Marine One


Book Description

An attorney and Marine veteran must unravel a deadly conspiracy in this explosive legal thriller by a New York Times–bestselling author. The President rushes across the South Lawn through a pounding thunderstorm to board Marine One and fly to Camp David late at night. Advisors plead with him not to go—but he insists. He has arranged a meeting that only three people in his administration know about. But he never gets there. Marine One crashes into a ravine, killing all aboard . . . The government accuses the French helicopter manufacturer of killing the president. Senate Investigations and Justice Department accusations multiply as Mike Nolan, a trial attorney and a Marine Corps reserve helicopter pilot, is hired to defend the company against a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the First Lady. Now Nolan must find out what really caused Marine One to crash, and why the president threw caution aside to attend a secret meeting. To clear his client, Nolan must win the highest-profile trial of the last hundred years with very little working for him and many working against him—intent on stopping him at any cost . . . Praise for Marine One “Bestseller Huston . . . grabs the reader by the lapels with the opening sentence of the first chapter of this outstanding thriller. . . . This is nonstop legal suspense at its best.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “This gripping thriller opens with a bang. . . . The author smoothly combines the political-conspiracy and courtroom-drama formats, and he nicely explores the story’s fundamental moral quandary. . . . The book has echoes of Michael Crichton’s Airframe.” —Booklist




Inside Marine One


Book Description

Col. Ray "Frenchy" L'Heureux always dreamed of bring a pilot. Growing up, he built airplane models and dreamed about soaring over the earth. When he was twelve, his mom treated him to a flying lesson at the local airfield. Taken on a short flight by an instructor and allowed to operate the controls for part of the flight, he was hooked forever. It wasn't until he was running low on college funds and saw a recruiter at his college that he joined the Marines and began the journey towards his dream from Parris Island to Bravo Company and, then, officer training school. One day at an airfield when President Reagan landed on this way to a fundraiser, Frenchy's life changed forever when encountered HMX1, the squadron that flies the President in Marine One. When he saw the white-topped Sea King and White Hawk helicopters, he was determined to become part of that elite group. Inside Marine One is Col. L'Heureux's inspiring story of a young man who dreamed of flying, trained, studied and worked hard to become the pilot who ended up serving four US Presidents - George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It's also a personal guided tour inside the world's most famous helicopter by a man who knows that flying machine better than any other. Inside Marine One is a great American success story of a young boy who dreamed big, worked hard and finally flew the President of the United States as his number one passenger.




One Bullet Away


Book Description

An ex-Marine captain shares his story of fighting in a recon battalion in both Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning with his brutal training on Quantico Island and following his progress through various training sessions and, ultimately, conflict in the deadliest conflicts since the Vietnam War.




Marine Force One


Book Description

Marine Force One is a special detachment of the Marine Corps whose prowess in combat and specialized training sets them apart from the average grunt. They charge where others retreat, and succeed where others fail. They are the best America’s got. As tensions continue to build between North and South Korea, Marine Force One is sent on a recon mission that reveals North Korea’s plans to use chemical weapons against the South. But before they can report to H.Q., they are ambushed and overwhelmed by a relentless pursuit force. Now, the battered and bloody team must take out the chemical weapons on their own and make it across the border alive.




We’Ll All Die as Marines


Book Description

For seventeen-year-old high school dropout Jim Bathurst, the Marine Corps’s reputation for making men out of boys was something he desperately needed when he enlisted in March of 1958. What began as a four-year hitch lasted nearly thirty-six years and included an interesting assortment of duty stations and assignments as both enlisted and officer. We’ll All Die As Marines narrates a story about a young, free-spirited kid from Dundalk, Maryland, and how the Corps captured his body, mind, and spirit. Slowly, but persistently, the Corps transformed him into someone whose first love would forever be the United States Marine Corps. It documents not only his leadership, service, and training but also regales many tales of his fellow Marines that will have the reader laughing, cheering, and at times crying. In this memoir, Bathurst reveals that for him—a former DI who was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V”, Purple Heart, and a combat commission to second lieutenant—the Corps was not a job, a career, or even a profession; it was—and still is—a way of life.




The Pink Marine


Book Description

The Pink Marine is the story-full of hilarity and heartbreak-of how a teenage boy who struggles with self-acceptance and doesn't fit the traditional definition of masculinity finds acceptance and self-worth in Marine Corps boot camp. When Greg Cope White's best friend tells him he's spending his summer in Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, all Greg hears is 'summer' and 'camp'. Despite dire warnings from his friend, Greg vows to join him in recruit training. He's eighteen, underweight, he's never run a mile-and he's gay. Greg's sheltered life hadn't prepared him for military service. A prince out of water, he packed five suitcases since he'd never been away from home for thirteen weeks. The U.S. Marines stripped him from all of that, shaved his head and put a rifle in his hands. At first he struggles to keep up, and afraid his secret will be discovered. But midway through, the desire to survive and become a Marine trumps fear. He learns that everyone, just like in the real world, comes into the service feeling 'different'; possibly prejudged for the color of their skin, their weight, their poverty--some have even chosen boot camp over jail. Can a flighty, 112-pound, unmanly Texan transform into one of the few, the proud, the Marines? Will Greg even survive?




Joker One


Book Description

After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell wanted to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. So he joined the service, becoming a commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One. Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family. They were assigned to Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen—with the chilling cries of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret—Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces. Thrillingly told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership and loyalty.




Charlie One Five


Book Description

Stories of grit and gumption, as told by the "Mud Marines"




Loon


Book Description

“Kids like me didn’t go to Vietnam,” writes Jack McLean in his compulsively readable memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. “Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war,” he writes. It didn’t remain that way for long. A year later, after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, and stateside duty in Barstow, California, the Vietnam War was reaching its peak. McLean, like most available Marines, was retrained at Camp Pendleton, California, and sent to Vietnam as a grunt to serve in an infantry company in the northernmost reaches of South Vietnam. McLean’s story climaxes with the horrific three-day Battle for Landing Zone Loon in June, 1968. Fought on a remote hill in the northwestern corner of South Vietnam, McLean bore witness to the horror of war and was forever changed. He returned home six weeks later to a country largely ambivalent to his service. Written with honesty and insight, Loon is a powerful coming-of-age portrait of a boy who bears witness to some of the most tumultuous events in our history, both in Vietnam and back home.




Once a Marine


Book Description

The Silver Star–awarded marine chronicles his service in Iraq in this “transcendent memoir of military service and its personal consequences” (Ralph Peters, Lt. Col., ret., author of Looking For Trouble). In April, 2003, an AP photographer captured a striking image seen around the world of Gunny Sergeant Nick Popaditch smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Though immortalized in that moment as “The Cigar Marine,” Popaditch’s fighting was far from over. The following year, he fought heroically in the battle for Fallujah and suffered grievous head wounds that left him legally blind and partially deaf. But he faced the toughest fight of his life when he returned home: the battle to remain the man and Marine he was. At first, Nick fights to get back to where he was in Iraq-in the cupola of an M1A1 main battle tank, leading Marines in combat. As the seriousness and permanence of his disabilities become more evident, Nick fights to remain in the Corps in any capacity and help his brothers in arms. Then, following a medical retirement, he battles for rightful recognition and compensation for his disabilities. Throughout his harrowing ordeal, Nick fights to maintain his honor and loyalty, waging all these battles the same way—the Marine way—because anything less would be a betrayal of all he holds dear.