It was 1950, the converted LSI was plowing the waters of the Pacific, heading towards Korea, when Robert Baker, an enlisted man aboard the ship, was summoned by a Chief Petty Officer to deliver messages to the Signal Officer in the ships ward room. And, it was a moment of truth for Baker. When ushered into the ships ward room Robert became painfully aware that he had somehow been assigned to the wrong part of the ship. The officers, that he was only hazily aware of during his day to day duties, were actually sitting at tables covered with linen table clothes, drinking their coffee from china cups while being served by a Philippine stewards mate. Baker, on the other hand, was eating off of a tin tray, one deck below and under very different circumstances. Different enough, that he decided to change his circumstances, for the better. That afternoon, Baker submitted his application for flight training with the U.S. Navy. He had always wanted to fly anyway. Baker had actually logged four or five hours a couple of years earlier during his assignment at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville Florida. He had only quit then because he could no longer afford it. After a lot of pain, blood and about ten days in the hospital wearing a kotex under his nose, he was finished with all the formalities. Now, it was just a question of waiting for the orders to arrive. The U.S. Navy, like any other military organization moves slowly. In this case, they didnt move fast enough. After months of waiting, with no answer to the application, frustration set in, along with the end of his enlistment in the Navy. Not easily deterred, Baker felt it was the Navys loss and some other services gain.

Standing above the Crowd will help you rise up above life's dramas, traumas, pettiness, negativity, and dozens more situational issues that tend to keep us down and hold us back from achieving our dreams and fulfilling our potential. Standing above the Crowd is jam-packed full of success strategies that I've used throughout my life in the areas of athletics, business and community. All are very straightforward and easy for anyone to implement. There's helpful advice from the team of wonderful people I've surrounded myself with throughout the years. I've always believed in a team concept approach, because we truly can't do it alone. The success I've had in sports, business, and community involvement has all been because of people and principles I've learned from during my journey.

A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year Okinawa, present day: Luz, a teenage military brat, has moved to the island’s U.S. Air Force base with her mother, a no-nonsense sergeant. Luz’s mother hopes that the move will reconnect them with the Okinawan branch of their family—and help them heal from the death of Luz’s beloved older sister. This is an island where departed spirits mingle with the living, and interwoven with Luz’s narrative is the story of an Okinawan girl, Tamiko Kokuba, who in 1945 was plucked from her high school and trained to work in the Imperial Army’s horrific cave hospitals. Both of these extraordinary young women are seeking peace, and as Luz digs deeper and deeper into her past, their quests will intersect. Above the East China Sea tells the entwined stories of two lives connected across time by the shared experience of loss, the strength of an ancient culture, and the power of family love.

FOREWORD BY GUY KAWASAKI Presentation designer and internationally acclaimed communications expert Garr Reynolds, creator of the most popular Web site on presentation design and delivery on the Net — presentationzen.com — shares his experience in a provocative mix of illumination, inspiration, education, and guidance that will change the way you think about making presentations with PowerPoint or Keynote. Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.

New York Times Bestseller: A “fascinating, funny and tremendously well written” chronicle of daily life at the US Military Academy (Time). In 1998, West Point made an unprecedented offer to Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky: Stay at the Academy as long as you like, go wherever you wish, talk to whomever you want, to discover why some of America’s most promising young people sacrifice so much to become cadets. Lipsky followed one cadet class into mess halls, barracks, classrooms, bars, and training exercises, from arrival through graduation. By telling their stories, he also examines the Academy as a reflection of our society: Are its principles of equality, patriotism, and honor quaint anachronisms or is it still, as Theodore Roosevelt called it, the most “absolutely American” institution? During an eventful four years in West Point’s history, Lipsky witnesses the arrival of TVs and phones in dorm rooms, the end of hazing, and innumerable other shifts in policy and practice. He uncovers previously unreported scandals and poignantly evokes the aftermath of September 11, when cadets must prepare to become officers in wartime. Lipsky also meets some extraordinary people: a former Eagle Scout who struggles with every facet of the program, from classwork to marching; a foul-mouthed party animal who hates the military and came to West Point to play football; a farm-raised kid who seems to be the perfect soldier, despite his affection for the early work of Georgia O’Keeffe; and an exquisitely turned-out female cadet who aspires to “a career in hair and nails” after the Army. The result is, in the words of David Brooks in the New York Times Book Review, “a superb description of modern military culture, and one of the most gripping accounts of university life I have read. . . . How teenagers get turned into leaders is not a simple story, but it is wonderfully told in this book.”

The inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney—exclusively in theaters December 25, 2023! The #1 New York Times bestselling true story about the American rowing triumph of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin—from the author of Facing the Mountain For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington’s eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys’ own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man’s personal quest.