Kick summer off with a good read
‘Once a Warrior: How One Veteran Found a Mission Closer to Home’
By Jake Wood
Veteran Marine sniper Jake Wood’s memoir recounts his military service and shift to civilian life. After two tours of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wood sought an avenue for his fellow veterans to continue a life of service after seeing more unit members lose their lives to suicide than enemy combat. Wood’s efforts co-founded disaster response organization Team Rubicon, a leading humanitarian aid organization in the United States, that has impacted over 2.9 million individuals. Wood shares his experience with Marine service, the creation of Team Rubicon in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the resilience and challenges veterans have faced upon reentering civilian life. When you pick this book up, be prepared to be inspired.
‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty and War’
By John Donohue and J.T. Molloy
In 1967, John Donohue, known as “Chick” to his friends, was drinking a tribute to lost loved ones with friends at a local bar in New York. During the evening, one of the attendees came up with the idea to do the greatest beer run ever: sneak into Vietnam, find their friends, share messages from home, and share some time over a can of beer. Chick, as a U.S. Marine Corps veteran turned merchant mariner quickly volunteered and was on a cargo ship headed to Vietnam with twenty-four hours with a backpack full of beer. Sharing the exhilarating experience, in “The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty and War,” John “Chick” Donohue and J.T. Molloy recall both the hilarious and the hair-raising escapades he undertook to share a moment with his buddies and let them know they were appreciated.
‘No Ordinary Dog: My Partner from the SEAL Teams to the Bin Laden Raid’
By Will Chesney
U.S. Navy Seal, Will Chesney, shares the experiences of being a SEAL Team Operator and military dog handler of Cairo, a Belgian Malinois, in “No Ordinary Dog: My Partner from the SEAL Teams to the Bin Laden Raid.” Exploring the start of their relationship in 2008, Chesney delves into the bond that develops after working side by side on hundreds of missions. In 2011, the duo was selected to be part of Operation Neptune Spear, which resulted in the successful elimination of bin Laden and introduced Cairo to the public. After the mission, Cairo became a “spare dog” and Chesney became a DEVGRU operation until he suffered a brain injury and PTSD. After suffering serious effects that were only modestly helped by modern medicine, Cairo once again stepped in to save Will’s life once more.
‘The Ranger’
By Ace Atkins
Fiction is full of veterans that continue to serve by becoming a variety of civil servants. A perennial favorite is Quinn Colson, the hero of “The Ranger” by Ace Atkins. The first in an ongoing series, we meet Colson, a retired Army Ranger, who has returned home to Tibbehah County, Mississippi to attend the funeral of his uncle. His uncle, the longtime county sheriff, was ruled to have died by suicide, but the rampant corruption, violence, and drugs leads Colson to dig deeper into his town to uncover the real truths that someone wants to keep buried from the light. This is a fantastic series for fans of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series and the Southern setting and flavor and completely authentic.
