When I heard about this book, I literally ran out the door and sped to the bookstore to buy it. Me + This Book = Match Made in Heaven. After all, I am a pilot, an aviation enthusiast, and a HUGE history buff! Let's let 'er rip!

Well, maybe the aformentioned personal attributes have actually CONTRIBUTED to my disappointment. This book amounts to a 200+ page detailed information dump about every switch flipped, every button pushed and every word spoken on God-knows-how-many sorties. And beware: each time out it is the same thing.

Want to get some pilot's perspective details about the F-16? Haha...Sucker! Did you think you would get a military man's perspective about the operation in general in anything but the most, let's say, "simplistic" terms? Again, you bought the wrong book. How about an inside look at the real interactions between fellow fighter pilots, perhaps after the mission? Uh-uh. Rosenkranz is a good soldier: a simple box on the chain of command that knows what buttons to push and when to eat and sleep. He gets in the cockpit, reads his mission details for the recorder, and when he nears the target he operates his weapons systems, and then comes home, heads to the beer tent, goes to bed, gets up the next morning, and does it again. And again.

When you read this book you get the impression that Keith Rosenkrantz is under some sort of pressure to keep everything low key and not expose too much, whether personal or professional, because it might affect his career.

The only time when he wrote about his feelings in anything but superficial terms is when he exchanged letters with someone who was against the action in Iraq. "I wish I could have seen his face when he read my letter", Rosenkranz muses, I guess imagining the devastating effect that the tired old "price of freedom" missive he fired back must have had on its recipient.

I would give anything to be able to fly the F-16 and do what Keith did, but only because I don't believe his bland account is all there is to flying such a ship in wartime or any other time, for that matter.

Is the author brave and competent and am I proud that he is a fellow American? Sure! But we can separate what we think about the man from his book and its contents.

Written from a first person point of view, Keith "Rosey" Rosenkranz takes the reader along with him in his F-16C through the exciting and, at times, terrifying combat sequences in the Gulf War. From the air to air combat during a bombing mission in the first chapter through the end of the war over Basra, his descriptions are vivid without becoming mired down in military jargon and acronyms. He presents the F-16C, its maintainers and the men flying the airplane as an entire weapons system, offering many details only available from a first hand account. He shares the commraderie and trials of squadron life and offers a hearty glimpse into the world of a USAF fighter pilot.

As if the book weren't enough, the author has an accompanying website ... . This innovative site is a perfect companion to the book and includes a wealth of technical details, lots of photos and an interactive "Viper" cockpit. He even includes actual HUD display tapes from his missions (listed by chapter) in a real player format along with other video sequences. The only thing missing are the G forces!

The book, "Vipers In the Storm" is a real life tale of a modern war hero, Keith Rosenkranz, Captain USAF. The foreward by Vice President Dick Cheney sums it up by saying how fortunate we are as Americans to have dedicated heroes like Keith Rosenkranz fighting for our freedom. This is a must read book for anyone interested in modern air warfare, the real life accounts of the Gulf War, and for those interested in heroism at its best. I understand that several readers of Vipers In The Storm actually joined the USAF and are now flying fighter jets for our country - all inspired by Captian Rosenkranz (Rosey). The Captain writes vivid accounts of both his personal feelings and the combat he was a part of on a daily basis. With more potential conflict ahead of the United States, this is an important book to read and gain a foundation of the United States previous battles in Iraq.
The author's website ... is also a must see. The author responds to email which makes this book even a better buy.
I enjoyed the book and the accounts of Captain Rosenkranz. This book is worthy of the best seller list!

