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Puckstruck
By Stephen Smith. 2014
Like many a Canadian kid, Stephen Smith was up on skates first thing as a boy, out in the weather…
chasing a puck and the promise of an NHL career. Back indoors after that didn't quite work out, he turned to the bookshelf. That's where, without entirely meaning to, he ended up reading all the hockey books. There was Crunch and Boom Boom, Slashing! and High Stick; there was Max Bentley: Hockey's Dipsy-Doodle Dandy, Blue Line Murder, and Nagano, a Czech hockey opera. There was Blood on the Ice, Cracked Ice, Fire On Ice, Power On Ice, Cowboy On Ice, and Steel On Ice.In Puckstruck, Smith chronicles his wide-eyed and sometimes wincing wander through hockey's literature, language, and culture, weighing its excitement and unbridled joy against its costs and vexing brutality. In exploring his own lifelong love of the game, hoping to surprise some sense out of it, he sifts hockey's narratives in search of hockey's heart, what it means and why it should distress us even as we celebrate its glories. On a journey to discover what the game might have to say about who we are as Canadians, he seeks to answer some of its essential riddles.On Board
By Paul Ignatius. 2006
Insights into important events of the twentieth century are provided in this memoir by a former secretary of the Navy…
and participant in many of the events he describes. The Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, and Vietnam are recalled from the author's perspectives, first as a teenager in the 1930s, then as a naval officer in the 1940s, a defense department consultant in the 1950s, and a Pentagon official for eight years in the 1960s. There are new details on Robert McNamara's managerial innovations, the growth of the Army under President Kennedy, and the enormous effort to provide construction, supplies, and ammunition for the Vietnam War. The book includes vivid accounts of McNamara, Clark Clifford, Cyrus Vance, General Creighton Abrams, Admiral Thomas Moorer, and many others, There are high moments when Medals of Honor are awarded, low moments when the USS Pueblo is capture by the North Koreans, and perplexing moments over whether to praise or damn Admiral Hyman Rickover. Other significant events covered are the Pentagon Papers case, the illegal strike of the air traffic controllers, and controversial efforts to deregulate the airlines, the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, and President Carter's attempt to lessen U.S. dependence on middle-eastern oil. Ignatius also offers intimate glimpses of his family life, including the period when his college-aged children were totally opposed to the Vietnam War, and his Armenian heritage, including memories of his grandfather's poems of freedom that forced him to leave his ancestral home. In the final chapter, Ignatius looks at the civil rights movement and efforts to gain equality for women as events of lasting importance to him.Lords of the Rinks
By John Chi-Kit Wong. 2005
No sport is as important to Canadians as hockey. Though there may be a great many things that divide the…
country, the love of hockey is perhaps its single greatest unifier. Before the latest labour unrest in the National Hockey League (NHL), however, it was easy to forget that hockey is also a multi-million dollar business run, not by the athletes or coaches, but by corporate boards and businessmen. The Lords of the Rinks documents the early years of hockey?s professionalization and commercialization and the emergence of a fledgling NHL, from 1875 to 1936.As the popularity of hockey grew in Canada in the late nineteenth century, so too did its commercial aspects, and players, club directors, rink owners, fans, and media had developed deep emotional, economic, and ideological interests in the sport. Disagreement came in the ways and means of how organized hockey, especially at the elite level, should be managed. Hence, some coordination, by way of governing bodies, was required to maintain a semblance of order. These early administrative bodies tried to maintain a structure that would help to coordinate the various interests, set up standards of behaviour, and impose mechanisms to detect and punish violators of governance. In 1917, the NHL held its first games and by 1936 had become the dominant governing body in professional hockey.Having performed extensive research in the NHL archives ? including league meeting minutes, letters, memos, telegrams, as well as gate receipt reports ? John Chi-Kit Wong traces the commercial roots of hockey and argues that, in its organized form, the sport was rarely if ever without some commercial aspects despite labels such as amateur and professional. The Lords of the Rinks is the only truly comprehensive and scholarly history of the league and the business of hockey. Disclaimer: The image on page 22 has been removed at the request of the rights holder.Delta Force
