Books for Memorial Day

Among Heroes
A U.S. Navy Seal’s True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice

Brandon Webb

Offers profiles of eight fellow Navy SEAL members who lost their lives in the defense of their country, and sharing their heroic exploits, personal qualities, and the friendship that they shared.

Ashley’s War
The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Presents the story of First Lieutenant Ashley White and a groundbreaking team of female American warriors who served alongside Special Operations soldiers on the battle field in Afghanistan.

Black Hawk Down
A Story of Modern War

Mark Bowden

A searing portrayal of modern warfare recounts a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that resulted in the deaths of eighteen Americans and more than five hundred Somalis, examining the rationales behind the disastrous raid.

Brothers Forever
The Enduring Bond Between a Marine and a Navy Seal That Transcended Their Ultimate Sacrifice

Tom Sileo, Tom Manion

Describes the story of how two Naval Academy roommates and close friends made the ultimate sacrifice defending America three years apart, one as a fallen US Marine, the other as a fallen US Navy SEAL.

Citizen Soldiers
The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945

Stephen E. Ambrose

A look at the last year of World War II in Europe–from D-Day to the surrender of Germany–draws on hundreds of interviews with and oral histories of the enlisted men and junior officers who helped win the war.

Connecticut Yankees at Antietam

John Banks

Connecticut Yankees at Antietam honors the brave soldiers who fought in the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

D-Day
The Battle for Normandy

Antony Beevor

Presents an account of the Normandy invasion that offers insight into the experiences of soldiers and French civilians, documenting the heavy casualties suffered on all fronts and the ways in which the war influenced relations between America and Europe.

Devotion
An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

Adam Makos

Traces the inspirational story of famous Navy aviator duo Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown, recounting how they defied convention to serve their country, overcame racial barriers, and protected one another on a daring Korean War Mission.

Flags of Our Fathers

James Bradley

Focusing on the men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, this stirring chronicle of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II follows the young men–most of them barely out of high school–into the fiercest hand-to-hand combat of the war.

Ghost Soldiers
The Forgotten Epic Story of World War Ii’s Most Dramatic Mission

Hampton Sides

Chronicles the daring mission of the elite U.S. Army Sixth Ranger Battalion to slip behind enemy lines in the Philippines and rescue the 513 American and British POWs who had spent over three years in a hellish, Japanese-run camp near Cabanatuan.

Helmet for My Pillow
From Parris Island to the Pacific, a Young Marine’s Stirring Account of Combat in World War Ii

Robert Leckie

A soldier gives a riveting account of his World War II odyssey, from basic training all the way to the raging battles on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, sparing no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, in a book from which material was adapted for the forthcoming HBO miniseries The Pacific.

Lone Survivor
The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10

Marcus Luttrell

The leader, and only survivor, of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs sent to northern Afghanistan to capture a well-known al Qaeda leader chronicles the events of the battle that killed his teammates and offers insight into the training of this elite group of warriors.

Medal of Honor
Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty

Peter Collier

A fascinating array of portraits, essays, and personal histories captures the heroism of more than one hundred of the living recipients of Aemrica’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, accompanied by 250 stunning duotone photographs.

Monuments
America’s History in Art and Memory

Judith Dupré

A leading architectural historian examines more than three dozen notable American monuments, including the Alamo, Gettysburg, Mount Rushmore, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and offers interviews with architects and other information.

Old Glory
American War Poems From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terrorism

Robert Hedin

For the first time, in one volume, the rich canon of American war poems, from “Yankee Doodle” to Robert Creeley’s “Ground Zero.”

Rampage
Macarthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila

James M. Scott

The author of Target Tokyo presents a history of the Battle of Manila that traces the capture of the Philippine capital by Japanese forces, the massacre of an estimated 100,000 civilians and liberation campaign that ultimately destroyed the city.

