This book has a lot of great pictures but that's about it. If you are looking for some insight into Navy SEAL equipment then this book is for you. Over half the book is dedicated to pictures of gear and descriptions of what each SEAL is issued. There are some tactics but if you don't have some type of tactical movement knowledge it may be difficult to follow.

The gear that is shown is certainly not top of the line new gear that the military uses. It looks like somebody from training smuggled some old gear aside and took a few pictures. The pics are still good and the reader gets a view into what tactical gear the SEAL teams use.

I was suprised with the usefulness of the book. I was expecting a glossed over concept and got a book which offered some very useful info on basic CQB concerns and how to apply those to a shipboard environment. Maybe not a good "starter" book, but a valuable addition for people with some idea of CQB and CT operations.

Amazing book, I use this all the time when entering my job, just in case a nasty ol' terrorist attempts to jump me, I'll be able to deal with him with a swift NAVY SEAL style beat down! Incredibly informative...

This book was sort of a glossary, combined with a book of stories. It had a lot of definitions inside, along with stories, which made it seem like it was more of a dictionary for Navy Seals. This book was still an interesting book, and a good book to read, although I was mislead to think it was more of a story book. The CAR-15 name for the M4 im not sure is correct, but I have heard the term. But I haven't seen a m203 on one I guess

This book was sort of a glossary, combined with a book of stories. It had alot of definitions inside, along with stories, which made it seem like it was more of a dictionary for Navy Seals. This book was still an interesting book, and a good book to read, although I was mislead, I thought it was more of a story book.
I wasn't dissapointed by this book, it was still fun, and grabbing. I would give this book 4 stars because it wasn't exactly what type of book I was looking for, but was still a book I would recomend to people that have a slight interest in military topics.

This book is one of the best I have ever seen on Navy SEALs. It contains the most information and the most pictures of the SEALs in action. It shows every single weapons they use. It would have been better if they had explained it a little more clearly, though. To that 12-year-old reader, the P7 and the P9 actually both do exist, even though the book may have mixed up the two. Also, the M-4 being called the CAR-15 isn't wrong. In fact, they are right to refer to it as that. CAR-15 is the official technical military designation of the M-4. CAR stands for Compact Assault Rifle, since the M-4 is a compact version of the M-16, which is also designated as the AR-15. So referring to it as the CAR-15 isn't wrong. It's just that M-4 is a more proper designation. Hope that's all cleared up!

Blake and the Team are back in the thick of it. After finding counterfeit cash in the middle east, theyr're sent back to destroy the factory. We get to see how they plan,execute and how they react when it all hits the fan!! This is another great page turner from Keith Douglass, you won't want it to end.

Once again, Keith Douglass delivers another action packed Seal mission. I just want to say that if you ever had the slightest fantasy about becoming a Seal, this book is for you. I recommend buying this book, and every other one in the series, because they are very re-readable. Please email me with your opinion, and if Keith Douglass ever reads this, please keep writing Seal Team Seven books, please!

Was a very good book. Read all the carrier books and seal team so far. Excellent author and i will read every one after this too. they are exciting and realistic. Enjoy!

this is one of the best books i ever read! what an action packed, thrilling sequal to all of the others. if you want to read a great book you have to gey one from keith douglas!

I think it described the guns great and the detail in the book is awesome. I learned alot about NAVY SEALS from this book and did research on it and everything in there is true. The combat scenes were better than in any war book Ive read.

The Seals are back in action in China. A Seal mission is never simple and this book accurately explains the missions of Seald, what they do, and the risks they take. Explosive and a delight to read one of Mr. Douglass's best. One of the best special warfare books ever written.

H. Jay Riker is one of my favorite authors, and I have the entire SEALs, the Warrior Breed series. But while "Duty's Call" was good, I am afraid it was not quite up to par. A lot of it was simply rehashing stuff from other books, and that gets old after a while, although I can understand it. A reader doesn't always start a series with the first book. I noticed that the character of David Coffer, creator of the UDTs and a familiar character from "Silver Star" and "Purple Heart," has been renamed Paul Coffer. I also expected the story to focus more on Arthur Gunn and his death. That is the direction the prologue led me to believe the story would take. Instead, we find out in the epilogue that he died a few years after the story takes place. Overall, good, but not as good as I expected. I hope the next one's better.

I got the impression that Mr. Riker has a committment to the publisher for "X" amount of books and this one was just a filler until he could write something else. As much as I admire what the SEALS did in Vietnam, enough already, this is getting repetitive. I'm sure that the SEAL teams have been involved in other actions since Vietnam, and I believe that now is the time to start to write about them.