The US imposed sanctions on Iraq have been in force for a decade. The consequences of US Iraq sanctions policy have been quite deadly. Yet the possibility of an end to sanctions is remote unless there is a popular movement to end it. This book, edited by Anthony Arnove, makes an analytical, yet impassioned, case for lifting the sanctions against Iraq. The price that the people of Iraq are paying for the sanctions is colossal. At least half a million children have died as a result of the increase in child mortality due to sanctions. Child mortality in Iraq has risen from a level that was comparable to standards in advanced industrialized world to that of least developed countries with chronic shortages of food or devastated by civil war, such as Sudan or Somalia. Approximately one million people have died due to the sanctions. Iraq's water supply facilities and waste disposal systems are in ruins because the sanctions prevent Iraq from importing spare parts required to operate them. The country's environment and agriculture are in shambles. Sanctions have strengthened the Iraqi ruling elite. Iraqi regime had long denied civil and political rights to its population, but economic and social quality of life for the majority was high before the Gulf War. With the imposition of the sanctions, the economic opportunities and social capabilities of Iraqis are being systematically downgraded and destroyed.

This book is an informed indictment of the sanctions policy. It exposes the brutality of sanctions against Iraq and therefore deserves to be widely read. It should be of value to concerned citizens, activists, academics, journalists, students of actual international regions, and Middle East scholars.

This edited volume is perhaps one of the most important books to emerge on the US political scene in the last few years. In a series of short essays, several leading lights of the anti-sanctions movement highlight the tremendous toll on civilian society in Iraq that a decade of US-led sanctions has taken. What emerges is a horrific tale of US machinations and a ruthless policy making that has resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqi civilians and has done very little to displace the current regime.

This book is laden with facts, eyewitness accounts, and reports of fact-finding missions from people from a whole range of ideological, professional, and political backgrounds. It must be read.

When you hear leftist MIT professor Noam Chomsky talking about "the deadly effect of US-imposed sanctions on Iraq," you squirm a little, wondering. Then you read many credible sources citing the death of over one million innocent people (including some 5oo,ooo children) as a result of these sanctions. This makes you cringe a little more, but you still wonder about the reality of it all. Although this book does not furnish any photos of children with one mutant eye bulging out their head from exposure to depleted uranium radiation, it does nonetheless paint an accurate picture of the current situation. (Btw, I was exposed to footage of "dumpster babies" and mutant children in Japan, so you can take my word when I say that you wouldn't want to see such photos anyway.) Moreover, the book will provide you with the most up-to-date information about the sanctions available in print. If Iraq, biological warfare or sanctions are issues that interests you, this book is not to be passed up.

Bill Smallwood did a great job of capturing the true nature of A-10 operations in Desert Storm.

As a former hog driver and 40 combat mission pilot during Desert Storm (511th FS) and one of the guys who the author interviewed extensively for the book, I can assure you it is accurate.

It is an easy and fun read for a quazi-historical tome!

Enjoy!

I got this book because my son has recently been assigned to train in an A-10. I was very impressed with Mr. Smallwood's writing style. He manages to convey the excitement, danger, and novelty of the A-10's mission and the immense dedication of the brave and courageous pilots who flew in the Gulf War. I learned much of the "lingo" used by the "Hog Drivers" so if I hear it in the future I'll understand. I'm pleased to learn that my son will be flying in such a tough machine. I now call the A-10 the "Guardian Angel" of the ground troops. Please convey my appreciation to Mr. Smallwood for his excellent work. S. Doyle Houston TX

I am a former Comm/Nav troop from the 76th that got out before the Gulf War. This book really helped me see what our planes did over there when all the news footage and other specials only show other bases! It was great to "hear" from people I knew on their experiences! I couldn't put the book down!

This is a fascinating book for a number a reasons and is a success because, it manages to work on a number of different levels. As a travelogue it paints a fascinating portrait of the people and places on the shores of the Sea of Cortez. Steinbeck has always been able to capture this part of human existence in his fiction and nonfiction works. Steinbeck manages to capture the flavor of this scientific expedition, and the wonder of nature, particularly in this unique ecosystem. Steinbeck manages to fuse these somewhat separate thread to describe his philosophy of life and existence. In this respect it provides a useful supplement for understanding his masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. Finally, an appendix has a eulogy for his friend Ed Ricketts, who led this voyage to the Sea of Cortez and who was the insiration for the character Doc in Cannery Row and its sequal. This eulogy is both a wonderful tribute to Ricketts, but also a celebration of life.

I would not recommend this book as an introduction to Steinbeck. If you have never read Steinbeck your time will be better spent reading the Grapes of Wrath. I think it works best for those of us who have read other Steinbeck works and/or those who wish to have better understanding of the peoples and ecology of the Sea of Cortez.