By Charlie A. Beckwith, Donald Knox. 1983
The Element of Surprise: Navy SEALS in Vietnam
By Darryl Young. 1990
It used to be said that the night belonged to Charlie. But that wasn't true where SEALs patrolled. For six…
months in 1970, fourteen men in Juliett Platoon of the Navy's SEAL Team One--incuding the author--carried out over a hundred missions in the Mekong Delta without a single platoon fatality. Their primary mission: kidnap enemy soldiers--alive--for interrogation.From the Paperback edition.Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944
By Matthew Cobb. 2013
'I had thought that for me there could never again be any elation in war. But I had reckoned without…
the liberation of Paris - I had reckoned without remembering that I might be a part of that richly historic day. We were in Paris on the first day - one of the great days of all time.' (Ernie Pyle, US war correspondent)The liberation of Paris was a momentous point in twentieth-century history, yet it is now largely forgotten outside France. Eleven Days in August is a pulsating hour-by-hour reconstruction of these tumultuous events that shaped the final phase of the war and the future of France, told with the pace of a thriller. While examining the conflicting national and international interests that played out in the bloody street fighting, it tells of how, in eleven dramatic days, people lived, fought and died in the most beautiful city in the world. Based largely on unpublished archive material, including secret conversations, coded messages, diaries and eyewitness accounts, Eleven Days in August shows how these August days were experienced in very different ways by ordinary Parisians, Resistance fighters, French collaborators, rank-and-file German soldiers, Allied and French spies, the Allied and German High Commands.Above all, it shows that while the liberation of Paris may be attributed to the audacity of the Resistance, the weakness of the Germans and the strength of the Allies, the key to it all was the Parisians who by turn built street barricades and sunbathed on the banks of the Seine, who fought the Germans and simply tried to survive until the Germans finally surrendered, in a billiard room at the Prefecture of Police. One of the most iconic moments in the history of the twentieth century had come to a close, and the face of Paris would never be the same again.Marlborough's America
By Stephen Saunders Webb. 2013
Scholars of British America generally conclude that the early eighteenth-century Anglo-American empire was commercial in economics, liberal in politics, and…
parochial in policy, somnambulant in an era of “salutary neglect,” but Stephen Saunders Webb here demonstrates that the American provinces, under the spur of war, became capitalist, coercive, and aggressive, owing to the vigorous leadership of career army officers, trained and nominated to American government by the captain general of the allied armies, the first duke of Marlborough, and that his influence, and that of his legates, prevailed through the entire century in America. Webb’s work follows the duke, whom an eloquent enemy described as “the greatest statesman and the greatest general that this country or any other country has produced,” his staff and soldiers, through the ten campaigns, which, by defanging France, made the union with Scotland possible and made “Great Britain” preeminent in the Atlantic world. Then Webb demonstrates that the duke’s legates transformed American colonies into provinces of empire. Marlborough’s America, fifty years in the making, is the fourth volume ofThe Governors-General.FOB Doc
By Ray Wiss. 2009
Military doctors serving in Afghanistan usually spend their entire tour in the relatively safe confines of the main base. FOB…
Doc is the story of one Canadian doctor who spent nearly his entire tour in combat. Captain Ray Wiss was stationed at Forward Operating Bases - FOBs - in Khandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban and the most intense zone combat in Afghanistan. He shares the 'terror and boredom' of the front-line soldier's life in this candid personal diary. One day, he might be participating in combat operations, treating severe and bloody injuries and coping with the deaths of fellow soldiers, both Afghans and NATO allies; another day, he might be writing about the challenges of going to the latrine in sub-zero weather. FOB Doc is heartbreaking and hilarious, often on the same page.Jean Béliveau
By Wayne Gretzky, Jean Beliveau, Allan Turowetz, Chris Goyens. 2005
Few professional athletes have been as loved and respected as Jean Béliveau, captain of the fabled Montreal Canadiens during the…
team's glory years in the 1950s and 1960s. His career on ice was followed by an equally successful career in the Canadiens' front office. First published in 1994, this classic biography has been fully updated to reflect the events of the past decade, from his battle with cancer to his frank assessment of the game today, including the consequences of expansion and the fallout from a cancelled season.Stickhandling through the Margins
