Book suggestion
 

I am finishing up an excellent book that i would recommend to anyone interested in A) flight, B) combat, C) the military, D) the pros and cons of an unbending spirit.

The book is Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War, by Robert Coram. Available in Hard/Softcover.

When i picked it up i thought it would be a good biography of a fighter pilot who bucked the system. It goes much deeper than that. John Boyd really did change the way wars are fought. Although he despised the products that eventually took to the air, he is the mind behind the F15 and F16 and was also influential in the A10.

After he retired from active duty he began to study the process of creativity and how to think outside of the box, long before Smalley, TQM, and all the rest of that BS rolled into town. In fact, he was not interested in thinking outside the box, instead choosing to blow the box up and see what happens.

Unfortunately, his straightforward personality closed a lot of doors to him in his career, but if he had been any different he wouldn't have accomplished what he did.

This is by a different author, but it does briefly summarize much of the info to be found in the book i'm finishing.
click here

I'm about to read the new book by Clive Cussler. I'll post a report by next weekend.

Just finished Band of Brothers and Wild Blue Yonder by Stephen Ambrose and those are definitly must reads for anyone interested in the individual trials and tribulations a combat soldier on the front lines has to deal with. Especially B-o-B, very well written book and the series actually follows it very closey.

If you liked Band of Brothers make sure to get David K Webster's Parachute Infantry - Ambrose drew heavily from that well. You may also like:
Company Commander , Charles MacDonald
All of the Books by Donald R Burkett
Crossing the Sauer by Felix
and dozens of others i could recommend but those are a few good ones to jump off with.