From the author of "Imperial Japanese Good Luck Flags and One-Thousand Stitch Belts," Michael Bortner examines World War Two era Imperial Japanese good luck signed flags, featuring artistic renderings of the tiger.

The slosh of water in a canteen, the rustle of a uniform, the jangle of extra clips of ammo, all the clinks and clanks of jostling packs of equipment—this is the soundtrack that accompanies fully loaded soldiers humping through the bush to their next assignment. Battle rattle is the stuff a soldier carries to get through the day, from mission-specific gear to general supplies. In short, what the soldiers on the ground affectionately call “our crap.” This book takes a close look at the commercial revolution in military clothing, packs, and equipment—soldiers buying from civilian companies instead of settling for government issue, customizing their gear to perfectly fit their needs and preferences. From boots and gloves to helmets and eyewear, from ponchos and packs to knives and rifles, Battle Rattle shows what the modern warfighter is using to fight the fight.

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling. The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

WWII Veteran, Thomas Floyd, Jr., describes surviving the Battle of the Bulge. His frozen boots struggled through chest high snow to remove the swastika from the flag at German Headquarters. Thomas Floyd joined the army in 1943. He trained with the 66th Infantry Division. Due to the casualties from Normandy, and the battle of the hedgerows, replacements were needed. Thomas was sent into the 28th Infantry Division as a replacement. The 28th Division was originally a Pennsylvania Guard unit known as the Keystone Division. Their patch was a red keystone. As a result of their victorious experiences in battle, the Germans referred to their division as the "Blutiger Eimer," meaning "Bloody Bucket," due to its shape and color. The Bloody Bucket became a name associated with pride for the men who fought in their Division. They served in two of the toughest battles in which the Americans were engaged in the European Theatre: Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. For their part in the Battle of the Bulge, the 112th Regimental Combat Team (in which Thomas Floyd served) was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Col. Floyd, serving twenty-seven years, also received two Bronze Stars, the European Theater Medal with four Campaign Stars, the American Campaign, American Defense, Good Conduct, and the Combat Infantryman's Badge. Members of the 28th Division are also entitled to wear a number of foreign awards.

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the civil rights era’s climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation. "The Year of Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America’s long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary narrative of the personalities and events that brought about America’s second emancipation. In a new afterword—reporting last encounters with hero Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and describing the current drastic anti-immigration laws in Alabama—the author demonstrates that Alabama remains a civil rights crucible.