Alamosa Public Library

Brandon Webb's experiences in the world's most elite sniper corps are the stuff of legend. From his grueling years of training in Naval Special Operations, to his combat tours in the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan, The Red Circle provides a rare and personal look at the inner workings of the US military through the eyes of a covert operations specialist. Yet it is Webb's distinguished second career designing new post-9/11 sniper training courses that...

From the legendary special operations sniper and bestselling author of The Reaper comes a rare and powerful audiobook on the art of being a sniper. Way of the Reaper is a step-by-step accounting of how a sniper works, through the lens of Irving's 10 most significant kills - none of which have been told before. Each mission is an in-depth look at a new element of eliminating the enemy, from intel to luck, recon to weaponry. Told in a thrilling narrative,...

In the fall of 2009, Taliban insurgents ambushed a patrol of Afghan soldiers and Marine advisors in a mountain village called Ganjigal. Firing from entrenched positions, the enemy was positioned to wipe out one hundred men who were pinned down and were repeatedly refused artillery support. Ordered to remain behind with the vehicles, twenty-one year-old Marine corporal Dakota Meyer disobeyed orders and attacked to rescue his comrades. With...

A former captain in the Marines' First Recon Battalion, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a point-blank account of twenty-first-century battle. Only one Marine in a hundred qualifies for Recon, charged with working clandestinely, often behind enemy lines. Fick's training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, and advances to the pinnacle--Recon--four years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. Along...

This documentary , "Operation Homecoming", was created to help U.S. troops and their families write about their wartime experiencess. The program sent distinguished authors to conduct writing workships at military installations across the country and overseas. Selected from more than12,000 pages submitted to the NEA, nearly one hundred memoirs, stories, poems, and letters are published in "Operation Homecoming"; Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front...

"Almost 2.5 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001. C.J. Chivers has reported from both fronts from the beginning, walking side by side with combatants for more than a dozen years. He describes the experience of war today as it is endured by those most at risk--the camaraderie and profound sense of purpose, alongside courage, frustration, and moral confusion mixed with technical precision ... [He] accompanied...

One haunting afternoon on Losano Ridge in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Captain Craig Mullaney and his infantry platoon were caught in a deadly firefight with al-Qaeda fighters, when a message came over the radio: one of his soldiers had been killed by the enemy. Mullaney's education, the four years he spent at West Point and the harrowing test of Ranger School, readied him for a career in the Army. His subsequent experience as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford...

"On September 11, 2001, Douglas Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action.

Shares the author's experiences as a Marine in Afghanistan from 2002-2003.