Books
Be Useful
I know next to nothing about him other than he is from Austria, was a bodybuilder before an actor, and as an actor did a lot of actions movies. Oh yeah, he was also Governor of California at some point while I lived there, I think.
nonfiction
Books
Surprise, Kill, Vanish
What I really found interesting was conversation about the legality of planning said assassinations. Between the code of military ethics, A.K.A. the Liber Code, and NATO's Article 51, the idea of self-defense, there is a lot of weird wiggle room that the CIA and DoD operated in.
Books
Underground
when you have 20+ stories talking about this with only 10 minutes of each story being about the event, it just feels like noise. You add in the fact that there is zero presentation of the group, the why, or even what they did. So I don't have context as to why all of this matters.
Books
The Unit
This book really felt like a friend telling a story. There is this friendly demeener as if he is trying to tell you his story, without the total preacher mentality that could have happened. I also recognize during my time in the Marines, that leaving your home town and actually interacting...
Books
Indianapolis
The story of the court-martial is absolutely infuriating. The amount of CYA that took place at the upper echelons of the Navy, to be forced on the next generations of Naval Leadership is even more crazy. I do not understand how someone who has no skin in the game can't make another decision
Books
Tokyo Underworld
The story telling is outstanding. I really do appreciate the first-hand knowledge that Whiting brings to the book as someone who lived during most of the events covered in the book. He does a great job of presenting the evidence of public knowledge and layering it with the culture of Japan
Books
Japan's Infamous Unit 731
For context, the German experiences described in Operation Paperclip, were things that allowed the world to have air and space travel. I know that the experiments by the Japanese gave us a lot of Information about frostbite, but it is only alluded to and passively dropped rather than explained.
Books
Chase Darkness with Me
He does a great job of explaining the events that are happening, and what the hurdles he faced were. I can only imagine trying to deal with the cops from dozens if not hundreds of different precincts. The hoops to jump through, and the temperaments must have made it more than a headache.
Books
That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You
We need to start with this book doesn't have a traditional format/setup. It isn't one story from start to finish really, other than mainly her live but even this it isn't a continuous story. It is a series of stories that highly different lessons that she learned and it works.
Books
Unit 731
I feel like this book took so much time to tell us so little. There is a lot of how the politics were played out in Japan, when the Allies came, and between the US and USSR. The stories at the end are interesting, but doesn't provide the insight I was looking for.
Books
Sword and Scimitar
As a Marine, I am aware that since the birth of this nation, we have been fighting against individuals that believe in a faith that hates us just because we are not them. This book does a lot to explain why they feel that way and why it continues to this day, 250 years later.
Books
The Pentagon's Brain
Annie Jacobsen does a great job, for the most part, of describing the work, science, and inventions that DARPA took part in as wars ravaged US service members. Where I think this book doesn't excel is the almost repetitive nature of the descriptions of science and people