War For The Hell Of It

What's it like to fight an unwinnable war? What's Mach 2? What does night ground attack feel like? How was the Phantom to fly? It's all here, the sights, sounds, smells, violence, political frustrations, the terror and triumph of survival in the sky over Vietnam. Death in the air but exotic pleasures available back on base in Thailand. Live it n

War-from 25,000 feet up. During the Vietnam War, Ed Cobleigh served two tours of duty, logging 375 combat sorties and over 1,000 hours of combat time in the F-4D Phantom II fighter/bomber. Unlike so many others, he made it back in one piece. And he returned with an experience-and a perspective-that those of us on the ground could not begin to understand. In War for the Hell of It, Cobleigh shares that perspective in an intimate account of his life in a war filled with moral ambiguity and military contradictions. This is an unprecedented look into the state of mind of a pilot as he experiences everything from the carnage of a crash to the joy of flying through a star-studded night sky, from illogical political agendas to his own dangerous addiction to risk. With the aviation thrills of Flight of the Intruder and the military pathos of M*A*S*H, Cobleigh gives a stirring and emotional description of one man's journey into airborne hell and back.

NAMED BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AS A BEST BOOK OF 2019 “Passionately brutal, fierce, and furious in voice and pace. It’s a particularly cinematic experience of war, Full Metal Jacket meets Edge of Tomorrow.” —The New York Times From the Hugo Award­­–winning author of The Stars Are Legion comes a science fiction thriller about a futuristic war during which soldiers are broken down into light in order to get them to the front lines on Mars. They said the war would turn us into light. I wanted to be counted among the heroes who gave us this better world. The Light Brigade: it’s what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back…different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat. Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on. Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.

The war that has riven Bosnia-Herzegovina is the most ferocious carnage to blight Europe since the fall of the Third Reich. It has shocked, challenged, but ultimately baffled the world. This account of the war boils down the labyrinth of violence to a horribly simple story: the humiliation, decimation and betrayal of the Bosnian Muslims by two rival Balkan powers, and then by the international community.

Ed, "Fast Eddie," Cobleigh served two tours of duty during the Vietnam air war, logging 375 combat sorties in the F-4 Phantom fighter/bomber. In War for the Hell of It, Cobleigh shares his perspectives in a deeply personal account of a fighter pilot's life, one filled with moral ambiguity and military absurdities offset by the undeniable thrill of flying a fighter aircraft. With well-crafted prose that puts you into the Phantom's cockpit, Cobleigh vividly recounts the unexplainable loss of his wingman, the useless missions he flew, the need to trust his reflexes, eyesight, and aggressiveness, and his survival instincts in the heat of combat. He discusses the deaths of his squadron mates and the contradictions of a dirty, semi-secret war fought from beautiful, exotic Thailand. This is an unprecedented look into the state of mind of a pilot as he experiences everything from the carnage of a crash to the joy of flying through a star-studded night sky, from the illogical political agendas of Washington to his own dangerous addiction to risk. Cobleigh gives a stirring and emotional description of one man's journey into airborne hell and back, recounting the pleasures and the pain. the wins and the losses. and ultimately, the return.

“A planet-stomping space opera that bursts off the page like a tactical nuke.”—John Birmingham, author of Weapons of Choice The Hammer Worlds—the most brutal and oppressive interstellar government in the universe—have hijacked the Federated Worlds cruise ship Mumtaz, seizing its valuable terraforming cargo and damning its passengers to mining the moons of the prison planet known as Hell. For Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort and the crew aboard deep space scout vessel 387, the mission is clear: infiltrate enemy territory, locate the Mumtaz, and rescue the prisoners. The odds are appalling, and the damage will probably be fatal, but victory is nonnegotiable–especially for Helfort, whose mother and sister were on the Mumtaz. And Michael Helfort will be damned if he’ll let his family rot on the moons of Hell.

An astonishing memoir of military courage at a remote outpost during the Vietnam War “A riveting, dead-true account in the tradition of Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.”—Steven Pressfield, national bestselling author of The Lion’s Gate In October 1969, William Albracht, the youngest Green Beret captain in Vietnam, took command of a remote hilltop outpost called Firebase Kate held by only 27 American soldiers and 156 Montagnard militiamen. At dawn the next morning, three North Vietnamese Army regiments—some six thousand men—crossed the Cambodian border and attacked. Outnumbered three dozen to one, Albracht’s men held off the assault but, after five days, Kate’s defenders were out of ammo and water. Refusing to die or surrender, Albracht led his troops off the hill and on a daring night march through enemy lines. Abandoned in Hell is an astonishing memoir of leadership, sacrifice, and brutal violence, a riveting journey into Vietnam’s heart of darkness, and a compelling reminder of the transformational power of individual heroism. Not since Lone Survivor and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young has there been such a gripping and authentic account of battlefield courage. INCLUDES PHOTOS

The history books do not say a great deal about the 317th Infantry. However, it was a regiment that accomplished rather startling results: first bridgehead across the Moselle, cleared out La Grande Couronne de Nancy, participated in the capture of Metz -- the first time in history that the fort had ever fallen to an assault, and, of course, participated in the Battle of the Bulge as one of the first regiments to arrive in the area after the German assault had broken the line. It suffered extremely severe casualties and contained some of the best men I ever known.