As far as the whole Tangretti/Richardson/Veronica thing, enough already! If I wanted to read a soap opera or bodic ripper, I would. I also find myself tired of the whole Steve Tangretti mental gymnastics that are used to "justify" his various daliances throughout the series. If I want to read about this sort of thing I'm sure there are several books available in the marraige section of Amazon. Stick to the main story, leave out the breast beating already.

I await the next book in the series, if it looks to be more of the same, then so much for Mr. Riker and the SEAL series.

When I picked up this book I was afraid of another "shoot up the bad guys and go home" plot, but Riker proved me wrong. Duty's call proved to illustrate different aspects of covert operations. He tells of hardships that happen involving SEAl members outside of direct combat situations. While excessive repetition of Tangeretti's family relationships and his fallen comrade, Hank Richardson, set a mood of slight irratibility. Overall the novel draws a clear and exciting picture of American and Southern Vietnamese special operations during the early stages of the Vietnam War.

The translators used the least popular copy for their translation(There are several different versions of this book, this being the least popular because of the poor quality of the last 50 chapters). Not only is the version a poor one, but the translations are poor as well. Compared with Sydney Shapiro's translation(The Outlaws of the Marsh), you will find that this is more like the work of a student. To rate the three different translations, I give Sydney's 100, 50 for Pearl Bucke's and 15 for this one.

Another reviewer complained that this is based on the 'least popular' version of the story. They're right in only the loosest sense. Fashions change: that 'least popular' version was the dominant version of the story for most of its history! Moreover, the full (four book) version of the Shapiro text also draws on that version.
But the sure clue is that Pearl Buck's piece of orientalist flim-flam, which distorts the story and squeezes it into an unnatural idiom, gets rated higher (and the J H Jackson translation, which while poor, is nevertheless preferable to Buck's, is unmentioned). The Dent-Young's version is immeasurably better written, and it is clear that they have been at pains to try to capture the immediacy and wit of the original: no easy task. I think in the first book they succeed admirably. While later books have some problems (the names are always a sticking point) the first book has a verve that draws you in. They have also smoothed out some peculiarities present in previous translations so that there are no 'blips' where you can't work out why something happened or where something came from.
American readers with an intolerance for anything but US culture may have a problem with the British idiom occasionally employed in a desire to capture the naturalness of the original, but in that case why would such readers want to read a Chinese book?

It's too bad that this translation doesn't get more attention. The father and son team brings this classic to light in a fun and engaging manner. Even better, unlike many translations, they manage to keep the poetry at the same level of aptitude as the prose.

The original itself is a classic of Chinese Literature, although not as powerful and comprehesensive as Dreams of Red Mansions. Still it's a fun read.

Mr Kelly may have quite a bit of inside knowledge of the SEALs and the Air Commandos, but none of that knowledge is in evidence in this reed thin novel. Most of the people that read this book and think that Mr Kelly knows and displays everything, just show you how little they know about the military in general and how much less they know about special operations in particular.

Having said that, it was still an entertaining book. Not high literature, but hey, you can't have everything.

I found this book by Mr. Kelly quite interesting. I do a lot of travelling with my job, and frequent airports regularly. When you can filter out busy airport noises and become fully engrossed in a book it has to be good. I plan on reading all your books Mr. Kelly, Keep up the good work!

After read this book I simply had to stop and drop you few lines !!!!!! Orr Kelly wrote the most enjoyable history I had never read before, he could put action and political problems and he also showed that soldiers have family problems.

Welcome to the original SEALs where author James Watson could be expected to break all Ten Commandments in order to get the job done. PROVIDED THE JOB IS DRINKING! In all the other Special Forces books I read with amazement how Force Recon Marines, Snipers, Delta Force and Rangers spent up to a week in the jungle gathering intel while avoiding not only booby-traps, ambush and detection from the enemy but tigers and leopards. Watson's idea of a mission in Vietnam was going out for 2 hours in Levi's blue jeans then getting back to base to get drunk before dark. Basically "Charlie" had very little fear of this alcoholic with a green face. He once looked so exhausted his superior suggested he stay in while his men go on patrol. Was he overworked? Obviously not as his men weren't. He was exhasted from spending all his free time drinking rather than resting or sleeping. So when they came to tell him his men were under fire guess where he was? In the bar getting drunk of course. I have the utmost respect and gratitude for those who served with pride in the Vietnam War because preserving freedom is always a just cause. Unfortunately that cause never occurred to shoot-first-Watson who killed a newborn baby at its mother's breast with a shotgun then blamed the enemy for bringing his family to a war. Whose country did he think it was? Watson was far too busy lying to superiors, stealing from anyone and cheating to increase rate (rank) to do any recon for his "missions."