This is the book that really "turned me around" on Steinbeck. I had been forced to read RED PONY & THE PEARL in High School & while I acknowledged Steinbeck's ability I found his subjects unbearably depressing. LOG FROM THE SEA OF CORTEZ showed me another, funnier, more thoughtful, and more engaging Steibeck that then lead me to CANNERY ROW etc. This is the so-called Narrative Portion of a much longer guidebook co-authored by Steinbeck & Ed Ricketts that was simply called SEA OF CORTEZ and includes both illustrations and keys to the marine intertidal of Baja. The longer version is alas now long out of print & a real collectors item. LOG it turns out is a mixture of an actual travel log as Ricketts, Steinbeck & the crew of the Western Flyer wander in and out of the coves on the eastern side of the Baja peninsula, and also some philosophical essays by Ricketts that I gather actually pre-date th Cortez trip. I have frequently assigned the Easter Sunday chapter to my students as an marvellous discourse on science & scientists, but in fact the whole book is just that -we get a real sense of the joys & follys of field ecology & a wonderful look at an amazing piece of country before it was "discovered" and at least in part spoiled. The book is like a wonderful conversation with two very very smart & funny people & one comes away having learned a great deal & wishing one could have gone along on the original trip.

One of my good friends from high school introduced me to this book after we were both middle-aged. He set the challenge that we should complete this journey together. I look forward to it.

John Steinbeck, the great fiction writer, is just as intriguing as a nonfiction writer. In fact, there is more scope here than in any of the novels.

Steinbeck was fascinated by his friend, Ed Ricketts, Baja California, The Sea of Cortez (located in Baja), the marine life there, and the people along the way. You can read this book for any of those dimensions and be well rewarded. In fact, it is interesting to learn more about Steinbeck, the man, through his reminiscences of this trip.

Although I enjoyed all of these dimensions,to me the element that is most appealing is the story of two friends simply traveling and learning. It is very much a tale of the voyage that we all make through life, by way of analogy. In a way, it reminds me of a literal Pilgrim's Progress, except that this actually occurred. Fact, in this case, is more interesting than fiction.

If you liked Steinbeck's novels, read this. If you like travel stories, read this. If you like stories of scientific research, read this. If you like adventure, read this. Even if you don't fall into one of those categories, read this. Enjoy!

Serious students of the Persian Gulf war will have already read several prominent books which address the topic as a whole or in part. "The General's War" provides facinating "inner-sanctum" information and points of view, which are not available elsewhere. It's most prominent deficiency is a deliberate slant (bias?) to more-positively present and promote the performance of the Marine Corps vis-a-vie the other military services without apparent justification.... Overall, a very good book. As one who was there, I enjoyed the book

This is the only book that I've read on Desert Storm, but I'll bet that you won't find one that better describes all the considerations in the planning for the mission. Gordon covers all bases in the planning and excecution of the mission (from the Middle East to Washington)and that's what I bought the book for, so if you're looking for a comprehensive account of the Gulf War (with some unvarnished opinions thrown in) than you should get this book. Recommended.

Bernard Trainor presents two key arguments in this book that are worthy of consideration. One is that the USMC learned early on in the battle for Kafji that the Iraqi army was a house of cards, but Gen. Swartzkopf either ignored or missed that message and in any event never got the word to VII Corp commander Gen. Franks to position his troops for a battle of pursuit. As a result a large portion of the Republican guard were able to escape the VII Corp left hook. The second key argument in this book is that Colin Powell the author of the so-called "Weinburger Doctrine" which argued for the use of US forces only when victory is assured and when backed by the will of the American people, urged George Bush to call a premature end to the war which allowed the Republican Guard to participate in crushing the Shi'ite rebellion occuring within earshot of US troops. Trainor is sometimes a little too critical of decisions made in the heat of battle and far too USMC-centric but he is an outstanding student of war. I highly reccommend this book.

