Book Review – Dutch, From Rising Sun to the Rise of Jihad
In 1989, I showed up at the CIA’s training facility colloquially known as The Farm, and was introduced to man only known to us as Dutch. As we went through…
Review – The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon
An American imprisoned in the UK for spying for the KGB is released in an exchange to East Germany. Set in 1963, this well-done espionage novel exposes some unique practices…
Book Review: Sting of the Scorpion, the Long Range Desert Group
The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) LRDG Association newsletter from Italy , dated July 14th, 1945 begins, “It was decided by the War Office in June of this year that…
The Importance of Keeping a Fitness Journal
Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.~Lee Haney Why bother keeping a fitness…
Sailors in the Holy Land
The 1848 American Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah. Following the success of his first book about a U.S. Navy flight crew’s desperate battle…
Review – Security Day
Dan Bing is brand new intelligence officer who has arrived in the midst of wind down operations in Uruzgan Province Afghanistan. He has to deal with venial warlord named Mir…
Book Review: Jim Schmitz’s Olympic Style Weightlifting Manual
Olympic Lifting and Book Review “No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old…
Review – First Casualty
I began reading First Casualty a few days before the disaster unfolded that was our exodus from Afghanistan. From the forward on, I was stunned by the timeliness and salience…
Books from the Ancient Greeks you Should be Reading
The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides The writer Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote about the three decades long war that left Athens in shambles and Sparta the stronger for it. The Greek…
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Review – A Failed State, a novel
Few books have told the story of the role of CIA Paramilitary officers and contractors during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, prior to the 13 Hours debacle,…