By Michael A. Robidoux. 2012
Some of hockey's fiercest and most passionate players and fans can be found among Canada's First Nations populations, including NHL…
greats Jordin Tootoo, Jonathan Cheechoo, and Gino Odjick. At first glance the importance of hockey to the country's Aboriginal peoples may seem to indicate assimilation into mainstream society, but Michael A. Robidoux reveals that the game is played and understood very differently in this cultural context. Rather than capitulating to the Euro-Canadian construct of sport, First Nations hockey has become an important site for expressing rich local knowledge and culture.With stories and observations gleaned from three years of ethnographic research, Stickhandling through the Margins richly illustrates how hockey is played and experienced by First Nations peoples across Canada, both in isolated reserve communities and at tournaments that bring together participants from across the country. Robidoux's vivid description transports readers into the world of First Nations hockey, revealing it to be a highly social and at times even spiritual activity ripe with hidden layers of meaning that are often surprising to the outside observer.Cavalryman of the Lost Cause
By Jeffry D. Wert. 2008
Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is the first major biography in decades of the famous Confederate general J. E. B.…
Stuart. Based on research in manuscript collections, personal memoirs and reminiscences, and regimental histories, this comprehensive volume reflects outstanding Civil War scholarship. James Ewell Brown Stuart was the premier cavalry commander of the Confederacy. He gained a reputation for daring early in the war when he rode around the Union army in the Peninsula Campaign, providing valuable intelligence to General Robert E. Lee at the expense of Union commander George B. McClellan. Stuart has long been controversial because of his performance in the critical Gettysburg Campaign, where he was out of touch with Lee for several days; this left Lee uncertain about the size and movement of the Union army, information that would prove decisive when the battle began. In an engagement with the cavalry of Union general Philip Sheridan in spring 1864, Stuart was killed. He was only thirty-one. Jeffry D. Wert provides new details about Stuart's childhood and youth, and he draws on letters between Stuart and his wife, Flora, to show us the man as he was: eager for glory, daring sometimes to the point of recklessness, but a devoted and loving husband and father. Stuart has long been regarded as the finest Confederate cavalryman and one of the best this country has ever produced. Wert shows how Stuart's friendship with Stonewall Jackson and his relationship with Lee were crucial; at the same time Stuart's relationships with his subordinates were complicated and sometimes troubled. Cavalryman of the Lost Cause is a riveting biography of a towering figure of the Civil War, a fascinating and colorful work by one of our finest Civil War historians.Pre-Deployment Stress, Mental Health, and Help-Seeking Behaviors Among Marines
By Jeffrey Garnett, Carrie M. Farmer, Christine Anne Vaughan, Robin M. Weinick. 2014
As part of an evaluation of the Marine Corps Operational Stress Control and Readiness (OSCAR) program, this report describes the…
methods and findings of a large survey of marines who were preparing for a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan in 2010 or 2011. The results are among the first to shed light on the pre-deployment mental health status of marines, as well as the social resources they draw on when coping with stress and their attitudes about seeking help for stress-related problems.Una famiglia in guerra
By Gordon Smith, Chiara Babeli. 2017
DESCRIZIONE DEL LIBRO: “Una famiglia in guerra” è ambientato agli inizi del ‘900 durante il periodo della prima guerra mondiale.…
La storia segue le vicissitudini di sei componenti di una famiglia australiana mentre scelgono, per diverse ragioni personali, di andare a combattere. Il libro racconta i loro alti e bassi, i sacrifici e le vittorie: passando in rassegna ciò che queste persone si lasciano alle spalle, famiglie e bambini inclusi, e le difficoltà che affrontano lungo i loro percorsi, risulta stimolante e straziante allo stesso tempo. La storia include i loro spostamenti nel mezzo della guerra in Europa, esplora alcune delle complesse caratteristiche del territorio e riassume le vite dei tre ragazzi che tornarono a casa. Evidenzia anche l’angoscia della madre il cui figlio venne dichiarato disperso durante la battaglia di Fromelles e il cui corpo, cento anni dopo, non è ancora stato identificato. Sei membri della famiglia andarono in guerra. Solo tre ritornarono!La Famille qui est allée à la guerre
