SELECT BOOKS BY & ABOUT MILITARY SIGS
The quest for mach one: a first-person account of breaking the sound barrier
By Chuck Yeager; Significant Sig Gen. Robert Cardenas, NEW MEXICO 1955; Bob Hoover; Jack Russell; and James Young
In a compendium of reminiscences, photographs, and experts’ discussions, the surviving participants in the development and flying of the Bell X-1 rocket plane that broke the sound barrier in 1947 recount their experiences.
Purchase: Amazon
The Battle of MogadishU: Firsthand Accounts from the Men of Task Force Ranger
By Significant Sig Sgt. Matt Eversmann, HAMPDEN-SYDNEY 1988, and Dan Schilling
It started as a mission to capture a Somali warlord. It turned into a disastrous urban firefight and death-defying rescue operation that shocked the world and rattled a great nation. Now the 1993 battle for Mogadishu, Somalia–the incident that was the basis of the book and film Black Hawk Down–is remembered by the men who fought and survived it. Six of the best in our military recall their brutal experiences and brave contributions in these firstperson accounts.
As a “chalk” leader, Eversmann was part of the first group of Rangers to “fast rope” from the Black Hawk helicopters. It was his chalk that suffered the first casualty of the battle.
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Delta Force: A Memoir by the Founder of the U.S. Military's Most Secretive Special-Operations Unit
By Col. Charlie Beckwith, GEORGIA 1952, and Donald Knox
The definitive insider’s account of the U.S. Army’s most elite and secretive special-ops unit, written by the legendary founder and first commanding officer of Delta Force (Beckwith).
Wanted: Volunteers for Project Delta. Will guarantee you a medal. A body bag. Or both. With this call to arms, Charlie Beckwith revolutionized American armed combat. Beckwith’s acclaimed memoir tells the story of Delta Force (“the Army’s most elite commando unit.”—Los Angeles Times) as only its maverick creator could tell it—from the bloody baptism of Vietnam to the top-secret training grounds of North Carolina to political battles in the upper levels of the Pentagon itself. This is the heart-pounding, first-person, insider’s view of the missions that made Delta Force legendary.
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Forever Young: A life of adventure in air and space
By Significant Sig Capt. John W. Young, GEORGIA TECH 1952, with James R. Hansen
He walked on the Moon. He flew six space missions in three different programs–more than any other human. He served with NASA for more than four decades. His peers called him the “astronaut’s astronaut.”
In this book Young, who retired from the Navy in 1976, tells the story of his two Gemini flights, his two Apollo missions, the first-ever Space Shuttle flight, and the first Spacelab mission.
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NEVER MIND We'LL DO IT OURSELVES
By Alec Bierbauer and Significant Sig Col. Mark Cooter, EAST TENNESSEE 1985
The Inside Story of How a CIA Officer and an Air Force Officer Joined Forces to Develop America’s Most Powerful Tool in the War on Terror.
Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves is the character-driven story behind the origins of the Predator drone program and the dawn of unmanned warfare. A firsthand account told by an Air Force team leader (Cooter) and a CIA team leader (Bierbauer), Never Mind, We’ll Do It Ourselves takes the reader into the back offices and secret government hangars where the robotic revolution went from a mad scientist idea to a pivotal part of global air power.
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Against all odds: A true story of ultimate courage and survival in world war II
By Alex Kershaw
This New York Times bestseller is the untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II—all Medal of Honor recipients—from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler’s own mountaintop fortress.
It includes the story of Medal of Honor recipient and Significant Sig Maurice “Footsie” Britt, ARKANSAS 1941, a former professional football player who became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war.
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GHOST SOLDIERS: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
By Hampton Sides
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “The greatest World War II story never told” (Esquire)—an enthralling account of the heroic mission to rescue the last survivors of the Bataan Death March.
On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected U.S. troops slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty rugged miles to rescue 513 POWs languishing in a hellish camp, among them the last survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March. A recent prison massacre by Japanese soldiers elsewhere in the Philippines made the stakes impossibly high and left little time to plan the complex operation.
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The book covers in-depth the efforts of Significant Sig Capt. Robert Prince, STANFORD 1941, who was chosen by Lt. Col. Henry Mucchi to plan and execute the rescue mission. Over 500 Bataan Death March survivors were rescued during through his plan actions. He was later portrayed by actor James Franco in the 2005 film The Great Raid.
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