Echo Platoon is just like those before it. Lots of blood, guts, cussing and thrill. Nothing here is new except the people who get killed. People should read this book if 1) they want to know more about the capabilities of the military, 2) they want to learn a little more about what happens around the world, 3) the just enjoy plain old action adventures. Stay away from the book if fair writing and extreme use of foul language bothers you. I would prefer Marcinko to quit making asides to his editor during the story. It only seems to help fill up pages. I would also prefer he stay within the action once it starts and identifies people and past events within another part of the book. Once the the hunter is after the prey and the killing begins, stay there. I find myself jumping through some passages just to stay on track with what is happening.
Marcinko will give you a slight sense of the fast-paced action of war and will give you an appreciation for those who still wish to make men of war within our military instead of trying to make the military a social club. I think future books will be even better based on the current status of our country and President Bush's attack attitude favored by Marcinko.

Yeah, we know how The Rogue Warrior says he "loves pain" because it lets him know he's "alive", but having enjoyed all of the previous titles in this series, this long awaited sequel was, to me, more than a bit disappointing.

First, we had to wait too many months for the paperback! Seems like TRW is milking his true fans for hardcover-prices longer and longer. Or is that his publisher we should blame?

Ol' Richard is getting on in years, as he admits himself. His formula plots are getting a bit tired too. This book reads just like the last two with almost identical action scenes. Haven't we clambered up the off-shore oil rig before? Didn't we waste some lizard-lipped political bad-guy in previous titles.

Marcinko is still at the head of the assault, but suffers more (self-sustained) injuries than any of his team. Will he ever admit he's too old for this kind of life? Still, the action is fast, the language "frank" and the victories oh-so sweet.

Not five stars, like the previous titles, but still worth a good read. But save your $ and just go for the paperback... preferably used.

No hold Barred. I'm a BIG Marcinko fan. So you know where I'm coming from. Marcinko is the real thing. He's not making this stuff up as he goes along. BTDT is the code of the Rogue Warrior. Action fans will love this one as all the others. Sure they're all the same, but WHO cares!? We read Marcinko because we know what to expect. Blood & Guts action. Tell it like it is politics and tongue & cheek narrative. If you want the technicalities of Plot, read Clancy. If you crave prose, stick to your romance. But if you love a good fight Marcinko is your man! He doesn't pull any punches. He's rude crude and meaner than a Cobra and he makes absolutely certain you get your money's worth out of every read. I hope he keeps them coming for the fans. I highly recommend this book.

I've read all of the Rogue Warrior books, plus the Marcinko book on leadership. I was hoping this book would be about non-fictional accounts of the missions in which these SpecOps warriors participated. However, there is very little here on missions except for oblique references, probably to classified missions. Mostly it covers why each got into the SEALS, and how they enjoyed working under Marcinco due to his management abilities and his confidence in his troops. This is a good backgrounder if you're a manager and want to know how to lead the troops, and it fits in with the Rogue Warrior's other management books. But you'll be disappointed if you were looking for shootin' and lootin', in which case you should stick to the Rogue's fiction books.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who's not already a fan of the Rogue Warrior books. It's basically a collection of essays by friends of Marcinko (most of whom have been used as characters in his novels) about their background, including combat experiences, etcetera.

This is also the first Marcinko book I've read that seemed to be clearly aimed, at least in part, at the audience for his two management and leadership books. That is business people who want to be hardcore. To this end, all the essays touch on the individual's view on teamwork and what makes a good leader, etc.

All in all, interesting for fans of Marcinko's books; useful for people who want to understand how a team should or can work.

If you have read any of Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior Series you will love this book. It really fills in the gaps about the members of the team Marcinko takes with him on his adventures. The best part is that Marcinko gives you his point of view on each team member then lets the team member tell you about himself in their own words. I can't wait to see a Rouge Warrior Movie!!

Let's get one thing straight right out of the chute: the "Rogue Warrior" series of novels aren't going to be winning Pulitzers anytime soon. These are pure, testosterone-driven, profanity-laced, escapes from reality; they have been a collection of books that have been fun to read. However, after reading "Rogue Warrior: Detachment Bravo", I have come to the conclusion that it may be time for Richard Marcinko to retire to his Rogue Manor.

