Trigger Men: Shadow Team, Spiderman, The Magnificent Bastards, and the American Combat Sniper
Author: Hans Halberstadt
Combat veteran and author Hans Halberstadt takes readers deeper inside the elusive world of snipers than ever before, from recruitment and training to the brutality of the killing fields.
Shadow Team is probably the most productive sniper team in American military history, accounting for 276 confirmed kills in a six months span with no casualties of their own. Their leader made what was, and may still be, the longest range kill with a 7.62mm rifle. For the first time ever they explain what it's like to kill a man and what it takes to become one of the elite.
The tragic tale of Headhunter Two is altogether different. This four man sniper team from a regiment known within the Corps as the Magnificent Bastards was killed in 2004 in Ramadi, Iraq. Their deaths not only caused a reevaluation of sniper tactics and techniques, but created a desire for vengeance that was exacted nearly two years later in dramatic fashion.
Based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews, Halberstadt gets inside the sniper mind and shows how they think and interact with each other, how missions are planned and executed, how the weapons work, and even what happens when a bullet finally strikes its target. There are only a few hundred snipers from all the services put together in combat at any one time, making this true inside story a rare and important event.
Both a uniquely intimate look at what makes a sniper tick and a harrowing read filled with dramatic war tales, Trigger Men is a book about killers and killing, without apology and without remorse.
Kirkus Reviews
Another testosterone-laced account of another elite combat specialty. Prolific military writer Halberstadt (Army: The U.S. Army Today, 2006, etc.) maintains that individual snipers rack up more kills than entire brigades. While sharpshooters figured prominently in conflicts from the Revolutionary War to Vietnam, they did not become trained, high-tech professionals until the 1980s, when military thinkers began focusing on antiterrorism and small-unit actions. Snipers parachuted into Panama during the 1989 invasion and, according to one Halberstadt source, shot everyone in sight. They had few opportunities during the 1991 Gulf War, lots more during the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, which dominate the book. Snipers never work alone, notes the author. Typically, groups of two to six include "shooters" and security. They move into enemy territory, hide and observe, remaining in radio contact with their base and with patrols in the area to provide invaluable intelligence. This may be all they provide, because under strict rules of engagement months may pass before they shoot. While "one shot, one kill" remains the ideal, it does not represent reality, especially at long distances, and today's snipers hit targets beyond a mile. The author illustrates his subjects' activities with a dozen oral histories, the book's best portions. Military buffs will enjoy colorful accounts of the brutal training regimen plus nuts-and-bolts descriptions of weapons and high-tech observation gear. Ordinary infantry M4 carbines make many kills, Halberstadt notes, but the heavy, wildly expensive, precision-designed, slow-firing, bolt-action M24 is accurate over 2,000 meters. Many chapters describe unrulyIraqi neighborhoods suddenly peaceful because insurgents struck down by hidden snipers now fear showing themselves. Readers who wonder why this hasn't won the war have picked the wrong book. Those who can turn off their critical faculties will enjoy the author's admiring portrait of brave, superbly skilled Americans wreaking havoc among our enemies. Not for everyone, but its target audience, however narrow, will love it. Agent: Scott Miller/Trident Media Group
Go to: A Requirements Pattern or Options Futures and Exotic Derivatives
Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America
Author: Nortin M Hadler
At a time when access to health care in the United States is being widely debated, Nortin Hadler argues that an even more important issue is being overlooked. Although necessary health care should be available to all who need it, he says, the current health-care debate assumes that everyone requires massive amounts of expensive care to stay healthy. Hadler urges that before we commit to paying for whatever pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment tell us we need, American consumers need to adopt an attitude of skepticism and arm themselves with enough information to make some of their own decisions about what care is truly necessary.
Each chapter of Worried Sick is an object lesson regarding the uses and abuses of a particular type of treatment, such as mammography, colorectal screening, statin drugs, or coronary stents. For consumers and medical professionals interested in understanding the scientific basis for Hadler's arguments, each topical chapter has an accompanying source chapter in which Hadler discusses the medical literature and studies that inform his critique.
According to Hadler, a major stumbling block to rational health-care policy in the United States is contention over the very concept of what constitutes good health. By learning to distinguish good medical advice from persuasive medical marketing, consumers can make better decisions about their personal health and use that wisdom to inform their perspectives on health-policy issues.
Kathy Arsenault - Library Journal
Hadler (medicine & microbiology/immunology, Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) amplifies and updates his 2004 book, The Last Well Person: How To Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System, here writing another clear message on his prescription pad: "Rx: less is more." Challenging conventional medical wisdom, he advises a healthy skepticism about the benefits of drugs, routine tests, and many common medical procedures-dubbing what he describes as impeccably performed but medically unnecessary treatments "Type II Medical Malpractice"-and he makes the unfashionable assertion that aches and pains are a normal part of the aging process. Topical chapters provide information on heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and other common conditions as well as discussions of how mental states and socioeconomic factors affect health; "shadow chapters" offer additional, specialized information on each topic. Though the book may not convince readers to forgo their annual prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests or mammograms, it will educate them on being far better health-care consumers. This often densely written but provocative look at the U.S. medical system is worth the effort; recommended for larger public and academic libraries.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 1
1 The Methuselah Complex 9
2 The Heart of the Matter 15
3 Risky Business: Cholesterol, Blood Sugar, and Blood Pressure 33
4 You Are Not What You Eat 57
5 Gut Check 65
6 Breast Cancer Prevention: Screening the Evidence 77
7 The Beleaguered Prostate 95
8 Disease Mongering 105
9 Creakiness 111
10 It's in Your Mind 135
11 Aging Is Not a Disease 153
12 Working to Death 171
13 "Alternative" Therapies Are Not "Complementary" 191
14 Assuring Health, Insuring Disease 213
Supplementary Readings 229
Bibliography 311
About the Author 355
Index 357
No comments:
Post a Comment