Here are 100 books that Black Hawk Down fans have personally recommended if you like
Black Hawk Down.
Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
This is a detailed account of a secret military mission behind enemy lines during the first Gulf War and how a series of minor setbacks can quickly escalate into a full-blown disaster. I first read it years before I'd had any knowledge of a battlefield. I read it again after I'd been caught up in my own terrifying experience of combat and took away a new appreciation of the realities of war – how stress on the battlefield narrows the field of vision to minute details which distort what is really going on. It's a lesson about war, but also about life – even with all the planning and the training, it's almost impossible to control what happens in the heat of battle.
Sergeant Andy McNab recounts the story of the top secret mission that would reveal the secrets of the SAS to the world for the first time.
Their location: Iraq Their mission: to sever a vital enemy underground communication link, to find and destroy mobile Scud launchers Their call sign: Bravo Two Zero
When eight members of the elite SAS regiment embark on a highly covert operation, they are each laden with 15 stones of equipment, needing to tab 20km across the desert to reach their objective. But within days, their location is compromised. They engage in a fierce battle. They…
Scapegoat: A Flight Crew's Journey from Heroes to Villains to Redemption
by
Emilio Corsetti III,
This edition includes a new afterword offering fresh perspectives for today's reader.
On April 4, 1979, a Boeing 727 with 82 passengers and a crew of 7 rolled over and plummeted from an altitude of 39,000 feet to within seconds of crashing were it not for the crew's actions to…
In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
A
brilliantly intimate and personal account of a foot soldier’s tour of duty in Vietnam. This was a revelation to me while I was writing my own book showing that the microscopic
detail of a soldier’s individual concerns and anxieties was just as compelling
as the bird’s eye narrative of a battle.
A classic from the New York Times bestselling author of The Things They Carried
"One of the best, most disturbing, and most powerful books about the shame that was / is Vietnam." —Minneapolis Star and Tribune
Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone…
In 2003 I was travelling through Baghdad with US forces to report
on the Iraq war. Suddenly an ear-shattering explosion cracked through our Humvee
and a rush of hot debris swept past my face. The heavily armoured door warped inwards,
and the vehicle lifted off the ground. Soldiers were screaming in terror and
anger, clutching at bloody faces, arms, and legs. We’d been attacked by unknown
members of the Iraqi resistance. The sheer terror of that moment gave me a new
understanding of war – the sight, smells, sounds, and touch of combat – and a
desire to tell the stories of the young soldiers who get caught up in
it.
This is a devastating account of over thirty years of highly dysfunctional battles between war-mongering countries and groups that instead of healing divisions continue to tear Lebanon's different communities apart. What makes it so powerful is that it exposes the lie that wars are unleashed by complex grand forces at work. Fisk's book shows how ruthless individuals consciously start wars by inventing grievances and fomenting unrest, destroying a stunningly beautiful country, and brutalising its population.
Pity the Nation ranks among the classic accounts of war in our time, both as historical document and as an eyewitness testament to human savagery. Written by one of Britain's foremost journalists, this remarkable book combines political analysis and war reporting in an unprecedented way: it is an epic account of the Lebanon conflict by an author who has personally witnessed the carnage of Beirut for over a decade. Fisk's book recounts the details of a terrible war but it also tells a story of betrayal and illusion, of Western blindness that had led inevitably to political and military catastrophe.…
Annie Kurtz joins the Marines, deploys to Afghanistan, and has to make a split-second decision. She can follow her orders. Or she can follow her conscience. Nick Willard is a journalist who has pined for Annie since they were in prep school together. While doing his job, he discovers what…
I’ve always been curious and passionate about how people overcame significant suffering in their lives. True stories of how people emerged stronger from traumatic events not only became an inspiration in my personal life but also my professional life as a therapist, where I became an agent of change. The ‘secret’ of these storytellers and their transformation became my focus. I only hope you find these stories as enjoyable as I did and also a challenge and an inspiration that makes a difference in your own life.
I loved this book because of the insight the author gives to his strategy of survival–kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured for over four years in the hands of Shi’ite militia.
Beautifully written, Keenan’s artistry thrilled me with its almost spiritual air and testimony to rare human resilience and its transformative power.
Brian Keenan's release from captivity was the first ray of hope for those hostages held in the Middle East. He describes the plight of his fellow hostages with first-hand knowledge. The language he uses reflects his past efforts as a poet in describing the pain and claustrophobia of imprisonment.
