Jason

Wow, best WW2 story you never heard of!

Reviewed: 10-15-20

An amazing story. Would make a fantastic movie!
I love first hand accounts of war experiences. This book was never on my radar but I'm so glad that I gave it a shot because it held my complete attention from the beginning to the end. This man and the men of his generation grew up hard and it instilled the grit in them to make it through the things they encountered during WW2.
This isn't a book about tactics or accounts of specific battles, it's the complete story of a kid who was fighting for education, then fighting in an airplane then fighting for his life when he was shot down and things went to hell.
There's so many experiences and close calls packed into his book that I can't imagine anyone who likes this genre would be disappointed.
I've listened to it 3 times and it instantly became one of my favorite WW2 listens.

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2 people found this helpful

excellent all the way around

Reviewed: 04-16-19

great narration of an even greater story. a great audiobook choice if you are reading this trying to decide if you should buy it, I would totally recommend you do so.

I hope they make this in to a TV series or set of epic movies. it was a great story and needed telling. I still can't believe it is a true story, but it totally is.I would've liked to heard more about the other crew members of his tank but there's plenty of other characters involved who make up for that. A great American tanker hero who lived it and paid the price for admission.

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good story \ great narration

Reviewed: 02-23-19

excellent story no doubt.
the performance of the narrator was absolutely perfection. really made listening to it that much better.
if I ever wrote a book, I would demand this guy to do the narration if he's still in the game.

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Not nearly as exciting as told.

Reviewed: 12-22-17

i have so many books on our recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that i could almost be an amateur military historian on them. i listen as i drive and i drive a bunch for work. this story is both amazing and harrowing but i feel that between the author and the narrator it just never really delivered the potential.
like many others,i followed this series of events as they became public in the late fall and winter of 2001. the false surrender and battle at the fortress where the CIA agent was unfortunately killed . the book does a great job with research and of drawing the timeline and series of events beforehand but i just found the narration flat. not unpleasantly so, just kinda dull and story told from a detached perspective. i do have high hopes for the movie version next month!
this is by no means a terrible book. I'm sure the author did the best he could and i bet it wasn't very easy getting any of the surviving S.F. participants to cooperate with much detail. sometimes an awesome story just comes across flat because the narrator had poor direction or was just bad in general. the men in this book are no doubt some real bad asses and this story is real life. my slight criticisms are in no way directed at the actual happenings, they're just the things i didn't care for in this audio books telling of them.
i wish they'd start putting some real effort into the production values on the audio book versions . they could be so entertaining. sorry now I'm ranting off on a tangent. this book is worth owning just to hear the facts laid out about what these amazing men accomplished. they really did take the country from the Taliban.

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THIS is it!

Reviewed: 04-29-17

wasn't sure what to expect in this audio book, but here's what I got..
Mr O'Neill tells a great and exciting accounting of nearly every phase of his becoming. This is not just a book about the bin Laden raid. it quite equally covers many other interesting parts of his career. I usually find myself skipping some early chapters in order to avoid boredom but this story was different. The fact that the narrator is the author was a great decision. his voice projects well and carries good inflection . not a monotone narrator whatsoever. As for the meat and potatoes , the story is great. I usually listen while driving. I can say that more than once I found myself sitting in park but unable to end my listening session just then. I love war memoirs and first hand military history. if you do as well, this is a book you won't be disappointed in.

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great

Reviewed: 12-12-16

good book. decent narration. lots of individual battle stories wrapped together with an overview of the way the generals and field commanders points of view on the events leading to the second battle of Fallujah. I've listened to it numerous times.

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classic

Reviewed: 12-04-16

great overall. you don't need my input here I guess. this book is legendary, just buy it already.

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The definitive account of Operation Anaconda !

Reviewed: 07-09-16

This book is the one to get if you are looking for a complete and very comprehensive telling of Anaconda. The author reallys digs in and lays out the conditions that led to the tragic failures and wonderful successes of the battle. I will admit that from the telling of this story it really seems that the author has a raging hard-on for the navy S.E.A.Ls . At times it almost seems an anti seals propoganda piece, lol. There are really only 3 possibilities for this. Either the author hates seals, the delta guys that were interviewed hated them or the seals in this battle just were not as good as they needed to be and it is total truth. I expect the truth lies somewhere in between the 3.
The story starts out slow with lots of pre-planning and personality conflicts but As the story progresses it is much better to listen to. The narrator has a good voice and tells the story with good inflecton. Overall this is a great telling and would be a good addition if you like this kind of book as I do.

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1 person found this helpful

Great!

Reviewed: 06-07-16

I thought this book was great
the story was solid and not meandering. it didn't loose me in too much inconsequential back story or side notes. he pretty much gives a summed up experience of the pre deployment and deployment highlights of the busy days ,key players, and big fights during his time in Afghanistan. He sounds like a solid leader who trusted his soldiers to make life and death decisions without micromanagement from his command. I thought he did a great job calling out and giving credit to the soldiers on the ground and in the air who were in his story. the book didn't seem like it was written from the point of view of a selfish person looking to make all the successes his and the failures someone else's. only thing that would have made the book even better would have been for each of the air crews flying the gun ships and medivacs to have told the story of the individual battles and occurrences in their own words but The author does a good job telling their side. you can tell he has done some pretty extensive interviews with them to get the detail be brings to this book. I enjoyed the narration as well. so much of a good audio book depends on it. the best story with a crap narrator is not even listenable for me whereas even a mediocre story with a great voice who puts emotion and inflection into his words can make for an excellent listen. fortunately this audio book has both a compelling story and very good narrator telling it. I've listened to it twice already.

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4 people found this helpful

listen if you wanna know the truth about Benghazi

Reviewed: 04-05-16

very detailed account from the perspective of the operators who were there.
I always thought this story was tragic but all the finger pointing from the political folks had clouded my understanding of this battle. in this book they lay it on the table and let you make your own conclusions on why it went so bad for those 4 heroes.
it's not really a war memoir and not a blow by blow of a firefight per say. it's a cumulative accounting of the times preceeding ,during and immediately after the bullets started flying. a great job was done in describing the men who fought and those who didn't come back. it helps add a very personal aura to the story . the narrator was good and although the book is short they do a wonderful job and don't leave you feeling like a lot was left unsaid.

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1 person found this helpful