American Eagle Books

The U.S.-Mexico border has proven immune to most forms of modernization. Therefore leaving the rugged Chihuahua/Sonoran desert with literally thousands of scarcely inhabited miles, and it becomes difficult to say which is more colorful, the people or the desert sunsets; And we find the Spanish names have become nearly as beautiful as the photographs. Fortunately, this work is more than just a picture book. It is filled with in depth essays covering everything from chino grass and millipedes, to the last Mexican Wolves - and the people who made the region what it is today. This book is very 'real'. There is no feeling of being in a dream world. The magnificent photos are imaginative, but not exotic. No phony filtering or heavily staged shots. (The surreal beauty stands easily on its own merits, and the photographer obviously understands this.) I give this book a '9' rating because it will not work as a casual [coffee table] book. Any visitor who takes a peek will certainly melt into it, leavin

I almost gave this book 4 stars, because of the level of graphic violence, but then I realized it is impossible to describe military action realistically without depicting the violence. The violence here is no more offensive than an episode of "Supernatural." The plot is well-conceived. The narration and dialogue are effective, and written in well-crafted sentences. The writing is highly descriptive and cinematic. At no point is the story slow or without action. In fact, reading an Executioner novel is like watching an old Chuck Norris movie. The Executioner books are less technical (with respect to science & technology)than Stony Man, and usually 100 pages shorter. There are elements of espionage fiction here, but the series is nothing like James Bond, but basically military fiction. This is another good, quick read at 218 pages.

This book was recommended by my sister-in-law, who is 1/2 Lakota Sioux. I wanted to understand more about the culture, the language, the inner feelings of the Sioux. This depiction, from a Lakota who went through the changes from freedom to confinement in his formative years, was sobering. I happened to find a 1951 version at a library and am now ordering the updated version to keep. I will be reading it again. I cried when I realized what my ancestors had done.

This is the single best resource I've ever found regarding the highly complex and historically significant field of military airfield development. Brown discusses the planning and development of Army airfields and sets their development into a larger context of funding, evolution of aviation technology, and the deteriorating military situation of the 1930s. Furthermore, the book is well-written and a pleasure to read.

I read this book when I was a boy. It was my mother's autographed copy. This book gives a very realistic tale of what life was like leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Six years ago, historians, Wesley Phillips Newton and Jerome A. Ennels, proposed a series of articles on the history of Maxwell Air Force Base to the Advertiser. The series that began in 1992, ended on October 8 1997 at a book signing and reception for the authors of "The Wisdom of Eagles: A History of Maxwell Air Force Base" at the Court Street offices of Black Belt Press. Both authors possess expertise in air power history. Ennels served as Director of History for Air University from 1977 to 1981, and as director of Maxwell AFB's Office of History since then. Newton served as a contract historian at the Air Force Historical Division from 1957 to 1961. He is Professor Emeritus of History at Auburn University, where he taught from 1964 to his retirement in 1987. Before proceeding with this review, I need to post a disclaimer: Wes Newton and Jerome Ennels are friends of mine. Having said that, I want to say that The Wisdom of Eagles is everything I expected it to be, plus some significant things I didn't expect. I expected to read about brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, and their flying machine. What I didn't expect was to read that some of the first people in Montgomery to see an airplane in flight may have been the black residents of Douglassville. Former slaves established the community of Douglassville after the Civil War, then, as free black men and women, continued to work the land as sharecroppers. The same flat land West of Montgomery at a bend in the Alabama River, became the home of the Wright Flying School at the turn of the century, and of Maxwell AFB today. I expected that authors, Ennels and Newton, would write about Montgomery's famous couple, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. As authors, how could they miss the opportunity to write a few words about arguably the most famous author ever? They took advantage of the opportunity and wrote a few words about the man who penned The Great Gatsby by describing some of the escapades of his bride, Montgomery's native daughter and original jazz age flapper, Zelda Sayre. They wrote about young pilots who "were reputed to have buzzed her home on the outskirts of downtown [Montgomery]." I didn't expect to read that [in 1942], "When a War Department-sponsored white lecturer visited Maxwell...Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald again defied local mores as one of two white Montgomery women who escorted him to Tuskegee." I expected and found it very interesting to read about the famous bands and entertainers, like Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Lena Horne who visited the area. Most performed in Tuskegee, entertaining black cadets learning to fly the Army Air Corps' combat aircraft during World War II. I didn't expect the many wonderful pictures that authors Ennels and Newton included in the book, like the one of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Joe Lewis, when he fought at Maxwell as Sergeant Lewis. They have also included a rich pictorial album of local personalities. Most of all I really didn't expect that I would believe The Wisdom of Eagles, at 200-plus pages, was too short. But, I do. With this book, Jerome Ennels and Wes Newton have "raised the bar" for professional historians. The Wisdom of Eagles is the first comprehensive history of a U.S. Military installation by professional historians that explores the social, economic, operational, and educational aspects of events. The authors masterfully wrote of a military base in Montgomery, Alabama, at a time when race relations in the South shamed America, without dishonoring anyone. Ennels and Newton bring the military history of Montgomery to life and they do it without using racial stereotypes or omitting worthwhile history to protect traditional stereotypes. Because they wrote in a style that should become a standard -- history that includes all of us -- I am nominating Jerome Ennels and Wesley Newton as candidates for the Montgomery Advertiser's Black History "Difference Makers.