This book was not the literary version of Top Gun so if you are looking for seat of the pants air combat this is not really the book to read. The author was a navy EA-6 Prowler pilot during the Gulf War. He flew from the U.S.S. Midway. One of the more interesting parts of his story is that he was a new carrier pilot at the start of the conflict, therefore, he had to get accustomed to flying from a carrier during war conditions. The tensest passages in the book deal with his night landings and aerial refuelings. The actual job his aircraft performed in the war, although very valuable, was a bit dull. This was not air to air fighter pilot dogfights.

I was also a little disappointed with his descriptions of what life was like on a carrier during wartime. There were some descriptions, but not enough for me to get a good picture of his time out on the ship. Do not get me wrong, the book was enjoyable and the writing was good. The book did tell the story of the war that most of us would not get to hear given the author was not a fighter pilot glamour jockey. I just wanted a bit more overall details of his group's missions and life on the carrier and skip the love story.

There has got to be a rush that comes from taking off from an aircraft carrier in a jet, being accelerated by a steam catapult and a pair of screaming afterburners to nearly 170 m.p.h. in less than 2 seconds. Nor does it take a Stephen King to imagine the stress involved in trying to get back aboard a carrier on an inky night in a plane low on fuel. Among naval aviators, this is what separates those who can "hack it" from those who cannot. For carrier pilots do not land their planes so much as slam them aboard heaving, yawing ships at sea. So it is that night landings, in which vertigo and optical illusion are routeine and depth perception nonexistent, become "the practice of overcoming the fear of death," writes Lt. (j.g.) Sherman Baldwin, who spent his nugget - maiden - cruise aboard the USS Midway during the Persian Gulf War. If Baldwin's introspection sets "Ironclaw" (the call sign of his squadron) apart from others of its ilk, make no mistake: This is a book about flying. It begins with the author's first night catapult shot aboard the Midway and with great perception describes life for those who come and go on a seaborne aircraft carrier at war

Navy pilot Sherm Baldwin ushers you silently into the cockpit of his Navy Jet Prowler in the Gulf War as he lands and takes off both day and night onto the smallest aircraft carrier in our fleet. You feel all his experiences at first hand, right along with him and his crew. My twelve year old son likes the book as much as I do ("the best book I ever read," he told me) probably in spite of the fact that "Tank" Baldwin courts his wife to be Alice by daily letter from the Gulf War. No surprise to me that the Military Book Club has chosen IRONCLAW as its lead selection this Fall. Give it a try ... the first chapter will have you gripping your seat wondering if can land this damn plane

Notwithstanding its ominous title, this book is a reasonably conventional professional autobiography of a career diplomat. Author Richard Butler served as executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission ("UNSCOM") charged with disarming Iraq from 1997 until 1999. Prior to that, he was Australia's ambassador to the United Nations and Thailand. Most of the book is devoted to disarmament issues, especially efforts to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and to forbear rebuilding them and the subsequent decision to abandon those efforts. These issues must concern anyone interested in global security because, in Butler's view, the post-Cold War "new world order" may be every bit as dangerous as the frostiest years of the United States-Soviet Union confrontation.

Butler repeatedly demonstrates that he took a narrow, fundamental legalistic approach to his duties. He insists that the Security Council's decisions are binding on all of its members and that the Security Council has the ability "to enforce its decisions by military force, if needed." According to Butler, Security Council Resolution 687, which codified the terms of the cease-fire of the Persian Gulf War required Iraq to destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical, biological, and missiles. Resolution 687 also set up the UN Special Commission - UNSCOM - as an organ of the Security Council to conduct the actual disarmament work, and the Security Council made completion of the disarmament work a prerequisite to the lifting of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990. Butler clearly believes that Iraq never intended to cooperate with UNSCOM. As a pretext for reusing to cooperate, Iraq systematically blocked UNSCOM inspections, and this sparked a crisis that continued for 18 months. While Butler and UNSCOM were involved in an increasingly-bitter dispute with Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Iraq in February 1998 and proclaimed that Saddam Hussein was a man "I can do business with." In early August 1998, Iraq notified the Security Council that it had "decided to suspend UNSCOM's disarmament work." This led to a serious division in the Security Council, with the United States and the United Kingdom pitted against Russia, China, and France, which sought to end the disarmament work and discontinue the economic sanctions. UNSCOM was eventually disbanded and replaced by a body more sensitive to Iraq. Butler's outlook on the future is pessimistic. Butler asks: "Is Iraq as dangerous as it was a decade ago? And he answers: Elementally yes."

