› › My Four Years In The Marines

My Four Years in the Marines

Author : Frank John Verkest

Publisher : Xlibris Corporation

Page : 60 pages

File Size : 12,73 MB

Release : 2010-01-12

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1450020224

Get eBook

Book Description

Frank Verkest, born in 1917, father of three, grandfather of eight and great grandfather of thirteen, resides in Buckhead Ridge, Florida, just southwest of the city of Okeechobee. Frank is known for his great love of God and family. In 1936, after graduating from High School in Antioch, Illinois, knowing his family had no money for him to pursue an education, he joined the Marine Corps, whose motto was “Join the Marines and get an education.” His last duty in the Marine Corps introduced him to Marcie, thus beginning the “sixty-nine-year love story” of our dad and mom. When we found his handwritten memoirs of his tour of duty in the Marine Corps (1936-1940), we felt this great treasure needed to be bound and preserved for our family and future generations. With gratitude we lovingly dedicate this book and prayer to our father and mother, Frank and Marcie. Joyce, Jerry and Russell. The following is “Dad’s Prayer,” composed by Dad and offered daily for many years. We do thank you, Lord, for the many blessings that you have given us; And we pray that you continue to watch over us and our families with good health and safety; And for our friends and relation that have serious problems, please guide them through their problems. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.



Eat the Apple

Author : Matt Young

Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Page : 276 pages

File Size : 41,82 MB

Release : 2018-02-27

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1632869527

Get eBook

Book Description

"The Iliad of the Iraq war" (Tim Weiner)--a gut-wrenching, beautiful memoir of the consequences of war on the psyche of a young man. Eat the Apple is a daring, twisted, and darkly hilarious story of American youth and masculinity in an age of continuous war. Matt Young joined the Marine Corps at age eighteen after a drunken night culminating in wrapping his car around a fire hydrant. The teenage wasteland he fled followed him to the training bases charged with making him a Marine. Matt survived the training and then not one, not two, but three deployments to Iraq, where the testosterone, danger, and stakes for him and his fellow grunts were dialed up a dozen decibels. With its kaleidoscopic array of literary forms, from interior dialogues to infographics to prose passages that read like poetry, Young's narrative powerfully mirrors the multifaceted nature of his experience. Visceral, ironic, self-lacerating, and ultimately redemptive, Young's story drops us unarmed into Marine Corps culture and lays bare the absurdism of 21st-century war, the manned-up vulnerability of those on the front lines, and the true, if often misguided, motivations that drove a young man to a life at war. Searing in its honesty, tender in its vulnerability, and brilliantly written, Eat the Apple is a modern war classic in the making and a powerful coming-of-age story that maps the insane geography of our times.



One Bullet Away

Author : Nathaniel Fick

Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Page : 404 pages

File Size : 19,97 MB

Release : 2006

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0618773436

Get eBook

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.



Radioman: Twenty-Five Years in the Marine Corps: From Desert Storm to Operation Iraqi Freedom

