The true story of the 1st Cav's elilte air-ground assault force.

The first-ever inside look at the US military’s secretive Remotely Piloted Aircraft program—equal parts techno-thriller, historical account, and war memoir Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), commonly referred to by the media as drones, are a mysterious and headline-making tool in the military’s counterterrorism arsenal. Their story has been pieced together by technology reporters, major newspapers, and on-the-ground accounts from the Middle East, but it has never been fully told by an insider. In Hunter Killer, Air Force Lt. Col. T. Mark McCurley provides an unprecedented look at the aviators and aircraft that forever changed modern warfare. This is the first account by an RPA pilot, told from his unique-in-history vantage point supporting and executing Tier One counterterrorism missions. Only a handful of people know what it’s like to hunt terrorists from the sky, watching through the electronic eye of aircraft that can stay aloft for a day at a time, waiting to deploy their cutting-edge technology to neutralize threats to America’s national security. Hunter Killer is the counterpoint to the stories from the battlefront told in books like No Easy Day and American Sniper: While special operators such as SEALs and Delta Force have received a lot of attention in recent years, no book has ever told the story of the unmanned air war. Until now.

NOW THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE HUNTER KILLER—STARRING GERARD BUTLER AND GARY OLDMAN A submarine captain races to prevent World War III in this thrilling adventure. Below the polar ice cap, an American nuclear submarine moves quietly in the freezing water, tailing a new Russian sub. But the usual, unspoken game of hide-and-seek between opposing captains is ended when the Americans hear sounds of disaster and flooding, and the Russian sub sinks in a thousand feet of water. The American sub rushes to help, only to join its former quarry in the deep. The situation ignites tensions around the world. As both Washington and Moscow prepare for what may be the beginnings of World War III, the USS Toledo—led by young, untested Captain Joe Glass—heads to the location to give aid. He soon discovers that the incident was no accident. And the men behind it have yet to make their final move. A move only Glass can stop.

The firsthand account of the hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki—and the drone squadron that found him. In September 2011, with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden both dead, the United States pinpointed American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki as priority target number one. In order to eliminate the threat, Air Force Lt. Col. T. Mark McCurley and his squadron were called upon to turn their RPAs’ main function as tracking and surveillance devices into strategic weapons. Much was resting on the mission—al-Awlaki was the face of al-Qaeda propaganda, and his loss would have serious repercussions in AQ’s recruitment efforts. The Air Force had only a limited amount of time and firepower—it was up to McCurley and his Predators to neutralize the threat before al-Awlaki disappeared underground forever. Remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), commonly referred to as drones, have become the new face of modern warfare, and Lt. Col. McCurley provides an insider look at the evolution of the RPA program. No book has ever told the story of the drones and the pilots who fly them. Until now. With an unprecedented bird's-eye view, Lt. Col. McCurley details the start of their sixty-day surveillance of al-Awlaki up through the day the drones were ordered to take the shot, when the war on terror experienced a critical success.

Pike Logan tracks highly-trained Russian assassins to Brazil in this blistering, action-packed thriller from New York Times bestselling author and former Special Forces Officer Brad Taylor. “It’s an excellent read, and I greatly enjoyed it.” —Nelson DeMille Pike Logan and the Taskforce were once the apex predators, an unrivaled hunting machine that decimated those out to harm the United States, but they may have met their match. While Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill prepare to join their team on a counter-terrorist mission in the triple frontier—the lawless tri-border region where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet—they are targeted in Charleston, South Carolina. A vicious explosion kills a friend, and the perpetrators have set it up to look like an accident. While the authorities believe this was not foul play, Pike knows the attack was meant for him. When he loses contact with the team in South America, Pike is convinced he and the Taskforce are under assault. His men are the closest thing to family that Pike has, which means he will do anything, even ignore direct orders to stand down, to find them. Pike and Jennifer head to Brazil to investigate their disappearance and run headlong into a crew of Russian assassins. Within days they are entangled in a byzantine scheme involving Brazilian politics and a cut-throat battle for control of offshore oil fields. Forged in combat, the Russians are the equal of anything the Taskforce has encountered before, but they make a mistake in attacking Pike’s team, because Pike has a couple of elite Israeli assassins of his own. And Pike will stop at nothing to protect his family.

The concept of hunter-killer operations deep within enemy territory evokes a sense of excitement and adventure, especially for those of us familiar with the exploits of Robert Rogers' Rangers of the 18th century or the operations of Special Forces and Rangers in Afghanistan today. In this monograph, Colonel Joseph D. Celeski (U.S. Army, Ret.), argues that hunter-killer teams be routinely established as part of our standing Special Operations Forces (SOF). He states that guidelines for their employment should be included in counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, and Celeski further advises that the use of such forces should be a routine part of the overall COIN effort. The idea is to aggressively pursue the enemy within his own sanctuaries, disrupt his operations and sustainment, and neutralize or destroy the adversary before he can threaten a friendly host government or project extremist operations onto the world stage.Celeski's operational concept for hunter-killer operations bolsters the command vision of U.S. Special Operations Command, which seeks to develop a force capable of "distributed operations, within an environment characterized by irregular warfare and asymmetric challenges." The hunterkiller organization, with its strike units and teams, would be reinforced with indigenous forces, much as we saw during the Vietnam War and the early phases of the Afghanistan war. This kind of force could contribute toward achieving the U.S. SOF mission to act with "...speed, aggression, and lethality to achieve tactical through strategic effect."

A veteran with 39 months of combat experience in Vietnam describes the war, the people, the land, and how the soldiers changed as the war progressed.