Mike Guardia
Teoksen American Guerrilla: The Forgotten Heroics of Russell W. Volckmann tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
Mike Guardia is an internationally recognized author and military historian. A veteran of the U.S. Army, he served six years on active duty as an Armor Officer. He has twice been nominated for the Army Historical Foundation's Distinguished Book Award and is an active member in the Military Writers näytä lisää Society of America. He holds a BA and MA in American History from the University of Houston. He currently lives in Minnesota. näytä vähemmän
Image credit: Book signing with LT GEN Hal Moore and Mike Guardia at the Books-A-Million in Opelika, AL
Tekijän teokset
SHADOW COMMANDER: The Epic Story of Donald D. Blackburn-Guerrilla Leader and Special Forces Hero (2011) 33 kappaletta
US Army and Marine Corps MRAPs: Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (New Vanguard) (2013) 22 kappaletta
The American Heroes Collection: Hal Moore, Shadow Commander, and American Guerrilla (2018) 1 kappale
Hal Moore: A Life in Pictures 1 kappale
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Kansalaisuus
- USA
- Asuinpaikat
- Minnesota, USA
Texas, USA
Hill Valley, California, USA - Koulutus
- University of Houston (BA|History)
University of Houston (MA|History)
University of St. Thomas (MA|Education) - Agentti
- Jill Corcoran
- Lyhyt elämäkerta
- Mike Guardia is an internationally recognized author and military historian. A veteran of the United States Army, he served six years on active duty as an Armor Officer. He is the author of the widely-acclaimed "Hal Moore: A Soldier Once...and Always," the first-ever biography chronicling the life of LTG Harold G. Moore, whose battlefield leadership was popularized by the film "We Were Soldiers," starring Mel Gibson.
He has twice been nominated for the Army Historical Foundation's Distinguished Book Award and is an active member of the Military Writers Society of America.
As a speaker, he hosts the lecture series "Hal Moore: Lessons in Leadership," which is available for presentation at schools, businesses, and civic organizations worldwide. Mike Guardia has given presentations at the US Special Operations Command and the International Spy Museum. His work has been reviewed in the Washington Times, Armchair General, ARMY Magazine, DefenceWeb South Africa, and Miniature Wargames UK.
He holds a BA and MA in American History from the University of Houston. He currently lives in Texas.
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I finished Hal Moore: A Soldier Once and Always by Mike Guardian. A fascinating whole life biography on Hal Moore best known by many of us from the movie/book We Were Soldiers on the battle of the Ia Drang Valley with the 1st Air Cav in Vietnam.
A West Pointer was part of the class of 1945 that attended only 3 not 4 years at the point. He graduated too late for World War II but served with distinction in both Korea and Vietnam.
He rose to rank of Lieutenant General and was tapped to be Commanding General U.S. Army Japan when he retired.
A short read at a little over 400 pages, filled with maps and pictures which helped bring greater life to his story. A solid 4 star read.… (lisätietoja)
A West Pointer was part of the class of 1945 that attended only 3 not 4 years at the point. He graduated too late for World War II but served with distinction in both Korea and Vietnam.
He rose to rank of Lieutenant General and was tapped to be Commanding General U.S. Army Japan when he retired.
A short read at a little over 400 pages, filled with maps and pictures which helped bring greater life to his story. A solid 4 star read.… (lisätietoja)
Too short. Too narrow. Otherwise engaging.
Donn Starry is a man who, while not a household name, certainly deserves a biography, and this is not a bad one. The fortunate thing is that Starry left a long paper trail taking one from his formative days as a cadet at West Point to his creation of of the "Air-Land" battle doctrine that still informs how the U.S. Army goes to war; inasmuch as the General was not fit enough to participate in the creation of the study. The best chapters deal with the care and feeding of military organizations. If there is one thematic matter which I find problematic it's that this book is informed by the belief that Tet '68 was a victory thrown away and I don't believe that's a tenable position anymore.… (lisätietoja)
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At 226 pages in length in my Kindle edition, this book is something of a lightweight for the subject, putting it in a class with some of Osprey Publishing larger series works. The book's format is convention for the subject matter. The first of the nine chapters is all about the origins and the development of the Tomcat--the technological history of the aircraft. The remaining eight chapters are the Tomcat's operational history, with Chapter 3 discussing the F-14's history with the Imperial Iranian and Islamic Republic of Iran Air Forces. The other seven chapters document the aircraft's history with its primary user and advocate, the U.S. Navy. The final unnumbered chapter is about the Tomcat's retirement from the Navy, and there is a select bibliography. Guardia also provides a number of color and b/w photographs.
The reader is put on notice about the nature of this book by the placement of bibliographic information for five books on the copyright page up in front. Three of the books are Osprey Publishing titles, so I really didn't escape the fate I wished to avoid when I first purchased this book. These bibliographic entries are all preceded by the word "From", which tells me that this book has very little original content. Not that one can tell from the text because the author makes no use of footnotes to let the reader know where the cited passages come from. The book has the air of being assembled, as opposed to being written--it appears to be a sequence of passages from other works stitched together by some altogether disappointing writing from Guardia. The author is clearly not familiar with his subject or naval aviation, as demonstrated on page 30 where Guardia describes a Tomcat being secured to an aircraft carrier flight deck as being "chained and chalked" rather than the correct term "chained and chocked." There are several more stylistic and factual errors throughout the book--even photographic captions contain mistakes.
Guardia commits sins of omission as well. He never really explains how the fleet air superiority fighter of the 1980's and early 1990's transforms into a signifcant air strike fighter over a really short period, despite the appearance of operational histories that really emphasize the "Bombcat's" new air-to-ground capabilities. Similarly, Guardia does not go into the factors that retired the Tomcat--the age of the airframe, the costs per flight hour, and the desire to move to a more maintainable airframe in the form of the F/A-18E/F.
Although Mike Guardia is an award-winning author, "Tomcat Fury" is not really the kind of history for which he has won recognition. I must read those praiseworthy titles before I rate Guardia fully as an author. I can say, on the basis of this book, that he is out of his league in writing about aviation and naval aviation in particular. This book has the appearance of a hastily cobbled together book attempting to take advantage of the author's newly found fame. I would highly recommend staying away from this volume and purchase one of the books on the author's select bibliography, namely Jon Lake's AIRtime/AIRlife 1998 work. Lake's book, although missing the final years of the Tomcat's U.S. Navy career, is a far better book.
I read this book so you don't have to......… (lisätietoja)