I served for some time in the elite forces and have always had a fascination with military history, especially when it comes in the form of a memoir or autobiography. I’m equally compelled by eloquently written prose by many of the gifted journalists and reporters who have illuminated the struggles, valor, and glory of the fighting man since the days of Tsu.
Black Hawk Down documents efforts by America’s Unified Task Force to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in 1993, and the resulting fight in Mogadishu between U.S. forces and his militia. Dramatically, graphically reconstructing the battle, author Mark Bowden leaves nothing about combat to the imagination. He describes Mogadishu as a place of Mad Max-like anarchy to describe the warring with great accuracy. Thinking there must have been some official inquiry into the tragedy that killed 18 American fighters and upwards of 500 Somalis, Bowden discovered none was undertaken, and so this account was conceived. It is a horribly enthralling bullet-by-bullet story, in which the purpose of Americans in Somalia fades to irrelevance amidst the instant desperation of fighting. In the ensuing day-and night-long snafu, men bled to death, rescue convoys drove in wrong directions, and choppers were shot down. His narrative tells of how Rangers and elite Delta Force…
*Includes pictures *Includes an explanation of the action, what went wrong, and an analysis of who was to blame *Includes online resources, footnotes, and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents “The Somalis were a curious bunch. For every armed person, there were fifty unarmed just standing around, often right next to the guy firing at us.” – Michael Goffena, a Black Hawk pilot If it was the dawn of a new world order in the 1990s, it was one of American unilateralism. Throughout the decade, America’s unrivaled power and the globalization of the world through technology…
In my work as a news reporter and war correspondent, I met people on the worst day of their lives. I always wondered: What now? How will they get on with life? My own parents faced that dreadful dilemma. Penniless refugees, their families murdered in the Holocaust, unemployed in London, how on earth did they find the strength to carry on? One day at a time, they just did what they had to do. That is the subject of my fiction, always trying to answer that existential question: How do we live with trauma, and still find love and happiness?
It isn’t the best-written book but Waris Dirie’s account of her escape from Somalia, her life as a domestic servant in London, her marriages of convenience, and her ultimate triumph in New York’s world of fashion, haunted me for years.
A frank, intimate account of a beautiful woman’s escape from a nomadic tribal life of female abuse to scaling the heights of western fashion modeling.
Waris Dirie (the name means desert flower) lives a double life - by day she is a famous model and UN spokeswoman on women's rights in Africa, at night she dreams of her native Somalia. Waris, one of 12 children, was born into a traditional family of desert nomads in East Africa. She remembers her early childhood as carefree- racing camels and moving on with her family to the next grazing spot - until it came her turn to meet the old woman who administered the ancient custom imposed on most Somalian girls: circumcision. Waris suffered this torture when she…
A decorated Air Force combat pilot, Tom Yarborough served two tours in Vietnam as a forward air controller. After leaving the Air Force he was a professor and department chair at Indiana University and history professor at Northern Virginia Community College. His writing background includes the books Da Nang Diary, winner of the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for the best memoir of 2014, and A Shau Valor, a finalist for the 2016 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award.
The Ravens were young Air Force pilots, all volunteers, who flew tiny Cessna O-1 Bird Dog spotter planes through heavy groundfire to identify targets and call in air-strikes during the top-secret war in northern Laos. Their mission was so secret that they wore no uniforms and carried no identification. Fed up with the bureaucracy of the war in Vietnam, these young FACs accepted the 50% casualty rates of what was known as the Steve Canyon Program in return for a life of unrestricted flying and fighting. Devoted to the CIA-sponsored hill tribesmen they supported, the Ravens did their job with extraordinary skill and raw courage. This is their story, brilliantly told in Christopher Robbins. Based on extensive interviews with the survivors, it is a tale of undeniable heroism, blending real-life romance, adventure, and tragedy.
Drawing on materials that were, until recently, classified, this account depicts the intense air war fought over Laos and profiles the "Ravens," the pilots who risked their lives in this little-known field of war.
