Like a chat w/ your dad or any veteran

books:


	• Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War Frank Antenori, Hans Halberstadt St. Martin's Griffin, 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 36 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Like a chat w/ your dad or any veteran

I really liked this book. It was done like you were sitting their talking to the author.

It reminded me of the countless chats my dad and I had where he shared his war stories. I remember sitting on his knee when I was young and him telling me what Vietnam was like.

It was just like that, a nice chat w/ someone you are fond of.

I highly recommend this book!

A fun read depending on who you are

I enjoyed this book. Despite the wide variety of opinions here, I think everyone will agree with me that this is a light read and pretty straightforward in its narrative style.

For readers that want a novel with lots of action and fighting, looking for a real-life version of a good modern action movie, don't read this. You won't be happy with it, because while it does give you a detailed camera-on-the-helmet view of the fight, the fight itself isn't as dramatic or exciting as you will want.

For readers that want to see some fighting, but equally are interested in the non-fighting aspects that surround it -- the planning, the training, the logistics, the choice of weapons, the strategy -- this is a decent book. Again, it is a light read, and this applies to this aspect of the book as well. It does a good job of showing what's behind the curtain of the fight without boring you with too many military acronyms or esoteric military references.

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The way it really is

I very much enjoyed this book and it is one of the better novels about the war in Iraq and the part the special forces played in it. The author does a fair amount of airing some dirty laundry. But I found this nice as it helps to dispel many of the myths and misconceptions people have about special forces. Special or not it is still the military and they have to deal with all the stupidity of senior officers, rules and territorial pissing contests as every other serviceman. It is despite these difficulties that they are able to take and complete some of the most difficult missions out there that makes them special. Another nice part of this novel is the author spends a good amount of time detailing the team building and training these soldiers go through in order to build a tight nit team.

The author writes is a what could be called a very upfront and sometimes abrasive manner, but I enjoyed it and I found myself hating the same system and rules that the author did. This book does a good job of bring you in and making you feel a part of the story which is rare in book of this sort.

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Realism!

Despite some minor writing flaws (which actually round out the Roughneck theme) this is a great book! I was surprised by the few negative reviews. I think many reviewers miss the point. Decisive combat not is not about luck, it's about having the courage to do a quick risk/reward evaluation and put your training to use. The Army is full of officers like Major X, who hamper our capabilities by being anally safe. I commend MSG Antenori for having the courage to train hard, stand up to Major X, and write about. If you're looking for a perfectly constructed novel try The Grapes of Wrath. If you want a book about America's best soldiers kicking [...] in spite of politically correct and tactically unsound officers, you have got to read Roughneck Nine-One.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

On April 6th, 2003, twenty-six Green Berets, including those of Sergeant First Class Frank Antenori's Special Forces A-Team (call sign Roughneck Nine One), fought a vastly superior force at a remote crossroads near the village of Debecka, Iraq. The enemy unit had battle tanks and 150 well-trained, well-equipped, and well-commanded soldiers. The Green Berets stopped the enemy advance, then fought them until only a handful of Iraqi survivors finally fled the battlefield.
In the process, the Nine One encountered hordes of news media and at the peak of the fight, a US Navy F-14 dropped a 500-pound bomb into the middle of a group of supporting Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, killing and wounding dozens. This is the never-before-told, unsanitized story of the fight for the crossroads at Debecka, Iraq, and a unique inside look at a Special Forces A-team as it recruits and organizes, trains for combat, and eventually fights a battle against a huge opposing force in Iraq.

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