Although it is a cliché, I believe that this book is an extended exercise in preaching to the choir. Readers concerned with international-security issues already know and probably will agree with Butler that the UNSCOM period revealed "the real shape of the post-Cold War world," and they will share his criticisms of Russia, France, and China for having "clearly defined, separate interests in addition to their obviously shared concerns about a unipolar world." Much of this book is a detailed, sometimes tedious, narrative of Butler's two-year tenure at UNSCOM. After a while, it is mind-numbing, but, to the extent that Butler sought to make a historical record, he succeeds. This is an important book which ultimately asks: Can anyone have confidence in the United Nations if it allows cynical self-interest and endless palaver to prevail over principle and action?

...

Book Review: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory by David Isenberg Thursday, May 18, 2000

...

There is no way to say this delicately so I may just as well come right out and say it. This is a painful book to read. Why? Is it badly written? No, it is both informative and engaging. Does it deal with an unimportant topic? On the contrary, it deals with a critically important issue: the effort to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Why then the pain?

This book is essentially the story of a failure, one that has consequences for the entire world. Specifically, it is the telling of the undermining and destruction of UNSCOM by Saddam Hussein. The West set up UNSCOM, short for the United Nations Special Commission, in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish diplomat, headed UNSCOM for its first six years. In 1997, after Ekeus left to become Swedish ambassador to Washington, Richard Butler took over as executive director. Butler was an experienced Australian diplomat who had previously worked on many other disarmament issues. This book is the story of the final two years of struggle with Iraq in accordance with the original U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 of 1991. This struggle more or less ended -- unsatisfactorily -- when the United States and Britain bombed Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, an event that marked the end of UNSCOM inspections in Iraq.

Caught cheating

Bear in mind that the various global arms-control regimes are based on the presumption that if those being inspected are found breaking the rules, some sort of enforcement will take place -- usually through the U.N. system and specifically thorough the Security Council. When enforcement fails, as happened in Iraq's case, the consequences are critical. As Butler notes: "Saddam's cheating has been detected, but it has not been stopped. Nations that could take action have chosen not to. The implications of this for the maintenance of the strictures against weapons of mass destruction, built so painstakingly over almost half a century, are dire. If Saddam finally gets away with it, the whole structure could well collapse."

Butler's is a story of many disappointments. He faced lack of political will and crass appeasement on the part of member nations of the U.N. Security Council. Constant obfuscation and deception by Iraq are the main themes, highlighted by vignettes of pettiness on the part of U.N. bureaucrats, such as the advisers to U..N Secretary-General Kofi Anan, and brazen lying by such Iraqi functionaries as Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. Butler had a reputation as a plain-spoken man. It is a reputation that is deserved. It is refreshing to see a diplomat use words like "outrageous," "appalling," "word witchcraft," "blackest lie," "phony" and "facile."

Back to Iraq?

In the first two chapters, Butler briefly describes his childhood and later working for the Australian Foreign Affairs department and the work he did prior to taking on his position as head of UNSCOM. But the remaining chapters constitute the core of the book.

Much of the book details the two wars that UNSCOM waged. Sadly, it lost both. The first and the better known is the daily war of attrition it fought with Iraq, which used ceaseless tactics of cheat, retreat and cheat in order to thwart UNSCOM. As Butler explains, Saddam Hussein did not believe he lost the Gulf War. Though Saddam was driven from Kuwait, he viewed the Dessert Storm coalition's real aim as to remove him from power or turn Iraq into a vassal state. Thus, for Iraq the battle with UNSCOM was simply the last battle of the Gulf War. And for Iraq to "cement its "victory" in that war they had to defeat both UNSCOM in general and Richard Butler personally. In fact, Iraq paid Butler an ironic compliment when it demanded his removal as item 9 of a list of demands presented to the Security Council in November 1998 in its attempt to forestall the Clinton bombing.