For starters, the most obvious criticism of "Detachment Bravo" is its utter predictability. It is a trend that started several novels ago and gets worse with each successive book. Heck, even someone who has only read one or two of his books could guess the action and plot. You can ALWAYS guarantee one or more sequences where Mr. Marcinko loses his weapon or runs out of ammo and has to grapple in hand-to-hand combat with a bad guy, will go personally greet and smack around the chief villain in the story, will go meet and smack around his superiors, and - in the climatic battle at the end of the story - will lose his weapon or ammo and kill the villain in a prolonged hand-to-hand combat sequence. Honest to goodness: for a guy who preaches perfection and team support, he is always goofing up, and his teammates - who are there to back him - are never around to shoot the bad guy he's wrestling. Again, I know it's fiction, but it really starts to grate on a reader after a while.

The second criticism is that the plot in "Detachment Bravo" was poor. This series has never been too much about a plot, but he has done better. This one was not well thought-out, seemed disjointed in a lot of places, and was simply poorly developed. Yes, the reader knows who the bad guy(s) are, but it is never fully certain what their ultimate aim is or - more importantly - what they're doing other than trotting the globe on a yacht. What the reader is left with are the usual Rogue Warrior cliches found in every one of his books and the aforementioned predictability.

Readers who want to get Richard Marcinko at his very best should read his first two books: the nonfiction "Rogue Warrior" and the first fiction book "Rogue Warrior II: Red Cell". They launched him to stardom, but he never really held this high level, slowly tapering off until a precipitous decline in quality of his last couple of novels. I rate the book with two stars; it could have easily been a one-star review, but he still wins points for sheer escapism in his writing.

As I indicated at the outset, it may be time for Mr. Marcinko to put the "Rogue Warrior" series out to stud. If he decides to continue the series, this reader hopes that he will take a year or two off and develop a better story. Otherwise, I'm not wasting my money.

Not quite as good as Echo Platoon, or previous works, but still a decent read.

The basic gist is that Dick has been exiled to running a joint counter-terrorist operation in England/N. Ireland with Mick Owen and soldiers from various services. They're hunting the True IRA, a group that in Real Life is laughably incompetent but suddenly has an infusion of funds that they're using to do some really unpleasant stuff. Things go wrong, Dick gets his face in the news, again, and he gets an assignment to hunt down a splinter group, the Green Hand Defenders, and to eventually get their backers, a pair of Irish dot-com billionaires.

Several themes stand out. First, the Rogue Warrior (R) is getting really old. He misses stuff he would've picked up on three books ago, stuff that's blindingly obvious to the reader. His network of support is retiring, and his patron, General Crocker, is taking his terminal leave.

There's also more of a focus on Dick this time. In past issues, his supporting cast was a lot more involved. This time, though, it seems like they're just...there. Even Mick Owens barely does anything all novel long. Oh, they do stuff, it's just more glossed over than anything else.

Finally, the opposition...just doesn't have any caliber to it. The dot-com billionaires are really rather pathetic, and none of the hired hands stand out as worthy opponents. The method the tangos were going to hit Target # 1 with was impressive, to say the least, but that was it. I'd really've liked somebody for Dick to fight who I could be truly worried would win.

This is, of course, a good novel. It's entertaining, informative, and downright humorous at times. It's not quite as good as those that have come before, though.

This is another great book by Marcinko. In this book Marcinko comes up against one of the World's deadliest terror groups, the IRA. To be specific he actually takes on several IRA splinter groups two of which(the Green Hand Defenders and another one called the True IRA) prove to be some of the toughest and best trained bad guys dick has yet faced.
Like all of his books this one is true to life in terms of Counter Terrorist tactics, intelligence gathering and the deadly effeicency of the Irish guerillas. But in the end the bad people all get thier just desserts and Dickey boy saves the day, it is good fun and an exciting read all the way.

Well, I thought this book was a good read, and a good account of Chalkers career. I'll have to say the book was less detailed and obviously doesn't have the unique view of things that Marcinko did, but that doesn't lessen Chalkers' accomplishments. It was really cool to get another perspective on formation of Seal Team 6 and Red Cell, and also to compare accounts of Urgent Fury between One Perfect Op and Inside Delta Force.
As far as Inside Delta Force, the books do give the impression that ST6 was built more from the ground up and operating in a more balls to the wall manner than Delta Force, of course that doesn't change the fact that both units are the best in the world at what they do, and it goes without saying that there's alot that the books don't mention about the units' operations.

This is an excellent book, the story of an incredible carreer told with intelligence, humility and humor. If you have read the story in Richard Marchinko's excellent Red Cell et al., this book provides a fascinating opportunit to hear the same stories from another perspective. In the same spirit as Marchinko's books, "One Perfect Op" is not a boastful shoot 'em up, rather thoughtful reflections showing that even motivated highly-traned SEALs can have doubts, fears and bad luck, but that teamwork and training really work. It is heartening to know that there have been and hopefully will continue to be people of Command Master Chief Stalker's quality defending our nation.

