Showing titles in Afghan & Iraq Wars

A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for 12 years. On his third tour of Afghanistan, he was a joint fires controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of Northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then, one morning, in brutal close-quarter combat, everything changed....

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, the SAS launched one of the most intense and secretive operations in its history: Task Force Black. BBC journalist Mark Urban uncovers the sensational story of this operation and the extraordinary men who carried it out.

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...

Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

No one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life. Special forces training is no walk in the park. The rules are strict, and they make sure you learn the hard way, pushing you beyond the limits of what is physically possible. There is no mercy. Even when you are bleeding and broken, to admit defeat is failure.

War Born is the true story of a soldier who beat the odds from birth and went on to serve in one of the longest wars in American history. From a premature baby doctors said wouldn’t survive to a battle-hardened Army veteran, Perris Sutton takes you through the defining moments of his life—from the streets of Aurora, Colorado to the war-torn sands of Iraq. With unfiltered truth, grit, and heart, War Born chronicles his rise through the ranks, his struggles with faith, loss, brotherhood, and the cost of combat—leading up to his final tour in Iraq. This isn’t just a war story. It’s his story.

“The story of what Dakota did . . . will be told for generations.”—President Barack Obama, from remarks given at Meyer’s Medal of Honor ceremony In the fall of 2009, Taliban insurgents ambushed a patrol of Afghan soldiers and Marine advisors in a mountain village called Ganjigal. Firing...

In July 2009 Geraint (Gez) Jones was sitting in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, with the rest of The Firm - Danny, Jay, Toby and Jake, his four closest friends, all junior NCOs and combat-hardened infantrymen. Thanks to the mangled remains of a Jackal vehicle left tactlessly outside their tent, IEDs were never far from their mind. Within days they’d be on the ground in Musa Qala with the rest of 3 Platoon - a mixed bunch of men Gez would die for.

Mark Wales thought his life would end in a cornfield in Afghanistan. Mark and his SAS troops emerged from that scorched battlefield 12 hours later, his mentor gunned down, his dream career now a nightmare. Over four deployments of intense warfighting, Mark watched the line between right and wrong become blurred. When he left the SAS he was adrift, crippled by guilt. On a mission to rebuild himself, Mark turned his life around. He fought his way into the gates of a US Ivy League business school and into the boardrooms of top-tier international corporations.

The founder of Blackwater offers the gripping, previously untold story of the world’s most controversial military contractor Blackwater is one of the most misunderstood companies of our time. As Erik Prince, its founder and former CEO, writes: “Hundreds of American citizens employed...

The Instant New York Times Bestseller by Co-Star of Fox's American Grit and Legendary Ranger Nicholas Irving. Groundbreaking, thrilling and revealing, The Reaper is the astonishing memoir of Special Operations Direct Action Sniper Nicholas Irving, the 3rd Ranger Battalion's deadliest sniper with...

In this instant New York Times bestseller, the celebrated author of Make Your Bed shares amazing adventure stories from his career as a Navy SEAL and commander of America's Special Operations Forces. Admiral William H. McRaven is a part of American military history, having been involved in some...

The attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted the creation of a robust and deadly special operations force—Task Force Dagger. Alan C. Mack, Callsign Razor 03, led a team of MH-47E helicopters and armed MH-60s. Their two-fold mission–Personnel Recovery (PR) and Unconventional Warfare (UW) involved flying in terrain and weather previously not thought possible. If that wasn’t enough, they pushed the flight envelope of their specially modified Chinooks to the limit and beyond.

In the summer of 2006, Colour-Sargeant Kailash Limbu's platoon was sent to relieve and occupy a police compound in the town of Now Zad in Helmand. He was told to prepare for a 48-hour operation. In the end he and his men were under siege for 31 days - one of the longest such sieges in the whole of the Afghan campaign.

In 2007, the U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade posted to northeastern Afghanistan's Kunar Province. Battle Company, the best within the Brigade, was assigned the toughest Area of Operations. It was called the Korengal Valley. During their fifteen-month tour, Battle Company saw more combat than any unit since Vietnam. Raw and unapologetic, To Quell the Korengal is a first-hand account of life on the front lines.

Go deep into SEAL Team SIX, straight to the heart of one of its most legendary operators. When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready. In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen...

In 2014, H was back in Afghanistan, providing security for the Japanese Embassy in Kabul. In 2021, when the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital began, it was a tough call for the Japanese government to leave behind their significant investment in Afghanistan’s future. When H finally got the go-ahead to extract the embassy’s diplomats and staff, he was leading the only security team remaining in a city rapidly filling with Taliban fighters.

In 2011, following the Taliban siege on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, an SAS soldier identified only as Serviceman J was awarded New Zealand's second highest military honor by showing outstanding gallantry in the face of danger. After eighteen years in the New Zealand SAS, ex-commander Jamie Pennell is now ready to tell his story. From patrols across desert territories run by warlords to hostile fire and near-death combat, Serviceman J is a heart-stopping account of life inside one of the world's most elite military forces.

The unforgiving Afghan winter settled upon the 22 men of Marine Special Operations Team 8222, call sign Dagger 22, in the remote and hostile river valley of Bala Murghab, Afghanistan. The Taliban fighters in the region would have liked nothing more than to once again go dormant and rest until the new spring fighting season began. No chance of that - this winter would be different.

The companion volume to the multimillion-copy bestseller No Easy Day by former Navy SEAL Mark Owen reveals the evolution of a SEAL Team Six operator. Mark Owen’s instant #1 New York Times bestseller, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden, focused on the...