The other war UNSCOM fought with the U.N. to both preserve its independence and to get the Security Council to support its documentation of Iraq's continuing refusal to live up to its pledge to allow UNSCOM inspectors to carry out their work.

One of the more intriguing sections of the book deals with the allegation by Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector who resigned in 1998, that Butler had taken direction from the U.S. government and that UNSCOM had allowed itself to be a conduit for U.S. intelligence collection in Iraq. Ritter's view was detailed in his book Endgame published last year. We may never know the exact truth of the matter, but Butler musters a good case that his charges are false.

As Butler makes clear in his conclusions, we cannot expect UNSCOM's successor organization, UNMOVIC (United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission), created in December 1999, to accomplish anything worthwhile. To name just two flaws, unlike UNSCOM it will be under the direction of the U.N. secretary-general; its staff will be U.N. civil servants instead of technical experts.

The conclusion that Butler leaves us with is both dismaying, and even worse, true. "When a determined criminal flouts international law under cover of the principle of state sovereignty, the world system, as currently constituted, appears able or unwilling to stop him," he writes.

In short, we should be afraid, very afraid...

This book is exceptional on so many levels I scarcely know where to begin. Richard Butler former Executive Chairman of UNSCOM is very definitely a man of deep integrity driven by an equally deep concern for the issue of arms control not solely in Iraq but throughout the world. This book is his story and how during the course of two years he battled to achieve the complete dismantling of Iraq's stockpile of weapons chemical biological and nuclear.

He describes in detail the stand-offs between himself and the Iraqi authorities and how ultimately the united nations through weakness and division have allowed Saddam Hussein to hold onto much of his deadly arsenal. He charts the use of these weapons by Iraq in its war with Iran as well as the use of gases on ethnic minorities inside the country itself.

The reader gets an incredible look at the UN Security Council attempting to apply a, geo-political rules as usual approach, to the problem of Iraq's non-compliance with UN resolutions. The role of the Russian diplomats along with the French and Chinese come in for close scrutiny. If Butlers understanding of Israel's defence posture during the gulf war is accurate then the reader can take it that if Saddam were to use a chemical weapon or worse against a city like Tel Aviv then almost certainly and without consultation Israel would respond with tactical nuclear weapons against Iraq. During the gulf war Israeli Jets sat fuelled and ready to fly against targets in Iraq following the deployment of some 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel during the conflict. This analysis and so much more is contained in this sober but authentic look at how dangerous the world has become. Worst of all is the ongoing capitulation by the United Nations in terms of forcing Iraqi compliance with its own resolutions.

This novel constantly surprised me. It took me places I never expected it to go and its ending is one I will never forget. The way the author mixes real world people and events with fiction made me more than once stop and ask if it all really happened. The story's heroine, U. S. Army Captain Kasey Lawrence is so vividly drawn I felt the emotions she experienced on her journey in the pit of my stomach. I leaned so much from this book about the history and culture of the Mideast and America's current relationship to what is going on there. The author makes predictions I hope don't come true, but I hope even more we don't ignore. Honor Bound is a very good book.

Honor Bound is the best novel I have read in quite a while. The story features memorable characters, straight-ahead storytelling and informed me about world events/politics from a point of view I hadn't experienced. The book kept taking surprising turns and ventured into nooks and crannies that revealed some interesting (to say the least) information about America and its releationship with the rest of the world. The author is quite a plot writer, right down to the unexpected way he ended the story. A very good story and well-told!

John Ratti's novel couldn't have been more timely. In some ways, it seems almost prophetic. In the shadow of recent tragic events, the intricate plot development of this impressive novel brings current events into sharp focus. Throughout the story's settings and within the development of the major characters, particularly Captain Casey Lawrence, we are led into the very complex relationships that make up our modern world. The novel also helps people from both the western world and the Middle East to have a better understanding of each other's history and culture, as well as the many differing beliefs, ideas and ambitions within those regions. Showing good and evil on both sides, we are given a fair and believable assessment of those who are 'players' as well as those who are 'played' -- often reversing roles. There must have been an incredible amount of time and effort taken in research for this book. I was very impressed. I lost some sleep while reading this book because I found it almost impossible to put down. My personal opinion is that this book is well worth reading. It offers very valuable insight into what is happening in our world today, which might help to encourage us to become more aware of what is going on both at home and overseas and how we might be involved. This is an excellent book!