I have read over a dozen books on Special Forces (all nonfiction) and James Watson's two books: Walking Point and Point Man were by far the worst. Forcing myself to finish this diatribe was far more painful than any training Watson endured to become a SEAL back in the days when you smoked between sneaking out of exercises. Basically it's a self-serving story profiling how chronic alcoholism increases delusions of grandeur and the self-glorification of an undisciplined wannabe tough guy. Not only was James Watson an unprofessional soldier but he tends to brag about it. A real man doesn't sucker punch a fellow soldier in a bar then give himself a pat on the back.

...

Chief Watson does a very good job giving the readers some insight to what the Vietnam war was like to Navy SEALs. I found that many parts of this book are very much like Richard Marcinko's Rogue Warrior. I learned many things about the Navy SEALs and their techniques from reading this book, granted they were techniques from over 30 years ago. I commend authors like Watson who give the public a glimpse of what their world looked like in war times.

with all due respect reader from miniapolis, u are wrong in everything u said. Chief Watson is a great SEAL...after successful ops SEALs always went to a bar to party and bond...its called UNIT INTEGRETY...after enough partying all SEALs within a unit should be able to finish each other sentences and trust each other with their lives (which they may have to sometime). And the way u put it is that Chief Watson sucker punched the guy for no reason...well if u read the book, the Chief was a guest in the O Club and some other chief (also a guest) came over to one of Watson's superior officers (a LT) and said "Your one of those Loud mouth SEALS arent you?" and then Watson even asked the LT's permission before punching him...then when the XO escorted him out he told Watson that he would have loved for him to stay but it would make him look bad...so in conclusion until u have gone to war and been out in the jungle with someone trying to kill you, or until u have had all of ur body messed up by a mine then please dont go badmouthing a war hero...thank you

I purchased this book so I could stay in shape and compete with the younger kids in the youth sports I Coach. This book is excellent and easy to read and follow. Good Pictures and great routines for beginner to advanced. This book got me in the mood to excersize and keeps me there.

This book is worth a read if you are intending to become a Navy SEAL or are just trying to get in shape. It contains beginning and intermediate levels; although, it lacks an advanced level. This books workout programs take no mor than two hours a day. I thought it was worth the money.

This book is an excellent primer on Navy SEAL conditioning. Seems to be pimarily for people interested in setting the stage for the kind of intense training that being a SEAL entails without demanding that they subordinate their entire lives to a Navy SEAL's fitness priorities. Basically, I'm this type of person. I have no chance of matching the physical prowess of a Navy SEAL, and thank heavens this book doesn't require me to. What it does is open the door to using the kinds of exercises that will keep me in great shape and even enable me to raise my workout intensity a notch or two without severely altering my lifestyle. The workouts are all straightforward and well-presented, and I felt comfortable mixing them into my regimen. Pretty cool. I recommend it.

Reading the back cover synopsis made me think this novel would be great. The North Koreans invading South Korea, and taking the Vice President hostage. Well, the SEALs in this novel take on several missions into enemy territory. The first mission is to rescue the VP, but it only takes a chapter or two to do that. Too easy. Felt this novel could have been better written and better plotted.

Well, the VP is safely back in Seoul. In the meantime, Don Stroh and the CIA send the SEALs on various missions into North Korea. One to destroy a remote radio transmission station that the U.S. and S. Korea do not want the NK's to get their hands on. Another mission has them rescuing a general and several CO's in NK territory.

But the main mission eventually to try and end this mini war between North and South is to take out the 3 North Korean generals managing the political/military scene of their country.

One fascinating part of the book, was a conflict between Seals, Fernandez and Douglas. They get into fistacuffs a couple of times, and are threatened by j.g. Dewitt that they would be shipped out of the SEALs and to Adak, Alaska. Well, it gets interesting toward the end of the novel, when the SEALs are in a firefight with some North Korean patrol and Douglas is ordered to cover Fernandez. Well he doesn't. Fernandez is seriously wounded. Also, a couple of other SEALs get grounded by wounds, and you may not see two or three of them in the next novel. At least, I'm not expecting too. Hope the author brings back Magic Brown.

Action packed from front to end. It was like 4 or 5 books all rolled into one, with all of the different missions that had to be completed. A must read for the Seal Team Seven fan!!!! I have read all of the Seal Team Seven books, except for Direct Action. I can't find it. All of them are four and five star books. This one is excellent.

This book is very good. Lots of action in this book. They are in a lot of mission in this book.