Book Recommendations

[Jason F]

....Personally, as a person who tends to read SEAL books I find it refreshing to read a book that doesnt talk about the author's experience at BUD/S and particularly Hell Week. I know it is a pivotal event in the SEAL's life but I have read accounts of people who have gone through it from the 50s to the post 9/11 world and I am looking more for details on operational training than that. So for me I appreciated the concentration on Green Team training and stuff on life in DEVGRU and his perception of the Bin Laden raid...

Agreed.

Read this one on a trip to Salt Lake City this week for a shoot - got the whole book read on the flights alone. So it was a fast read. I did enjoy reading about the mental aspects of going through Green Team, etc. and not spending 1/3 of the book talking about BUD/S and Hell Week.

I had a thought last night driving home from the airport. I wonder if inclusive of the exhiliration the ST6 guys were feeling while they choppered back to Jalalabad with UBL's body at their feet.... I wonder if there was also a sense of, "Wow; 10 years of searching, poking, proding, snooping - and we finally got him. After weeks and weeks of prep & rehersals, countless contingency plans, etc... and it's over in 30 minutes."

My mind tried to ponder that while I was driving home last night at 2am. I found it interesting.

So "No Easy Day" was good, not great, but definitely worth reading. I just lent it to my brother and told him to read mine instead of buying his own copy.

[pangloss]

"Bartleby the Scrivener"?

I would prefer not to.

[JHC]

I figured as much, it just surprised me that any SOF were being used for what amounts to conventional operations for any period of time.

There was a bit of a flap for a spell about exactly that back in mid-Iraq war time. IIRC after some SEAL KIAs some controversy worked up over why are these key SOF assets mixing it up participating in infantry fights. I saw it explained - I believe it was "Frogman" on the old TF forum who explained it was quite simple. There is a large land war underway. It was deemed very important that these units not just sit the war out and basically miss gaining the unique operational experience of combat operations.

So while some may have been working with JSOC "fusion" teams etc others "hired out" to conventional units to add their extreme capabilities to the package. It was reported conventional units were only too happy to get some SEAL snipers or others tasked over to them. Very understandable!

[LHS]

Just finished re-reading some Peter Capstick books (Death on the Dark Continent and Death in the Long Grass). I lapped these up as an adolescent, dreaming of the long-shot hope that one day, I too would be able to experience an African hunt. Now I sit in my den, working the action on my 9.3x62mm Ruger, as I start the plotting and planning to actually do it. When I do finally go, I think I'll take my copy of Death in the Long Grass with me. I figure it's earned the trip

[Chemsoldier]

Just finished re-reading some Peter Capstick books (Death on the Dark Continent and Death in the Long Grass). I lapped these up as an adolescent, dreaming of the long-shot hope that one day, I too would be able to experience an African hunt. Now I sit in my den, working the action on my 9.3x62mm Ruger, as I start the plotting and planning to actually do it. When I do finally go, I think I'll take my copy of Death in the Long Grass with me. I figure it's earned the trip

Robert Ruark's "Horn of the Hunter" is awesome as well. Believe it or not the old "Man Eaters of Tsavo" by John Henry Patterson is an excellent one as well.

[LHS]

Robert Ruark's "Horn of the Hunter" is awesome as well. Believe it or not the old "Man Eaters of Tsavo" by John Henry Patterson is an excellent one as well.

I read "Man Eaters of Tsavo" some years ago, after the Val Kilmer film came out. I haven't read "Horn of the Hunter", but I thoroughly enjoyed "The Old Man and the Boy".

[bigslim]

Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Breweryhttp://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Up-Bus...=sam+calagione

this was a good read, a little business, a little more beer, and a whole lot of personality

[mc1911]

I read "Man Eaters of Tsavo" some years ago, after the Val Kilmer film came out. I haven't read "Horn of the Hunter", but I thoroughly enjoyed "The Old Man and the Boy".

Two great choices from Ruark, though no reading of his work is complete without Something of Value. Normally if someone recommended a novel about the Mau-Mau uprising I would have assumed they found the cure for insomnia but this is anything but. It is far from warm and fuzzy like the Old Man and the Boy, which is absolutely endearing and to be revisted often. Something of Value is fairly dark and graphic. It gets way down into the depths of the racial hatred driving that event.

[LittleLebowski]

You mentioning these two books pretty much paralyzed my life. My wife thinks something wrong with me cause I am not watching the US Open..

Amazing writing, eh? I buy copies of Wolf Hall for my friends.

[Al T.]

On your recommendation, I'm going to try WH.