Afghanistan Memoir

What were you doing when you were 22? Where were you in the world? What did you want to do with your life? Ben Parkinson was a six-foot-four-inch paratrooper. He was in Afghanistan fighting for his country. He wanted to always be a soldier, to be a father and to get home in one piece. But we don't always get what we want. So the question is: how do we react when that happens? Easy: you find something new to fight for.

Being inspired to act can take many forms. For some, it's taking a weekend to volunteer, but for Shannon Galpin, it meant leaving her career, selling her house, launching a nonprofit, and committing her life to advancing education and opportunity for women and girls. Focusing on the war-torn country of Afghanistan, Galpin and her organization, Mountain2Mountain, have touched the lives of hundreds of men, women, and children.

Amber Smith flew into enemy fire in some of the most dangerous combat zones in the world. One of only a few women to fly the Kiowa Warrior helicopter, Smith rose to pilot in command and air mission commander in the premier Kiowa unit in the army, repeatedly flying into harm's way during her 2005 and 2008 deployments with the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles. Smith takes you into the heat of battle, enabling listeners to feel, hear, and smell the experience of serving as a combat pilot in high-intensity warfare

From Major General Jeffrey Schloesser - former commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division and Regional Command-East - comes a revealing memoir of leadership in the chaos and fog of the Afghanistan War.

For eight months in 2008, US Army Capt. Matt Zeller served as an embedded combat adviser with the Afghan security forces in Ghazni, Afghanistan. Watches Without Time is a compilation of the emails and letters he sent home to family and friends during that period - so that, as he writes in the preface, "should anything have ever happened to me, they would know what I went through."

Over the centuries, army wives have followed their men to the front, helped keep order in far-flung parts of the empire or waited anxiously at home. Army Wives uses firsthand accounts, letters and diaries to tell their stories. We meet imperial army wives in Crimea and the Raj, explore the experiences of 20th-century wives in two world wars and a Cold War and hear from modern women supporting their men in the war on terror. From how army wives communicate with their husbands to the impact of life-changing injury and bereavement, Army Wives examines what it really means to be part of the 'army family'.

Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous.

In 2010, for the first time since the Soviets, Afghanistan allowed women to join the armed forces, and Niloofar entered Afghanistan’s military academy. Niloofar had to break through social barriers to demonstrate confidence, leadership, and decisiveness - essential qualities for a combat pilot. Niloofar performed the first solo flight of her class - ahead of all her male classmates - and in 2013 became Afghanistan’s first female fixed-wing air force pilot.

Lance Corporal Jeff Bodell recounts his harrowing experiences as a member of a Police Mentor Team during the brutal Battle of Marjah in 2010. In the scorching Afghan heat, amidst the chaos and bloodshed, this gripping first-person narrative unveils the raw realities of war and the unbreakable camaraderie forged in the crucible of combat. Join Bodell and the resilient members of Shadow One-Four as they confront a relentless Taliban force, fighting not only for survival but for the brotherhood that binds them.

This narrative presents a firsthand account of a Marine who played a small role in the Afghan War. It begins with his enlistment in the Marine Corps immediately after high school, driven by dreams of earning the prestigious title of United States Marine and serving his country in combat. The story culminates with his reentry into the civilian world, marked by the challenging task of making sense of the profound experiences he underwent.

Born in Britain, Saira Shah was inspired by her father's dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebears knew for 900 years within sight of orchards, snow-topped mountains, and the minarets of Kabul. This is Saira, part sophisticated and sensitive Western liberal, part fearless (even fierce) life-gulping Afghan, falling in love with her ancestral myth, chasing Afghanistan.

A detailed personal account of a combat advisor, mentoring the developing Afghanistan National Army in 2006 in the mountainous and hostile eastern region...Living with and supporting a foreign military, Andy was critical in enabling the Afghan forces to fire their howitzer indirectly, a historical objective milestone to set the conditions for coalition withdrawal.