'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph In 1993, Anthony Loyd hitchhiked to the Balkans hoping to become a journalist. Leaving behind him the legends of a distinguished military family, he wanted to see 'a real war' for himself. In Bosnia he found one. The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him; the adrenalin lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims, Loyd was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home he found the void of peacetime too painful to bear, and so began a longstanding personal battle with drug abuse. This harrowing account shows humanity at its worst and best. It is a breathtaking feat of reportage; an uncompromising look at the terrifyingly seductive power of war. 'As good as reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local' Martin Bell, The Times

The author recounts his experiences as a young reporter to "Stars and Stripes," the American forces' daily newspaper in Europe, including his personal account of the liberation and entry into Buchenwald.

On December 7, 1941, when the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor, Tracy Sugarman was a young man studying to be an illustrator--and falling in love with a tawny-haired girl named June. But for Tracy, as for all Americans, everything changed that December dawn. Two years later, now married to June, Tracy was on a troopship bound for England, part of the massive Allied buildup for the liberation of Europe. On D-Day he landed on Utah Beach, one young ensign in the greatest military invasion in history. But Tracy Sugarman was not only a sailor. He was also an artist, who chronicled every aspect of his war in watercolors and sketches and in more than four hundred letters to his wife, who carefully saved everything her new husband sent her. Fifty years later, June Sugarman astonished her husband by showing him his long-forgotten pictures and words: lush watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings set down with breathtaking immediacy in the midst of war, and letters in which the young man poured out his feelings--about the terror and tedium of battle, his own ideals and hopes . . . and, always, his love for his wife. Here, selected from this treasure trove, are the drawings and watercolors that best portray the war Tracy Sugarman experienced. Interspersed throughout are excerpts of his loving and poignant letters home and, as the capstone of this extraordinary book, the single surviving letter from June to her husband. My War is a luminous, powerful account of a world at war--and a beautifully touching love story.

'Once we passed the checkpoint at the border, it hit me. I was like, Holy Shit, this is it, I'm entering a combat zone. Cool!' At twenty-six Colby Buzzell, unemployed and living at home, decided to join the US Army. Within months he was in Iraq, a machine gunner in the controversial Stryker Brigade Combat Team, an army unit on the cutting edge of combat technology and the first of its kind. Trapped amid 'guerrilla warfare, urban-style' in Mosul, Iraq, Buzzell was struck by the bizarre and often frightening world surrounding him. He began writing a blog describing the war - not as being reported by CNN or official briefings - but as experienced by the soldier on the ground. His story is a brutally honest and hard-hitting account of the absurdities of modern war. These are the real stories of the war: a firefight where the resistance came from 'men in black'; a night spent chain-smoking in the guard tower counting the tracer bullets being fired over the city; and the hesitation of a young soldier who had been passed around from platoon to platoon because he was too afraid to fight. My War is a powerful story of a young man and a war, unlike any you have read before.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Restart, a story of telling truth from lies -- and finding out what being a hero really means. There are two things Trevor loves more than anything else: playing war-based video games and his great-grandfather Jacob, who is a true-blue, bona fide war hero. At the height of the war, Jacob helped liberate a small French village, and was given a hero's welcome upon his return to America.Now it's decades later, and Jacob wants to retrace the steps he took during the war -- from training to invasion to the village he is said to have saved. Trevor thinks this is the coolest idea ever. But as they get to the village, Trevor discovers there's more to the story than what he's heard his whole life, causing him to wonder about his great-grandfather's heroism, the truth about the battle he fought, and importance of genuine valor.

Three generations ago, author Sophie Stallman was a young girl living a normal and happy existence with her traditional and privileged Polish family. But when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Sophie's life as she knew it would cease to exist. Under Nazi-occupied Poland, Sophie and her family were forced to endure a daily life of deprivation, fear, and struggle, but despite the abysmal war conditions to which she was subjected, Sophie was determined to pursue her own life in spite of the war. Pressing forward with her academic education and following her love of music she excelled developing her modern dance talents and mezzo-soprano voice. Sophie also made the courageous decision to join the Polish resistance organization -- a move that would put her life in constant jeopardy, especially during the 1944 Warsaw uprising.

This memoir tells the story of a Marine rifle platoon commander’s time in the mountainous jungle of the northernmost province of the then Republic of Vietnam. While tasked with fighting the enemy, G.M. Davis made some great friends ... but saw too much death. The author tracks his tour of duty in the jungle, leading Marines not against the Viet Cong but against the North Vietnamese Army, a well-trained and well-supplied professional army dedicated to unifying the two Vietnams. The heat, the worry, the responsibility and the daily grind took a toll amid firefights, battles, victory, and loss. Contact with the enemy was frequent, and the chaos of even a small fight was daunting. Davis also examines the political reality of the time, arguing that the war was lost before it began, but that the nation kept fighting and losing soldiers so politicians could look strong and keep their jobs. Looking back at the war, he concludes it was a waste of lives and treasure.