By Gordon Smith, Bibi Sahida Dilmamode. 2017
This book is on the life of a family during the First World War. The Family that went to War”…
is set back in the early 1900’s during wartime. The story follows six Australian family members as they each choose to go and fight for varying personal reasons. The book recounts their highs, lows, struggles as well as triumphs. It is both inspiring and heartbreaking about what these people were leaving behind (including families and children) and what hardships they faced on their journeys. The story covers their journeys through the war in Europe and explores some of their complex characteristics and the summary of the lives of the three who returned. It also highlights the anguish of the mother whose son was lost on the battlefields of Fromelles and whose body still as not been identified one hundred years later’ Six family members went to war. Only three returned!In this moving collection of first-person accounts, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces take us inside life…
in the military and share their personal stories of courage, perseverance, and sacrifice.What does it mean to serve? Bestselling author Jody Mitic brings together veterans and active military personnel from across Canada to tell us, in their own words, what it means to answer the call of duty. Meet the World War II bomb aimer whose plane engines failed over Hamburg during a raid, the naval signalman who patrolled heavily bombarded waters in Southeast Asia during the Korean War, and the unarmed peacekeeper who found himself standing on a road riddled with mines in Rwanda. From the young recruit who marched over thirty kilometres on what turned out to be a broken leg to prove her mettle, to the three brothers in arms who endured a summer of relentless fighting in Afghanistan, this collection captures the pain and sacrifice, the risks and rewards of standing on guard for Canada. Featuring stories of courageous rescues, bravery in the face of conflict, and camaraderie at home and overseas, Everyday Heroes is an authentic and stirring look inside the hearts and minds of the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces. These stories will make you proud to be a Canadian.Letters Home to Sarah
By Guy C. Taylor. 2012
Forgotten for more than a century in an old cardboard box, these are the letters of Guy Carlton Taylor, a…
farmer who served in the Thirty-Sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War. From March 23, 1864, to July 14, 1865, Taylor wrote 165 letters home to his wife Sarah and their son Charley. From the initial mustering and training of his regiment at Camp Randall in Wisconsin, through the siege of Petersburg in Virginia, General Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and the postwar Grand Review of the Armies parade in Washington, D. C. , Taylor conveys in vivid detail his own experiences and emotions and shows himself a keen observer of all that is passing around him. While at war, he contracts measles, pneumonia, and malaria, and he writes about the hospitals, treatments, and sanitary conditions that he and his comrades endured during the war. Amidst the descriptions of soldiering, Taylor's letters to Sarah are threaded with the concerns of a young married couple separated by war but still coping together with childrearing and financial matters. The letters show, too, Taylor's transformation from a lonely and somewhat disgruntled infantryman to a thoughtful commentator on the greater ideals of the war. This remarkable trove of letters, which had been left in the attic of Taylor's former home in Cashton, Wisconsin, was discovered by local historian Kevin Alderson at a household auction. Recognizing them for the treasure they are, Alderson bought the letters and, aided by his wife Patsy, painstakingly transcribed the letters and researched Taylor's story in Wisconsin and at historical sites of the Civil War. The Aldersons' preface and notes are augmented by an introduction by Civil War historian Kathryn Shively Meier, and the book includes photographs, maps, and illustrations related to Guy Taylor's life and letters.The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service
By Henry A. Crumpton. 2012
A legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed career while illustrating the growing…