I served in Vietnam in 1969 carrying a radio on my back with the 12th Marines on the DMZ. In 1970, I was a door gunner with HMM-364 (Purple Fox Squadron) out of Marble Mountain. Beginning in 1996, I have led 68 tours for veterans, their family members, historians, active-duty military personnel, and others to the jungles, mountains, and battlefields of Vietnam. I currently serve as president and bush guide for the non-profit tour company, Vietnam Battlefield Tours. As an avid reader of non-fiction books on the Vietnam experience, this knowledge base has helped tremendously in my non-profit volunteer service.
This is a memoir that does not read like a memoir. It brings to the reader the harsh reality of war and a personal perspective on how one perceives war, told without shame or bravado. The reader is brought full circle from the fighting and destruction in 1967-68 to standing on the same battlefields some 45 years later, in peace.
To Hear Silence is the history of Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 13th Marines, from the time of its formation at Camp Horno, California, in July 1966, until the original members left Vietnam in early October 1967.Although partly written in narrative format, this book paints an accurate portrayal of the experiences of what really happened in 1966 and 1967 through its day-to-day, and often minute-to-minute, accounts of the members' time in Vietnam.This book is based on a diary kept by the author while in Vietnam, the actual declassified documents kept by the Marine Corps, and the memories of those who lived…
Until today’s multiple catastrophes, the Vietnam War was the most harrowing moment in the lives of my fellow baby boomers and me. Drafted into the U.S. Army in early 1970, I spent 365 days in Vietnam as a combat correspondent. That experience changed my life, because as the Argentinian writer Jose Narosky has pointed out, “in war, there are no unwounded soldiers.” I have spent the past five decades trying to heal those wounds, writing three books grounded in my Vietnam experience, and have devoted my life to listening to the voices of our veterans, distilling their memories (often music-based), and sharing their words.
How music became so readily available to Vietnam soldiers is emphasized in Armed with Abundance. Trying to remedy the tenuous morale among GIs, the U.S. military provided them with “creature comforts” in an effort to make war easier, and certainly more palatable. Lair finds that consumption and satiety, more so than privation and sacrifice, defined the experience of most soldiers' Vietnam deployments. She reveals that in 1969 and 1970, for example, soldiers purchased nearly 500,000 radios, 178,000 reel-to-reel tape decks, and 220,000 cassette recorders. Rock and roll was there to stay!
Popular representations of the Vietnam War tend to emphasize violence, deprivation, and trauma. By contrast, in Armed with Abundance, Meredith Lair focuses on the noncombat experiences of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, redrawing the landscape of the war so that swimming pools, ice cream, visits from celebrities, and other "comforts" share the frame with combat.
To address a tenuous morale situation, military authorities, Lair reveals, wielded abundance to insulate soldiers - and, by extension, the American public - from boredom and deprivation, making the project of war perhaps easier and certainly more palatable. The result was dozens of overbuilt bases in…
As I write this, I massage aching bits of shrapnel still embedded beneath silvered scars. I’ve read many Vietnam War stories—praising the war, glorifying combat, condemning the war. My stories are 1st person limited POV, voice of a twenty-year-old sailor. My title is a spin-off of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. By the time I wrote my memoir, I realized that our national goals in Vietnam had been Muddy from the beginning. I too, traveled Jungle Rivers. During my time on the riverboat, I witnessed Rivers of blood—rivers of life, trickle across our deck. And yes, Jungle is a fitting metaphor for our life at that time.
As a child, I lived in abject poverty on a little farm in northern Minnesota. By ten years old I was trapping raccoons and shooting squirrels to help put food on our table. When I was in Vietnam, I felt a deep empathy for the Vietnamese fishermen and farmers who lived in poverty complicated by the vicious war. Years later when I began reading Dang Thuy Tram’s diary, I couldn’t put it down. The loss and waste and love for her comrades struck close to home and made me feel guilty for my participation in the war. In her writing, Dang brings to life so many of her Vietnamese comrades who were killed—making one stop to consider the cost of war. In a way the book reminds me of All Quiet on the Western Front written by a German soldier—the loss and waste.
Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is the moving diary kept by a 27-year-old Vietnamese doctor who was killed by the Americans during the Vietnam War, while trying to defend her patients. Not only is it an important slice of history, from the opposite side of Dispatches and Apocalypse Now, but it shows the diarist - Dang Thuy Tram - as a vibrant human being, full of youthful idealism, a poetic longing for love, trying hard to be worthy of the Communist Party and doing her best to look after her patients under appalling conditions.