This books contains some photographic treasures. You will see things that few white people ever saw, things which no longer exist today. The text is informative and interesting although somewhat sterile. I would love to see Eagle Tail's life written as a novel.

Warren Bodie - God bless 'im - was the last independent author-publisher in the world. His Widewing Publications was responsible for a series of marvelous full-color books on WWII warbirds. WWII AMERICAN WAR EAGLES, 1937-1942, published in 2001, is a 192-page paean to classic Army Air Corps and Navy aircraft of the pre-war/early-war period. As with all Bodie's books, it's a first-rate effort with gorgeous color throughout.

WWII AMERICAN WAR EAGLES is basically Bodie's personal, opinionated, idiosyncratic, photo-illustrated history of America and the aviation industry in the years 1937-1942. The book consists on just three chapters! The chapters - "Life with a Sleeping Giant, 1939-1941;" "A Day of Infamy - Then Unleashing the Arsenal" and "Churning, Burning and Learning" - start out with a brief two-three page introductory essay and then plunge into page after page of gorgeous, extensively-captioned Kodachrome photos of just about every warbird and many civilian craft that flew in that time-period. Many of the photos are full-page.

So what awaits the reader? Here's a sampling: BT-9s, P-36s, F2Fs, F4Fs, XF5Fs, A-36s, A-35s, P-51s, P-39s, A-17s, B-23s, P2Ys, N3Ns, XP-46s, B-25s, OS2Us, F2As, TBFs, AT-10s, XF4Us, VS-44s, N-1Ms, SBDs, DB-7s, B-17s and on and on and on. Page after page; over 210 shots and all wonderfully reproduced!

In short, another great buy from Widewing Publications! Whether you agree with everything Bodie says in his captions, you'll love the technicolor tribute to so many legendary American aircraft. At $39.95, you can't go wrong. Highly recommended.

****
Bodie was one of the two authors responsible for the "WWII in color" upheaval that took place some years ago. Before Bodie and the late and much-missed Jeff Ethell began searching for and turning up scads of WWII color photographs, almost all WWII imagery had been black and white. Having uncovered so many photo treasures, Bodie and Ethell together and alone produced many fine full-color WWII books, almost all aviation-related, with other authors following in their footsteps. Thanks Warren! Thanks Jeff!

In this book, Ambrose crafts a narrative out of recollected war stories of a company of American paratroopers. It's surprisingly unemotional for a war story, largely because the participants aren't characterized very well. The company commander, Dick Winters, and a few others come alive in this story. Unfortunately, most of the men get about the same treatment as the enlisted man in StarTrek episodes who is doomed to die on the planet. When death occurs, it's more matter-of-fact than it should be.

The best part of the book comes, surprisingly, in training camp. Ambrose has time to introduce the regiment to us, and does it well. The most depressing part of the book comes when the war is over. One man after another succumbs to automobile accidents, drunken debaucheries, or cases of mistaken identity.

