Hammerhead Six

Two years before the action in Lone Survivor, a team of Green Berets conducted a very different, successful mission in Afghanistan's notorious Pech Valley. Led by Captain Ronald Fry, Hammerhead Six applied the principles of unconventional warfare to "win hearts and minds" and fight against the terrorist insurgency. In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan." Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb: "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated. Hammerhead Six finally reveals how cultural respect, hard work (and the occasional machine-gun burst) were more than a match for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

This comprehensive volume presents indispensable and up-to-date information on viroids and viroid diseases. It provides a single source of information on the properties of viroids, the economic impact of viroid diseases, and methods for their detection and control. It examines the diseases associated with different plant species, the geographic distribution and epidemiology of viroids, diseases of possible viroid etiology, and the future applications of viroids. Viroids examines the biology of viroids, molecular characteristics, localization and movement, replication, pathogenesis, viroids and gene silencing, classification, viroid-like satellite RNAs, detection of viroids using bioamplification hosts, biological indexing, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, molecular hybridisation and polymerase chain reaction. The book looks at the geographical distribution and epidemiology of viroids in North America, Australasia, China, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, and at the global level. It covers the control of viroids including quarantine of imported germplasm, availability of viroid-tested propagation materials, thermotherapy, tissue culture, and other conventional strategies as well as biotechnological control approaches. Special topics such as ribozyme reaction of viroids and economic advantages of viroid infection are also included. Other chapters summarise the current state of knowledge concerning viroid diseases of the crop in question and aspects of the natural history of viroids in horticulture. Among the crops covered are potato, tomato, tobacco, cucumber, pome fruits, stone fruits, avocado, citrus, grapevines, hop, chrysanthemum, coleus, columnea, and coconut palm. The four eminent editors of this watershed volume have assembled an international group of more than 70 scientists who have substantial experience with viroids and viroid diseases. They have produced a cohesive and comprehensive work that can be used by students, researchers, extension agents, and regulators. It may also be of a great value to science managers, policy makers, and industries in formulating policies and products to obtain viroid-free plants and control viroid diseases. The information on plant quarantine and certification programs will help anyone concerned with the safe movement of plant material across international boundaries or within a single country.

COLBY AWARD WINNER • “One of the most important books to come out of the Afghanistan war.”—Foreign Policy “A saga of courage and futility, of valor and error and heartbreak.”—Rick Atkinson, author of the Liberation Trilogy and The British Are Coming Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war. Drawing on reporting trips, hundreds of interviews, and documentary research, Wesley Morgan reveals the history of the war in this iconic region, captures the culture and reality of the conflict through both American and Afghan eyes, and reports on the snowballing missteps—some kept secret from even the troops fighting there—that doomed the American mission. The Hardest Place is the story of one of the twenty-first century’s most unforgiving battlefields and a portrait of the American military that fought there.

This guide to the guts-and-glory of G.I. Joe identifies every figure with all its weapons and gear, every vehicle with all the easy-to-lose pieces and every accessory related to Hasbros stellar team of soldiers. Use The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe to expand your knowledge about Joe and the team, or Cobra and his cronies, and to identify and assess the value of any of the series 350 action figures and 240 vehicles and accessories.

To create a forum for scientists and clinicians interested in degenerative retinal diseases, we began in 1984 to organize a biennial symposium on Retinal Degeneration as a satellite meeting of the International Congress of Eye Research. The timing and varying location of these meetings provides an important assembly for investigators from throughout the world to convene for presentation of their new findings on the causes and potential therapies for degenerative retinal disorders. The VIII International Symposium on Retinal Degeneration was held from July 28-25, 1998, at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Schluchsee, a small town in the Black Forest of southwestern Germany. Most of the participants in this meeting contributed to this volume, and we are appreciative of the efforts of each author in making this publication possible. The research presented at the meeting, and described in this proceedings volume, reflects a strong emphasis on the molecular genetic approach to understa- ing these disorders. Several of the papers provide important new insights into the mechanism of photoreceptor degeneration and cell death. A number of the studies are targeted at retarding or reversing the degeneration process. Included for the first time are presentations from all the principal laboratories involved in the field of visual prostheses-implant (chip) technology-in which investigations are targeted at restoring vision in eyes that have lost photoreceptor cells. A variety of diagnostic, clinical, histopathological, and physiological assessments of retinal degeneration in patients are also included.