importance of America's intelligence officers and their secret missions For a crucial period, Henry Crumpton led the CIA's global covert operations against America's terrorist enemies, including al Qaeda. In the days after 9/11, the CIA tasked Crumpton to organize and lead the Afghanistan campaign. With Crumpton's strategic initiative and bold leadership, from the battlefield to the Oval Office, U. S. and Afghan allies routed al Qaeda and the Taliban in less than ninety days after the Twin Towers fell. At the height of combat against the Taliban in late 2001, there were fewer than five hundred Americans on the ground in Afghanistan, a dynamic blend of CIA and Special Forces. The campaign changed the way America wages war. This book will change the way America views the CIA. The Art of Intelligence draws from the full arc of Crumpton's espionage and covert action exploits to explain what America's spies do and why their service is more valuable than ever. From his early years in Africa, where he recruited and ran sources, from loathsome criminals to heroic warriors; to his liaison assignment at the FBI, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, the development of the UAV Predator program, and the Afghanistan war; to his later work running all CIA clandestine operations inside the United States, he employs enthralling storytelling to teach important lessons about national security, but also about duty, honor, and love of country. No book like The Art of Intelligence has ever been written-not with Crumpton's unique perspective, in a time when America faced such grave and uncertain risk. It is an epic, sure to be a classic in the annals of espionage and war.This Man's Army
By Andrew Exum. 2004
The first combat memoir of the War on Terrorism: the gripping story of a young man's transformation into a twenty-first-century…
warrior. Born into a family with a long history of military service dating back to the Revolutionary War, Andrew Exum enrolled in Army ROTC to pay for his Ivy League education. Shortly after graduation in 2000, he joined the infantry, then endured the grueling rigors of Ranger School before becoming a platoon leader with the storied 10th Mountain Division. He thought that perhaps, if he was lucky, he and his men would see action on a peacekeeping mission. Then came the fateful events of September 11, 2001. Called to action as a twenty-three-year-old, he led his troops into Afghanistan to root out the hard-core remnants of Osama bin Laden's forces. Thrown into the maelstrom of modern war, Exum contended with Afghani warlords, cable news correspondents, and the military bureaucracy while hunting a desperate enemy in a treacherous land-and on a mountain ridge in the Shah-e-Kot Valley he would confront and kill an al-Qaeda fighter. After returning home, Exum struggled to come to terms with the media coverage and public perception of the war while seeking to make peace with the man he had become. By turns harrowing and reflective, this powerful memoir gives voice to a generation of soldiers that has risen to confront the threats of a dangerous new world.Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics: Tacitus
By Rhiannon Ash. 2007
The Histories is the first historical work by Rome's most accomplished and challenging historian, Tacitus. It narrates the brutal civil…
wars which broke out in AD 68-9 across the Roman Empire after the suicide of the last Julio-Claudian emperor, Nero. Book II covers the bloody finale of the war between two of those emperors, Otho and Vitellius, and the emerging challenge from the eventual victor, Vespasian. The progression of events, kaleidoscopic and gripping, unfolds over a broad geographical sweep and is presented by Tacitus with consummate artistry. This commentary on Histories Book II elucidates historical questions, clarifies Tacitus' historiographical techniques and explains grammatical difficulties of the Latin for students. It also includes a Latin text, relevant maps, and a comprehensive introduction discussing historical, literary and stylistic questions.You Don't Lose 'Til You Quit Trying: Lessons on Adversity and Victory from a Vietnam Veteran and Medal of Honor Recipient
By Caroline Lambert, Gary Sinise, Sammy Lee Davis. 2016
The inspiring true life story of Vietnam veteran, Medal of Honor recipient and veteran's advocate Sammy Lee Davis. On November…
18th, 1967, Private First Class Davis's artillery unit was hit by a massive enemy offensive. At twenty-one years old, he resolved to face the onslaught and prepared to die. Soon he would have a perforated kidney, crushed ribs, a broken vertebra, his flesh ripped by beehive darts, a bullet in his thigh, and burns all over his body. Ignoring his injuries, he manned a two-ton Howitzer by himself, crossed a canal under heavy fire to rescue three wounded American soldiers, and kept fighting until the enemy retreated. His heroism that day earned him a Congressional Medal of Honor--the ceremony footage of which ended up being used in the movie Forrest Gump. You Don't Lose 'Til You Quit Trying chronicles how his childhood in the American Heartland prepared him for the worst night of his life--and how that night set off a lifetime battling against debilitating injuries, the effects of Agent Orange and an America that was turning on its veterans. But he also battled for his fellow veterans, speaking on their behalf for forty years to help heal the wounds and memorialize the brotherhood that war could forge. Here, readers will learn of Sammy Davis's extraordinary life--the courage, the pain, and the triumph.