So, this book was a disappointment. I'm sure that the men thought of themselves as a band of brothers but the reasons for that friendship don't come across at all well.

Biggest Brother: The Life Of Major Dick Winters, The Man Who Led The Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers is a fantastic and real account of Easy Company, 101st Airbourne called into every crucial battle Against Germany in WW-II...never rested enough, no winter clothers, not enough food to eat, they endured the unendurable especially holding the line during the "Battle of the Buldge".
Better than the HBO Series of the "Band of Brothers" both are enjoyable although the book is much more accurate/see Biggest Brother above, an escellent 5 STAR read as well

I first got into Band of Brothers (BoB) after the DVD set was released. But I decided I wanted to read the book version to get more of the details (and there is A LOT left out). However, I picked up the audio version so I could listen to in during my commute to and from work. And it REALLY passes the time. Keeps you districted from the horrible traffic but not so much from driving itself. Definitely recommended for that purpose.

My only gripe is that this is the abridged version and I still feel like I missed a lot of the details I was looking for. So if you want to get the full effect...read the book. But if you want something more entertaining that talk radio or the same 20 songs over and over again - this is a GREAT fit!!

I highly recommend this book. I bought it because of the Band of Brothers TV series. I got hooked with the story. I enjoy reading novels and documentaries about WWII, but this book is different than a novel. It is plain record of events that took place in real life. Amazingly told and related. Greatly structured and written in a fashion that is pretty easy to read. The story evolves like the best of the novels. You really get attached to the characters and get to know them prety well. Great job by Ambrose.
This is a must if you like army stories, want to read a good book, and by the way learn some history about one of the greatest soldier group and events of the greatest of wars in history.

Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers has been much praised and I want to add my praise to that chorus. It is the story of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, from their training at Camp Toccoa, Georgia to the capture of Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Bavaria.

They were at the tip-of-the-spear in numerous key engagements of the European Theater of Operations - Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge, and beyond.

By the end of the war, Easy Company had spent well over 120 days on the very front lines in combat conditions. The size of the company at full-strength was 140 men. Of the men who fought in the unit, 48 were killed in action, and over 100 wounded, some wounded multiple times.

Several themes run through the story. One of them is the tight camaradery of soldiers fighting side-by-side: "Comrades are closer than friends, closer than brothers" (p. 19). Another is the vital role of leadership in battle. Lt. Harry Welsh's opinion was: "officers go first" (p. 36). That was Capt. Dick Winters style as well-the story revolves a great deal around him-and it was recognized by all: "'Follow me' was his code. He personally killed more Germans and took more risks than anyone else." (p. 155).

One should not assume that Ambrose is denigrating any other unit that saw action in the key battles Easy Company participated in. Rather, understand that he is providing a view into the experiences and actions of combat for the American fighting men of the Second World War through the eyes of a small-unit that fought in numerous key engagements of the war and proved their mettle in battle through their leadership, comradeship, lives, and blood.

Band of Brothers renewed and deepened my appreciation and thanksgiving for the men and women who fought to end the evil that was the Nazi Empire. There is a reason that the Nazi Swastika does not fly over the capitols of Europe today and it is in large part due to the willingness of warriors like the men of Easy Company. Citizens who loved peace and yet responded to the call to arms. They were willing to pick up a rifle and learn to stop the enemy and drive him back. And in battle, when home was distant and ideals driven from the mind, they always found a reason to stand, fight, and sacrifice if for nothing else but the brother standing next to them.

I commend to you, Band of Brothers, it is well-written, flows easily, and is a wonderful testament to the American fighting men of the Second World War.

No offense to anyone that loves this book, but I just couldn't get through it. The corny dialogue and cliched descriptive passages make the book seem as if it is aimed at boys between the ages of 10 and 14. Also, I was annoyed that every female character in this book is completely one-dimensional.

