Blood On The Risers

In three straight years he was a paratropper, and army seaman, and a LRRP—and he lived to tell about it. As an FNG paratrooper in the 173d Airborne, John Leppelman made that unit's only combat jump in Vietnam. Then he spent months in fruitless search of the enemy, watching as his buddies died because of poor leadership and lousy weapons. Often it seemed the only way out of the carnage in the Central highlands was in a body bag. But Leppelman did get out, transferring first to the army's riverboats and then the all-volunteer Rangers, one of the ballsiest units in the war. In three tours of duty, that ended only when malaria forced him back to the States, Leppelman saw the war as few others did, a Vietnam that many American boys didn't live to tell about, but whose valor and sacrifice survive on these pages.

This artfully crafted saga depicts in vivid detail, the arduous journey of a young, impressionable patriot yearning to fulfill his destiny in the turmoil of the 1960's. The author draws you close to him as he encounters stiff challenges to his basic values, his character, as well as his faith in his fellow man. You'll taste the bitter prop blast as you stand in the open door beside him, holding your breath while he soars through the icy sky to the mountainous drop zone below. Discover the true nature of this Nation's most valiant fighting men as he progressively learns what it takes to lead Green Berets into battle. Share the distinct smell of death while he clutches on to the remnants of his tattered soul, constantly violated while he processes the tragedy of life unfolding before him. Witness the sheer resolve he and his men display in their commitment to their country, despite the disrespect and utter contempt shown to them by their own countrymen. This factual rendering allows you to eavesdrop on the innermost workings of a Special Forces A-Team as they train and ultimately prepare for battle. You'll be sprinting with a SOG Recon Team as they desperately work to elude the hordes of NVA soldiers, feeling the impact of explosions and the crackling of rifle fire along the way. This read will provide you with a renewed appreciation of what men endure when they make the commitment to defend their country and their way of life; despite the intimate danger and life-long consequences that accompany that decision. With dialogue that keeps the pages turning, Michael O'Shea transports us directly back to the real American experience in Vietnam. It's been nearly fifty years since the US inserted troops into jungles and villages more than 8,000 miles away. Stories such as Blood on the Risers are important and necessary for today's readers and future generations; veterans like O'Shea are prized for sharing them. Chris Henning - Clarion Review

Blood on the Risers is a song paratroopers sing about a comrade who is killed when his parachute does not open properly, risers being the shroud lines running from the harness up to the canopy. The song is gory, and usually sung over many drinks. In this novel, Phillip Dee, a young lieutenant reporting to an airborne unit in Germany on the eve of the Vietnam War, is shocked to see four troopers plummet to earth with their canopies tangled, their bodies crushed as they hit the ground. Dee is even more shocked when the officer who is guiding him to his unit urges him to join in singing the song after seeing the four hit the earth, leading Dee to wonder what kind of madhouse he has been assigned to--which is what this compelling new novel is all about.

The author, a member of the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division, describes his experiences in Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge and the close combat under difficult winter conditions and a lack of supplies. Reprint.

As a child in the 1960s, Luke Jennings was fascinated by the rivers and lakes around his Sussex home. Beneath their surfaces, it seemed to him, waited alien and mysterious worlds. With library books as his guide, he applied himself to the task of learning to fish. His progress was slow, and for years he caught nothing. But then a series of teachers presented themselves, including an inspirational young intelligence officer, from whom he learnt stealth, deception, and the art of the dry fly. So began an enlightening but often dark-shadowed journey of discovery. It would lead to bright streams and wild country, but would end with his mentor's capture, torture, and execution by the IRA. Blood Knots is about angling, about great fish caught and lost, but it is also about friendship, honor, and coming of age. As an adult Jennings has sought out lost and secretive waterways, probing waters "as deep as England" at dead of night in search of giant pike. The quest, as always, is for more than the living quarry. For only by searching far beneath the surface, Jennings suggests in this most moving and thought-provoking of memoirs, can you connect with your own deep history.

Tracing the evolution of state military institutions from the seventh through the twelfth centuries, this book challenges much of the received wisdom of Western scholarship on the origins and early development of warriors in Japan. This prelude to the rise of the samurai, who were to become the masters of Japan's medieval and early modern eras, was initiated when the imperial court turned for its police and military protection to hired swords--professional mercenaries largely drawn from the elites of provincial society. By the middle of the tenth century, this provincial military order had been handed a virtual monopoly of Japan's martial resources. Yet it was not until near the end of the twelfth century that these warriors took the first significant steps toward asserting their independence from imperial court control. Why did they not do so earlier? Why did they remain obedient to a court without any other military sources for nearly 300 years? Why did the court put itself in the potentially (and indeed, ultimately) precarious situation of contracting for its military needs with private warriors? These and related questions are the focus of the author's study. Most of the few Western treatments see the origins of the samurai in the incompetence and inactivity of the imperial court that forced residents in the provinces to take up arms themselves. According to this view, a warrior class was spontaneously generated just as one had been in Europe a few centuries earlier, and the Japanese court was doomed to eventually perish by the sword because of its failure to live by it. Instead, the author argues that it was largely court activism that put swords in the hands of rural elites, thatcourt military policy, from the very beginning of the imperial state era, followed a long-term pattern of increasing reliance on the martial skills of the gentry. This policy reflected the court's desire for maximum efficiency in its military institutions, and the policy's succes

They were the biggest Ranger company in Vietnam, and the best. For eighteen months, John L. Rotundo and Don Ericson braved the test of war at its most bloody and most raw, specializing in ambushing the enemy and fighting jungle guerillas using their own tactics. From the undiluted high of a "contact" with the enemy to the anguished mourning of a fallen comrade, they experienced nearly every emotion known to man--most of all, the power and the pride of being the finest on America's front lines.

A Good Morning America Buzz Pick A New York Times Book to Watch For * A Washington Post Best Book to Read in April * An Esquire Best Book of 2021 * An E! News Best Book of April * A Refinery29 Book to Read in 2021 * An Apartment Therapy Best Book of April * A Popsugar Best Book of April * A Newsweek Book to Read * A Parade Favorite Book of Spring * A Kirkus Best Book to Read in April * A New York Post Best New Novel * A wise, bighearted, boundlessly joyful novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family Jane falls in love with Duncan easily. He is charming, good-natured, and handsome but unfortunately, he has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere--at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While Jane may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she did not have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, a woman with shiny hair and pale milkmaid skin, still has Duncan mow her lawn. His coworker, Jimmy, comes and goes from Duncan's apartment at the most inopportune times. Sometimes Jane wonders if a relationship can even work with three people in it--never mind four. Five if you count Aggie's eccentric husband, Gary. Not to mention all the other residents of Boyne City, who freely share with Jane their opinions of her choices. But any notion Jane had of love and marriage changes with one terrible car crash. Soon Jane's life is permanently intertwined with Duncan's, Aggie's, and Jimmy's, and Jane knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But could it be possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of Jane's eyes? A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, Katherine Heiny's Early Morning Riser is her most astonishingly wonderful work to date.