A great book about F-15E pilots experience in that war. It does not however specifically tell you anything much about how the aircraft performs or how it functioned in the gulf war out side of the pilots personal accounts. If you are interested in pilots war time experience - great. If , like me, you are more interested about the aircraft itself you might want to consider some thing else.

Very good description of aircraft's weapons systems. It really changed my opinion of the War in the Gulf. I thought these pilots had it easy but it was a tough hard job flying these machines over extremely hazardous conditions.

A good companion for this book is the Jane's F-15E computer flight simulation. You'll have an excellent hands on experience of what it's like to fly one of the finest Air Force Jets in the inventory.

F-15E is a qite new aircraft when Desert Storm started. It's a new star to the US and brought back a lot of foottages of precision strke day or night.

But there were stories of those pilots when they were sent to the field. How did they prepare and how did they make them ready for the battle. You also can find the conflicting of rescuing down pilots and the commander of the SAR squadren. You also can find how those pilots came back in one piece and those who didn't and what happened.

With latest information and excellent combat experience, makes this book an excellent book not only to understand the F-15E, but also the real life and death of those pilots.

Interesting book that moves along at a fast pace. Highly recommended for those interested in history.

The battle of Leyte Gulf was the largest naval battle of World War II and for all practical reasons, the end of the Japanese navy as a fighting force. Kenneth Friedman has done a superior job of describing each encounter that took place between the Japanese and Americans off the Philippines.

The goal of the Japanese was to destroy the American troop ships anchored off of Leyte. They devised a bold plan to trap the Americans in a pincer movement. One force was to steam through the San Bernadino Strait and attack from the center, while a second group was to attack from the South out of the Surigao Strait. A 3rd force consisting of the Japanese carriers attempted to lure the bulk of the American carrier strength North from the Leyte beachhead, leaving it virtually defenseless. American submarines spotted the Northern force and sank 2 haevy cruisers. The force reversed course, but did not retreat, much to the later surprise of the Americans. Meanwhile, a group of American battleships, some of them Pearl Harbor veterans, thoroughly destroyed the Southern force. However, the center force had regrouped and continued through the San Bernadino Strait. The only force the Americans had guarding the beaches were 3 light carrier forces under the command of Admiral Clifton Sprague. What transpired over the next couple of hours can only be described as a naval miracle. Using sheer courage and excellent tactics, the tiny carriers managed to hold off a force consisting of battleships and heavy cruisers and kept the beachhead safe. Meanwhile, Admiral Halsey's tactics were severely scrutinized. He took the Japanese bait and led his entire force of fast battleships and fleet carriers north to attack the Japanese carriers while leaving the Leyte beachhead virtually defenseless. This prompted Admiral Nimitz to send his famous message: "Where is Task Force 34? The World Wonders". If not for Sprague's heroics, the outcome of this battle could have been much different.

I thought this book was very well written. The author included many tables and charts which helped me understand the battle much better. Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the story of Sprague's escort carriers. The author credits Sprague with saving the day for the Americans. I would highly recommend this book. It flows along at a good pace and does a good job of explaining one of the major battles in U.S. Navy history.

Afternoon of the Rising Sun is a fabulous account of one of the major sea battles of WWII. The subject of Leyte gets kind of buried beneath the accounts of Pearl Harbor and Midway, so, thank the author for making your book available to those of us who would like to increase our knowledge on the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I found that the amount of detail is just perfect -- not too minute as to be boring, and yet plenty of information so that the reader will know exactly what is going on. Most people would not associate this subject matter as being of particular interest to a female, but I found it to be MOST interesting. The definitions at the beginning of the book, and the parenthetical inserts through out the book were a great touch. I especially liked the account of MacArthur fulfilling his promise to return to the Phillipines.