One of the best books in all categories I ever read, and the BEST book on leadership. I have a grandson who will enter NROTC (Marine Corps Option) this month, and I am hoping that his reading of ONCE AN EAGLE will lay out a pathway for him as to HOW to become a leader of men. In almost all instances Sam Damon, the hero-protagonist, reveals himself as a man who can make the hard choices, who has the courage and composure for coolness under fire, and who possesses the noble instincts to choose the right act at the right time almost always, and his recognition and acceptance and love for his enlisted men is a monumental and pivotal attribute of his character. Pretty simple: he loves them and they love him right back, and he is right there, wherever there is, with his men. There includes the absolute FRONT anywhere and everywhere.

Courtney Schuyler Massengale lll is the exact oppposite of Sam and is the slickest and most adroit officer in the Corps---a marvelous study in contrast to Sam.

We get to observe them both as they work their way slowly toward becoming general officers...three and four stars. Their pathways are so different, appallingly different at times...Hope my grandson chooses to be a Sam Damon. Calvin W. Atwood

This novel follows Sam Damon, a decent-to-the-bone Nebraskan, over the course of a U.S. Army career stretching over much of the twentieth century. The major conflicts are between Damon and his wife, Tommy, who is thoroughly sick of the military, and between Damon and a self-promoting officer named Massengale.

There is not a cardboard character anywhere in this well-written work and its chapters are chock-a-block with memorable phrases. A reader's loyalties to the characters will likely change several times before the final page. The author's consideration of duty -- and conflicting duties -- and the costs is unsurpassed.

I just finished reading this book for the second time and loved it just as much as the first. This is definitely an anti-war book because it takes an honest look at war and its savage effects - and Myrer should know as a Marine who served in WW2 and got wounded in the Pacific.

Myrer does an amazing job of characterizing a military man and his family/friends in both war and peacetime.

Many of the military/political ideas continue to be valid as America finds herself in another ambiguous war.

Though Once an Eagle is a historical novel it packs a realism most histories (or even military novels) don't possess. It should be required reading for anyone in the military whether active or reserve, enlisted or officer.

When you sit down to read this book by Anton Myrer, you may realize that you are reading one of the most memorable books of your lifetime, even though I found the beginning almost a different, less polished writing style from the rest of the book.

Myrer introduces us to a night clerk who has a gift for leadership and a photographic memory. He joins the infantry in time to search for a Mexican raider, with little realization that he is about to be caught up in the most turbulent decades of the century where he will succeed and also fail.

Through combat, a battlefield commission and being awarded the Medal of Honor, "Sad Sam" Damon, "the night clerk," experiences the excruciating trials of war and the loss of a best friend just before war's end in 1918. Determined to learn from the lessons and losses of war, Damon prepares himself for the next one while marrying and raising a family in the peacetime army of the 20's and 30's.

Courtney Massengale is his nemesis, an ambitious and heartless West Point graduate who is a veteran of many staff assignments. His personal success is more important than the lives of men, duty, honor, or country. He is always one rank ahead of Damon who is his counterweight. Massengale's ambition depends on Damon, and Damon and his troops will depend on Massengale.

Thirty years of checking and blocking are put to the test as Major General Sam Damon finds himself subordinate to Corps Commander Lieutenant General Massengale who masks the real purpose of his operations order to his generals, except Damon sees what his true purpose is. Massengale is after one of the most singular achievements of the Pacific in World War II. Damon exacts a promise from him. A promise kept will save Damon's division, or if broken, be the cause of its annihilation.

Will he succeed?

From the pursuit of Pancho Villa to the escalation of hostilities in a small Asian country called Khotiane in the 60's, we see through Sam Damon the struggle of one man to maintain honor and loyalty, prepare his country for war, and endure the revulsion and tragedy that war brings.

I have not read before or since an author who can bring the fear, and peril of battle and make it seem so threatening and so intense. You almost expect to smell the death, and feel the heartache of personal loss and grief. This is an anti-war story; it is not one of patriotism. It is a reminder that in the heat of battle, soldiers are not fighting for a cause, a flag, their honor, or pride. They are fighting for their friends and for their lives.

Although I read this story thirty years ago, the characters and the story stay fresh in my mind. The book is still on my shelf, and I don't plan on parting with it for any reason.

The story remains a moving experience.