Stories of generals and battles of the American Civil War have been told and retold but relatively little has been written about the common soldiers who fought in the war. In his thoroughly researched history of the Civil War soldiers and families of the upstate New York town of Newark Valley, Jerry Marsh sheds light on the lives of three hundred and nineteen soldiers of the town. He tells of the preacher's son who prayed to be a faithful soldier under the "Stars and Stripes" and the "Banner of Jesus," the eleven families who sent their father and son(s) to the war, the seventy sets of brothers who served, the youths and older men who misrepresented their ages to enlist, the seventy-four men killed or wounded in battle and thirty-nine who died of disease, the families who brought their dead or dying sons back to be buried at home, and the veterans who became productive citizens in New York and across the expanding nation. Marsh's narrative is enhanced by photographs, letters, diaries, and anecdotes from descendants of the courageous soldiers who fought to save the Union and ensure the freedom of all citizens of the "new nation."

The sixth book in W.E.B. Griffin’s sweeping military epic of the United States Army—the New York Times bestselling Brotherhood of War series. “W.E.B. Griffin is a storyteller in the grand tradition, probably the best man around for describing the military community. Brotherhood of War...is an American epic.”—Tom Clancy They were the leaders, the men who made the decisions that changed the outcome of battles...and the fate of continents. From the awesome landing at Normandy to the torturous campaigns of the South Pacific, from the frozen hills of Korea to the devastated wastes of Dien Bien Phu, they had earned their stars. Now they led America's finest against her most relentless enemy deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It was a new kind of war, but the Generals led a new kind of army, ready for battle—and for glory...

This riveting read is the gut-wrenching but ultimately triumphant story of the Marines' most ferocious--yet largely forgotten--Pacific battle of World War II. of photos. 3 maps.

They were the chosen ones--and the ones to be the best. Never before had the United States given so select a group of fighting men such punishing preparation. Now they were heading for their ultimate test of skill and nerve and sacrifice, in a war unlike any they or their country had ever fought before...in a land that most of America still knew nothing about...Vietnam.

A riveting story of American fighting men, Outlaw Platoon is Lieutenant Sean Parnell’s stunning personal account of the legendary U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division’s heroic stand in the mountains of Afghanistan. Acclaimed for its vivid, poignant, and honest recreation of sixteen brutal months of nearly continuous battle in the deadly Hindu Kesh, Outlaw Platoon is a Band of Brothers or We Were Soldiers Once and Young for the early 21st century—an action-packed, highly emotional true story of enormous sacrifice and bravery. A magnificent account of heroes, renegades, infidels, and brothers, it stands with Sebastian Junger’s War as one of the most important books to yet emerge from the heat, smoke, and fire of America’s War in Afghanistan.

Making moonshine, working blue-collar jobs, picking fights in bars, chasing women, and living hardscrabble lives . . . Clayton and Saford Hall were born in the backwoods of Virginia in 1919, in a place known as The Hollow. Incredibly, they became legends in their day, rising from mountain-bred poverty to pickin’ and yodelin’ all over the airwaves of the South in the 1930s and 1940s, opening shows for the Carter Family, Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, and even playing the most coveted stage of all: the Grand Ole Opry. They accomplished a lifetime’s worth of achievements in less than five years—and left behind only a few records to document their existence. Fortunately, Ralph Berrier, Jr., the grandson of Clayton Hall and a reporter for the Roanoke Times, brings us their full story for the first time in IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME. He documents how the twins’ music spread like wildfire when they moved from The Hollow to Roanoke at age twenty, and how their popularity was inflamed by their onstage zaniness, their roguish offstage shenanigans, and, above all, their ability to play old-time country music. But just as they arrived on the brink of major fame, World War II dashed their dreams. Berrier follows the Hall twins as they travel overseas, leaving behind their beloved music, and are thrust into the cauldron of a war that reshaped their lives and destinies. Through the brothers’ experiences, the story of World War II unfolds—Saford fought from the shores of North Africa to Sicily and Europe and finally into Germany; Clayton fought the Japanese in the brutal Pacific theater until the savage, final battle on Okinawa. They returned home after the war to find that the world had changed, music had changed . . . and they had, too. IF TROUBLE DON'T KILL ME paints a loving portrait of a vanishing yet exalted southern culture, shows us the devastating consequences of war, and allows us to experience the mountain voices that not only influenced the history of music but that also shaped the landscape of America.

They were the young ones, the bright ones, the ones with the dreams. From the Nazi-prowled wastes of North Africa to the bloody corridors of Europe, they honorably answered the call. War–it was their duty, their job, their life. They marched off as boys and they came back–those who made it–as soldiers and professionals forged in the heat of battle...