Red Platoon
A True Story of American Valor

Clinton Romesha

A comprehensive account of the 13-hour firefight at the Battle of Keating by a Medal of Honor recipient describes the harrowing events of the October 3, 2009 attack and how the sacrifices and victories of heroic men raised questions about whether the strategically vulnerable outpost should ever have been built.

Scorpion Down
Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: the Untold Story of the Uss Scorpion

Ed Offley

Offers a detailed view of the U.S.S. Scorpion, a nuclear submarine, and its sinking on Memorial Day, 1968, by a Soviet submarine, the exact circumstances of which were covered up by the United States government.

Service
A Navy Seal at War

Marcus Luttrell

A combat trained Navy SEAL shares dramatic stories from his Special Operations assignments throughout the world while highlighting the contributions of remarkable soldiers

Ship of Ghosts
The Story of the Uss Houston, Fdr’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors

James D. Hornfischer

Describes the loss of the cruiser U.S.S. Houston in the Dutch East Indies during the early days of World War II in the Pacific and the fate of the warship’s surviving crew, who were captured by the Japanese and forced to work as slaves on Japan’s brutal Burma-Thailand Death Railway.

Thirteen Soldiers
A Personal History of Americans at War

John McCain, Mark Salter

Presents an evocative history of Americans at war through the personal accounts of thirteen remarkable soldiers who fought in major military conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unbroken
A World War Ii Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Laura Hillenbrand

Tells the gripping true story of a U.S. airman who was the soul surviver when his bomber crashed into the sea during World War II and had to face thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.

Walk in My Combat Boots
True Stories From America’s Bravest Warriors

James Patterson, Matt Eversmann

The decorated war hero who inspired the movie, Black Hawk Down, shares firsthand wartime accounts describing the courageous battlefield sacrifices of men and women from every branch and operational specialty of the U.S. military.

The World War Ii Memorial
A Grateful Nation Remembers

Douglas Brinkley

Commemorates the American veterans who served in World War II, providing insights into the memorial’s symbolism and it stages of construction.

Memorial Day

Vince Flynn

Learning about an imminent terrorist attack, CIA operative Mitch Rapp takes the lead in a commando raid into northern Pakistan, where he obtains information about a planned nuclear attack but suspects that a greater threat exists.

The Red Badge of Courage

Stephen Crane

A powerful and realistic novel details the men of C-for-Charlie company, before, during, and after the Allied effort at Guadalcanal and is the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film by Terrence Malick.

The Thin Red Line

James Jones

Plunged into the brutality of war, Henry Fleming, a young Union soldier, must struggle with the principles of courage, patriotism, and survival, in a collection that also includes other stories and poems.

The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien

The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a compelling novel of America during the Vietnam War.

Tree of Smoke

Denis Johnson

An anniversary edition of a collection of interconnected fictional stories follows the members of an American platoon fighting in the Vietnam War, in a book that mirrors the author’s own wartime experiences

Band of Brothers

Follows the 101st Airborne as it drops into Normandy on D-Day and fights its way through Europe to the end World War II.

Jarhead

Presents the true struggles of Marine infantry soldier Anthony “Swoff” Swofford, from his days in training to the Gulf War.

Memorial Day

SSgt. Kyle Vogel leaves a handwritten letter on the seat of his car, grabs a pistol, and steps into a Minnesota forest. Flash back a few months as Vogel lies wounded in a hospital near Anbar Province, Iraq. The night before he’s due to return to combat, his doctor, Lt. Kelly Tripp, presses him on why he’s so obsessed with collecting battle souvenirs. Kyle proceeds to tell her what happened on Memorial Day, 1993, when, as a 13-year old boy, he discovered his Grandpa Bud’s WWII footlocker.

Remembering Vietnam
The Wall at 25

Tells the story of the memorial through the eyes of those who conceived it, those who were instrumental in pushing it through bureaucratic and political resistance, those intimately involved with its 25-year history, and those it honors.

Saving Private Ryan

Captain John Miller must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds, the men question their orders.