Author : Andrew Hesterman

Publisher : Pen & Sword Military

Page : 272 pages

File Size : 22,56 MB

Release : 2022-04-30

Category : History

ISBN : 9781399090759

Get eBook

Book Description

"RADIOMAN tells a universal story -- about war, family, and growing up. Andy Hesterman's 25 years in the Marines span a huge range of world events and personal experiences. I found myself laughing, rooting for him, and shaking my head at the insanity of it all. A great book!" - Nathaniel Fick, NY Times best-selling author of ONE BULLET AWAY"From a recruit surviving boot camp to a Major flying combat helicopters and controlling F/A-18s in Iraq, Andy Hesterman shares the pride of the Corps and the pain of saying goodbye to your family for yet another deployment. With Radioman, you'll feel like you've put on the Marine cammies and marched alongside Hesty for over two decades of service to our country." - Dell Epperson, Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired)"Radioman is far more than the story of one man's 25-year journey through the modern Marine Corps - as fascinating as that story is. It is also an account of the extraordinary changes - technological, tactical, moral - that have utterly transformed the American military in that time. Both gripping and honest, Radioman is also told with a humor and humility that makes for an extremely pleasurable read." - Scott Anderson, New York Times best-selling author of THE QUIET AMERICANSFrom a Gulf War grunt to a full-fledged Marine Major in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Andrew Hesterman saw it all. Radioman offers a highly personal and unfiltered view of the Marine Corps as it transitioned from the post-Vietnam analog Reagan era to the post-9/11 high-tech George W. Bush and Obama years.Radioman begins with Andy as a recruit at boot camp and the ensuing training that leads to formally becoming a Marine. After comm school and the reserves, Andy is called to active duty in 1991 for the Gulf War, where he experiences combat up close in Kuwait. The next personally, professionally, and politically tumultuous decade brings marriage (and divorce), flight school and helicopter missions in Kosovo, the shock of 9/11, another marriage, and children. Andy's journey culminates as an officer in Iraq, where he directs air support for the Marines in Fallujah.Co-authored by Robert Einaudi, a close friend of Hesterman's since high school, Radioman provides an honest and vivid military portrait of the Marine Corps and the modern US military seen through the experiences of one Marine.



First to Fight

Author : V H Krulak

Publisher : Naval Institute Press

Page : 247 pages

File Size : 23,99 MB

Release : 1999-02-22

Category : History

ISBN : 1612511619

Get eBook

Book Description

In this riveting insider's chronicle, legendary Marine General "Brute" Krulak submits an unprecedented examination of U.S. Marines—their fights on the battlefield and off, their extraordinary esprit de corps. Deftly blending history with autobiography, action with analysis, and separating fact from fable, General Krulak touches the very essence of the Corps: what it means to be a Marine and the reason behind its consistently outstanding performance and reputation. Krulak also addresses the most basic but challenging question of all about the Corps: how does it manage to survive—even to flourish—despite overwhelming political odds and, as the general writes, ""an extraordinary propensity for shooting itself in the foot?"" To answer this question Krulak examines the foundation on which the Corps is built, a system of intense loyalty to God, to country, and to other Marines. He also takes a close look at Marines in war, offering challenging accounts of their experiences in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In addition, he describes the Corps's relationship to other services, especially during the unification battles following World War II, and offers new insights into the decision-making process in times of crisis. First published in hardcover in 1984, this book has remained popular ever since with Marines of every rank.



Loon

Author : Jack McLean

Publisher : Ballantine Books

Page : 258 pages

File Size : 45,58 MB

Release : 2009-05-19

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0345515358

Get eBook

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.





I'm Staying with My Boys

Author : Jim Proser

Publisher : Macmillan

Page : 353 pages

File Size : 42,27 MB

Release : 2010-02-02

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0312611447

Get eBook

Book Description

This authorized biography of World War II hero John Basilone--who held off 3,000 Japanese troops after his unit was reduced to three men--is being published to coincide with Steven Spielberg's HBO miniseries, "The Pacific." Illustrations throughout.



Indestructible

Author : Jack Lucas

Publisher : Da Capo Press

Page : 184 pages

File Size : 50,76 MB

Release : 2009-03-25

Category : History

ISBN : 0786736313

Get eBook

Book Description

During the battle of Iwo Jima, two enemy grenades landed close to Jack Lucas and his buddies. Jack threw himself on one of the grenades, grabbed the second, and pulled it beneath his body. His buddies were saved, but Lucas was badly injured. Miraculously, he survived-but just barely. For this brave action seventeen-year-old Jack Lucas from North Carolina became the youngest Marine in history to receive the Medal of Honor. Indestructible reveals the rocky road that led Jack Lucas to Iwo Jima, his arduous recovery, and the obstacles Jack overcame later in life. Jack's moving and powerful memoir is a testament to America's greatest generation.



Inside Marine One

Author : Col. Ray L'Heureux

Publisher : St. Martin's Press

Page : 221 pages

File Size : 11,58 MB

Release : 2014-05-27

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 1466837756

Get eBook

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.