in the belief that it may serve a useful purpose at this particular juncture in world affairs. Interested readers will find extensive documentation and first-hand accounts of guerilla operations of the Lithuanian Freedom Army in the publications listed at the end of this report.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country’s cause In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.