The History of America at War Offers a Lesson for All (New History Book on America's Military)

Human Events ^ | 9/1/2006 | Jed Babbin

[Pyro7480]

H.W. Crocker’s Don’t Tread on Me: A 400-Year History of America at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting is three books in one. It entertains like a novel, teaches like a comprehensive text and captures the secret essence of its subject like a great biography. Wars—both conventional and unconventional—are the fundament of every nation’s history. In this book, a tour de armed force, we see 400 years of American history from what Crocker calls the “gentle art of scalping” to post-Vietnam America resurgent in the fight against terrorists....

In the beginning, there was one tomahawk. Crocker tells us that America’s first special operations force, Rogers’ Rangers of 1755, “…were frontiersmen, hard men and, as their numbers grew, they even employed such ruffians as Irishmen and Spaniards, to the scandal of Calvinist New England.” Among the weapons carried by the first Rangers was the tomahawk, as useful for scalping a dead enemy as for cutting pieces of wood. It was, Crocker recounts, by winning the French and Indian Wars—allowing Americans such as George Washington to learn how to win wars by fighting by their rules—that the British lost their most valuable colonies.

In the end, there is the other tomahawk. Superpower 21st-Century America—armed with a high-tech arsenal, including the Tomahawk cruise missile—struggles to deal with the low-tech Islamist terrorists armed with a dead-end ideology.

[Pyro7480]

There can never be enough books on the U.S. military.

[fredhead]

Another good book on American military history is "The Wars of America" by Robert Leckie. The book is several years old, and covers only to the Gulf War, but is very good reading.

Other titles by this author (who is a Guadalcanal vet) include, "Delivered From Evil - The Saga of World War II", "None But the Brave - The Saga of The Civil War", and "George Washington's War - The Saga of the American Revolution". He also wrote a history of the battle for Guadalcanal, which I have yet to read. The other four books I listed are really good, in fact, I am rereading the Revolutionary War history now.

[NonValueAdded]

History / reference bump

[visitor]

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[visitor]

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[akorahil]

George Washington's War - The Saga of the American Revolution

I have this book! Fantastic read! I will have to get this most current book of this author.

[fredhead]

The first one of his books that I read was the WWII history - found it in the USS JFK's ship's library. All four books listed are really great.

I'm in the part about Arnold's treason.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

Kenneth Roberts' Northwest Passage is a great historical fiction:
http://www.amazon.com/Northwest-Passage/dp/0892725427/sr=1-3/qid=1157568363/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-1118842-4062548?ie=UTF8&s=books

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for the bump...sounds like a good read.

[bboop]

Oooooh, Harry Crocker? He is awesome. His last book on ... Western Civ or something was terrific. Had a TV show on EWTN. Good for Harry.

[Pyro7480]

You're thinking of Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, which, indeed, is a terrific book.

[akorahil]

??
I'm in the part about Arnold's treason
You are listed in the credits?

[bboop]

Thanks, yes, that's the one. And his tv series was great too. Sounds like a good book.

[SE Mom]

bttt

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