Sublime

Kelly Orr’s Brave Men…Dark Waters: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs is one of the best of many historical accounts available before the literature available about SEALs exploded after 9/11 (Orr 1992).

In November 1943, Rear Admiral John Hall took command of the 11th Amphibious Force and assumed the responsibility for depositing the Army’s Fifth Corps on the landing site designated as Omaha Beach—nothing less than the most important operation in American history.

No matter their age or station in life, Billy can’t help but regard his fellow Americans as children. They are bold and proud and certain in the way of clever children blessed with too much self-esteem, and no amount of lecturing will enlighten them as to the state of pure sin toward which war inclines. He pities them, scorns them, loves them, hate

Douglas Waller’s account of U.S. SOF after the Cold War, The Commandos (Waller 1994),

When he satisfied himself that he had imagined the spoken “hey” that, upon reflection, he heard more in his head than with his ears, he returned to his work and was none the wiser. The defective round thus passed unnoticed, was packaged, sold through a law enforcement catalogue eight months later and finally distributed to Detective Lawrence “Morga

The Follow-Through

I had atoned for the dozens of close calls that always left someone else injured or dead, while I emerged from the scenes of mayhem unscathed, pictures in hand, having committed the crime of being the lucky voyeur.