Book Reviews

Second semester senior year is probably the lax semester of high school. I’ve embraced this perspective with open arms, easing up just a tad bit on my school work. With that, I’ve had to fill my time with something I feel is at least “mildly” productive. With the recommendations from the internet and with the power of Z-library (https://z-lib.org/) (you can find most books on here for free!), I’ve binged many new books over the past month and a half. Down below I’ll go over some of the more notable ones. 

 

Eagle Down: The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War – Jessica Donati 

This book was the first one I read ever since my binge-reading obsession has started. The book follows the story of the US Army Special Forces fighting in Afghanistan after the primary withdrawal of the US military. It goes into so many aspects of the war in Afghanistan, speaking about concepts like poor leadership, struggling Afghan allies, personal moral issues, and life back at home afterwards. It was a great read and a truly eye-opening book for me, especially since I had never paid much attention to the war in Afghanistan as a child. My favorite part about the book was how detailed it was. It went into the literal eyes of each soldier, with their struggles of dealing with every single aspect of their lives. From dealing with combat to dealing with nonsense meetings the book humanized the boots on the ground in a way that I’ve never seen before. 9/10 Great read, and I would highly recommend it. 

 

Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command – Sean Naylor 

Describing this book as anything else besides stunningly comprehensive would be doing it a disservice. Sean Naylor’s book, as referenced by the title, goes over the literal entire history of Joint Special Operations Command, otherwise known as JSOC. It begins from its humble and troublesome beginnings in the 1980s after the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, the failed Iranian Crisis, to the present and more recent successes, such as the rescue of Captain Phillips and Operation Neptune Spear, more commonly known as the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden. More obscure events such as the US invasion of Grenada and Panama are covered in detail, as well as the events in Somalia in the infamous Black Hawk Down incident. The individual units of JSOC are covered, with names like the Army’s Delta Force, the Navy’s Seal Team Six, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron. The depth the book goes into is simply unheard of, given JSOC’s secretive nature as the nation’s premier tier one special operations unit. Individual personalities are also explored in depth, especially the JSOC’s many commanders and their specific attributes and contributions. Due to the length, the book can get a bit tedious at times, but despite that I would still highly recommend this book to any of those who are interested in special operations. 7.5/10 

 

The Mission, The Men, and Me – Pete Blaber 

Written by a former Delta Force commander, The Mission, The Men, and Me does a wonderfully superb job of blending together personal experiences combined with self-help lessons. Author Pete Blaber makes the lessons he learned from his time in the Army’s premier counter terrorist group Delta Force applicable to anyone reading the novel. From live-fire training with his fellow teammates to fighting an enemy force greatly outnumbering him Blaber’s description of experiences are breathtaking. The experiences Blaber describes are endless, each of them being as captivating as the previous one. He speaks at length about his time behind enemy lines in Operation Desert Storm while operating in Iraq and also about his time in the early stages of the war in Afghanistan. Probably the most interesting experience to read about was his involvement in Operation Anaconda, a mission to destroy and/or cripple Al Qaeda and the Taliban in March 2002. During the operation Blaber was in command of many special operations teams, of which was a challenge due to the conflict of the interests and misunderstandings of the teams and his higher ups. The other aspect of the novel, namely the self-help aspect, is also extremely helpful and interesting to read about. 7/10 great solid read.