Customer Reviews

U.S. Army: A Complete History

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Boots on the Ground" has been the foundation of U.S. Army thinking for more than two centuries. I first got an understanding of what it meant at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield. In walking down from the top of the mountain was a display of a shallow pit in the ground where a picket would have lay down looking for an attack. I don't know which side occupied this particular pit, in retrospect of course, it was an American soldier. Hunkering down in this pit, probably scared to death, this man was effectively saying, "This is my piece of ground, and you gotta go through me to get it."

You need ships, and airplanes, and tanks, and the big guns, but when it comes down to it, it's the single man with his boots on the ground that makes the difference. And it continues today in places all around the world.

This is a huge book, 3 and a half inches thick, about ten by 13 inches in size. It is profusely illustrated and discusses almost every battle in which the U.S. Army has been involved. It starts in the 1600's, with the formation of militia formed by the colonies for protection from Indian raids. It continues through every war, almost every battle until the finding of Saddam in Iraq. It's authors are all either Army officers or professional historians with a heavy Army history. It's a supurb book.

Readers seeking a definitive history of the U.S. army from the 1600s to modern times must have this weighty, exhaustive reference: it truly is a complete history, surveying the Army's changes and purposes during war and peace. Gorgeous color photos and drawings pack timelines of events, some as specific as for months of a given year, while army status, general participation and resignations, division commands and processes, traditions, and medals, congressional moves and more all receive notes. Anyone seeking a weighty history that offers at-a-glance facts and dates simply have to have U.S. Army: A Complete History.

I purchased this book to give to my 86 year-old father on his birthday. Dad doesn't get around as much as he did in the past so he spends hours a day watching WWII movies on TMC. This book will be a perfect supplement. I know he will spend hours with it. I'm also self-serving because I too will enjoy flipping through it. Highly recommended!

U.S. ARMY: A COMPLETE HISTORY
RAYMOND BLUHM
UNIVERSE, 2005
HARDCOVER, $75.00, 960 PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS, INDEX, ILLUSTRATIONS


The book U.S. ARMY: A COMPLETE HISTORY plagiarized the entire color unit insignia section of several pages from VIETNAM ORDER OF BATTLE, stole the work product of a private author, and reproduced these pages without permission in reduced size. On Page 625, the unit insignia section is falsely credited to the U.S. Army instead of Captain Shelby L. Stanton, U.S. Army Special Forces (Retired) VIETNAM ORDER OF BATTLE. Furthermore, the top of Page 22 of the VIETNAM ORDER OF BATTLE was deliberately removed to eliminate all reference to the actual source and Stanton's production of these original pages. This stolen section of the VIETNAM ORDER OF BATTLE appears within the chapter compiled by Dale Andrade of the U.S. Army Center of Military History. Ironically, this book of theft entitled U.S. ARMY: A COMPLETE HISTORY begins with an introductionpraising the U.S. Army as an army of character. This self-proclaimed glorification of the service is belied by intentional acts of actual theft contained within its own pages. The inability to perform original research, resorting to dishonesty, outright plagiarism, and failure to credit sources is unfortunately indicative of the actual failure of the current U.S. Army to abide by any standards of decency or moral integrity.


Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida

No student of the United States Army should be without this excellent volume. It can answer all the questions one might have.
Offered at a reasonable price.

Found this gem of a book at Half Price books for 12 dollars. So far im loving it. Very illustrative and interesting. Itll take me a good long while to get through it all.

I bought this as a gift for my girl friends father, who is a retired vet and current Commander of the American Legion. He loves it, particularly the pictures and the fact that it goes into such depth on the early years. Highly recomend

I ordered this book in a moment of inattention thinking it was something by the US Army Historical Section.
It's certainly an impressive book in physical terms, weighing in at 5.8 kgs. (12.8 lbs). It is also lavishly illustrated, but to call it a "complete history" is overstating the case. It is a chronological overview of the high points (the low points are carefully skipped - don't expect to find Mi Lay in the index) of US military history with a heavy emphasis on the heroic and red, white and blue patriotic sentiment. The preface states something like "Our soldiers are moral warriors who defend unchanging values etc. etc."
If you're a patriotic American and want to present a handsome gift to your local high school library, a gift that, who knows, may inspire some youngster to embrace the profession of arms, this book seems like an excellent idea.
But if you're looking for 50 dollars' worth of serious military history, I would advise you to look elsewhere.

I ordered "US Army: A Complete History" about 2 weeks before Christmas, and was aware that it MAY not get shipped to me in time to give to my boyfriend for Christmas. Nearly an entire week before Christmas my package came in and the book was in perfect condition. I couldn't have been more pleased with the product and the VERY timely service from Amazon and the seller.