An excellent book, not in any way a boastful shoot-em up, rather a thoughtful and balanced look at a life in the SEAL Teams along the lines of Richard Marcinko's non-fiction books. It is particularly interesting to see the same events through the eyes of Mr. Chalker in contrast to those of Mr. Marcinko. The importance of perserverance and teamwork to success comes through along with the quality of the training these men receive. A valuable contribution.

It's aptly named; violence is all it's about. There is none of the finesse, characterizations or political subtleties that made the previous Rogue Warrior novels, co-authored by John Weisman, so entertaining and - yes - uplifting.
Marcinko is a bona fide warrior - a BTDT whose two non-fiction books, Leadership Secrets, and Strategies for Success, are permanent installations in my home library. His original book, Rogue Warrior, the autobiography, is another keeper - one of the most inspirational and motivating I've ever read.
Unfortunately, Violence of Action makes a mockery of all that went before. It's cartoonish in its simplicity, gratuitously violent without any redeeming qualities, and mouthily preachy without being the least bit inspiring. When one of Demo Dick's teammates died, in prior books, you really cared... about them, their families, the SEAL community. Not so in Violence of Action; I kept wishing someone would shoot either the characters or me and put me out of my misery.
I am crazy about Commander Richard Marcinko. I have the utmost respect for all that he's accomplished, all that he's survived, and the kind of life he's lived. Yes, he's rough around the edges and I probably wouldn't want to bring him home to meet my mother, but he also has the courage of his convictions, which is rare today.
Please don't judge his abilities by this book; it is NOT a good representation (although a lot of his detractors would say it is) of the Rogue Warrior character. There is none of the self-deprecating humor found in the earlier works.
It begs the question whether Mr. Weisman was the driving force behind the other bestsellers.

ive read the entire rogue warrior series, the latest being violence of action. i have enjoyed them all. before i get into violence of action, id first like to say that i have recently found out from a very, very credible source that the rogue warrior fiction series, after the original rogue warrior autobiography, are written entirely by richard marcinkos co-authors. weisman and now greg walker. marcinko only reads them over and gives his ok. very little contribution at all from the rogue warrior himself. this bothered me greatly. i know they are fiction, but i at least expected it to be fiction written by him, using his thoughts, ideas and knowledge. after all, it says by richard marcinko on every book. very dissapointing.

as far as violence of action... more of the same fast, violent action. however, nowhere near as complicated and in depth as previous books. it seemed rushed to me... or, overedited i dunno. also, as another reviewer has stated, you simply dont care for the charactors like in earlier books. overall, a good, fast special forces novel, if not taken too seriously.

Anybody thinking Dick Marchinco had become an anachronism got a wake-up call on 9/11 of last year. Arguably, that included Marchinco himself, since his recent books, while still lots of fun to read, had become formula-driven - not really the work of a man feeling himself in tune with his times. However, with Violence in Action, Demo Dick is back with us in lethal force, invigorated once again with the purpose of his life. It's the best book he's produced since the original Rogue Warrior appeared more than a decade ago. While the distinctive Rogue voice will be recognizable to readers of this series, many of the formulaic elements are diminished or gone - the rambling asides, the sarcastic portraits of inept bureaucrats, the convoluted accounts of global detective work, punctuated by stylized bursts of action, as Dick and his boys unravel some new terrorist conspiracy. Violence of Action, in contrast, proceeds without digression, like a cannon shot from page one to the end. Surprisingly, Marchino chooses not to exploit the mood of the times here to cast Islamic militants as his villains. His Bad Guys are American white supremacists who spout mystical gibberish about Yahweh and have seized a nuclear device with which they plan to incinerate Portland, Oregon. Moreover, they're not only home-grown Americans, but former Navy Seals - blood brothers to Dick - who have drifted way off the reservation and betrayed everything he holds holy. The fury with which he hunts them down is unprecedented in anything he's written. There's a graphic torture scene early in the book that I could have done without and that most readers will find abhorrent. However, Dick doesn't revel in the ugly business - he simply describes it - and he seems to be making a philosophical point of sorts, since the information extracted from one thug's pain, in the end, saves the lives of half a million or so innocents. Ironically, in this most furious of his books, Marchinco seems finally to have wrapped his testosterone-addled brain around the idea of females in the military: both the fiercest warrior on his new combat team, and his new boss, whom he honestly respects, are women. Who says that Old Rogues are set in their attitudes? Anyone who reads Marchinco either loves him or hates him - he destroys all middle ground. His fans will be enthralled by this book, and to them I recommend it.