This is the finest biography of the life of Jumpin' Jim Gavin, a legendary World War II leader. The other biography is written by Bradley Biggs and lacks the thorough research of Booth & Spencer's work. Read Biggs if you need a summary (and somewhat biased rendition) of Gavin's heroic life of service to the nation. Read this book if you want the details of Gavin's life in an impartial account - from his days as an orphan, then adopted growing up in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania to his WWII exploits, service as Ambassador to France under President Kennedy and his time as CEO of Arthur D. Little & Company. This biography presents the uncut version of the life of James M. Gavin.

Many former and current paratroopers still pay homage to the memory of this great man. Gavin is buried in the cemetery at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Each year on 6 June, his wife Jean, other family members, and members of the 82nd Airborne Division Association, both officers and enlisted, gather for a D-Day memorial to honor one of the greatest leaders of the war. Gavin led the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment on airborne drops into Sicily and Salerno, and later he led the entire 82nd Airborne Division on the Normandy and Market Garden jumps. It is a fitting tribute that the impact of his legacy still lives on in the hearts of the men and women who knew him and went to war with him. If you want to understand why his memory still inspires many of us in uniform, read this book. (You can also get more insight into the man by reading the several books that Gavin wrote himself, like Crisis Now, Airborne Warfare, and On To Berlin.)

Highly recommended for all paratroopers and anyone who interacts with military professionals.

Converations With the Enemy is the well documented saga of the 14 year captivity of U.S. Marine PFC Robert Garwood in Vietnam. In September of 1965, while serving in Da Nang as a staff driver, Garwood was tasked to pick up a military member some distance from his base when he was accosted by the Viet Cong and placed into the enemy prison camp system.

Beginning his ordeal in Southern Vietnam, the book portrays a story of dreadful conditions suffered by American POW's in the worst types of conditions. The compelling narrative will illustrate how a U.S. serviceman can suffer and cope and adjust to his situation to make it survivable so that he may one day return home. But, it goes quite deeper than that.

We find that Garwood, while stationed at a number of prison camps in the south, was eventually joined by other captured American prisoners. Already in the camp system for many months on his own before seeing new Americans, he had to adjust his means of survivability in the way he interacted with the North Vietnamese enemy that held him.

Some of the measures he adopted were learning to speak the Vietnamese language fluently, interpreting for the camp hierarchy, assisting camp cadre with duties, and succumbing to propaganda viewpoints (after being tortured) to name just a view.

It is no great leap of logic that when new American prisoners were brought to the camp and witnessed Garwood's activities and unusual behaviors, he appeared to be colloborating with the enemy in certain ways and his actions could certainly appear to be traitorous. When described in detail by the authors, the activities of Garwood do appear to be detrimental to the U.S. soldiers code of conduct but you must also ask yourself this: In his position, what would you do to survive and to make ends meet in a very harrowing situation?

I agree that some of Garwood's actions are very suspect and quite possibly out of line and readers will cast their own judgement's about the controversial happenings in this book.

After years of confinement in Southern Vietnamese camps, the story shows how Garwood was eventually moved to North Vietnam to another camp and was "employed" in a matter of speaking by the North Vietnamese as a mechanic for their military vehicles. The methods by which he lived in that camp might also be seen as controversial depending on the views of the reader. There is no doubt though, like his life in the Southern Vietnamese camps it was far from pleasant. Using clandestine methods, Garwood was eventually able to get a note to a foreigner in Hanoi to alert the United States of his captivity in Vietnam.

Upon being repatriated back to the Unites States in 1979, his return is problematic and controversial to our government and to the Vietnamese government being that after the release of POW's in 1973, both governments claimed there were no more POW's in Vietnam. To compound the problem, Garwood is accused of committing several military crimes while he was in captivity and is faced with a court martial. Many of the POW's he was interned with at the different camps testify against him at his court martial adding further questions to the whole situation. This book will detail the elements of his trial and court martial proceedings and in the end, the reader will be left to form their own assumptions of what really is or is not true justice.

Being a military member, I had many conflicting emotions throughout this book and tried to be as objective as I could in my decisions of guilt or innocence. Readers will be put to the test also in this regard and it is not easy. Overall, the story is a very poignant testament to a sad, difficult and tragic time in Garwood's life and where it has left him to this day.

This book is highly recommended to anyone who is interested in Vietnam POW's and accounts of their captivity. The authors did a very good job in the detail and scope of the book keeping their views honest and non-judgemental.

Duncan Robinson is a professor at Yale, and his book on Stanley Spencer is a fine introduction to this mad eccentric from Cookham-on-Thames. Not long ago (1998) there was an exhibit of Spencer's work that traveled the United States, and so his name in this country is not as unknown as it used to be. Whether one is familiar with his work or not, this is a well balanced and nicely printed book, with over 100 reproductions, of which at least half are in color. I keep the book handy and have given copies of it to unsuspecting friends and relatives, who then (usually) become addicts of Mr. Spencer.

For those who have never seen Spencer's work, I certainly recommend using the internet as a first step in getting a feel for what he biographical and bibliographical information (although Robinson's book is not mentioned). The main drawback about looking at pictures on the internet is that many are so small and distorted that they dishonor the works they are trying to show; still, a visual approach is more effective than trying to describe the work of this extraordinary painter verbally. The pictures in Robinson's book, in contrast, are excellent reproductions and quite adequate as a means of presenting Spencer's work. I took a copy of this book to his exhibit and was satisfied with the quality of the reproductions one of England's most important painters of the 20th century.

The author's do not incude one fragment of testimony from Garwood's other American POWs who later testified against him at his court martial where he was convicted of being a turncoat traitor. This is nothing but a collection of half truths and fabracations.

So you've read the Hanoi Hilton stories; you know, the ones where the noble American pilots are tortured but do a pretty good job of 'keeping the faith' and sticking together. Well, this book will give you a different view: let's meet some American enlisted men in a jungle POW camp turning on eachother and acting like amimals. Some might find this shocking. Apart from telling the almost unbelievable story of an eccentric American defector, this book allows you to become a jungle captive and experience all the wretched elements that fate entails. In all fairness, I'm sure all soldiers--Americans or otherwise--DO NOT act this under extreme duress. By the way, this book WAS made into a movie and it was TERRIBLE. I think the Karate Kid guy played Garwood.

Truth is stranger than fiction. This young man, a PFC in his spit & polish uniform, 45 on his belt, a relatively new man in the motorpool goes to a remote spot to wait for his passenger and is captured by the Viet Cong. From his attire they decide he must be an important U.S. officer. (He was waiting for one). For a year he lives in a one man cage in the jungle rotting in his own filth before he is ever spoken to. Finally another prisoner arrives who is an officer and has the ability to speak Vietnamese and is an expert on survival. This young man probably believes that the officer is God. He takes every word as gospel. Another prisoner joins the team and the triangle puts some pressure on the relationships. They learn everything they can to try to survive. Escape attempts finally result in the slow and painful death of the Mentor officer. As the population grows, more complications arise in the relationships. After years of living like this newcomers assume that the young man is Vietnamese because of his language, demeanor, and the fact that he lives separately and has freedom to move about the camp in trustee fashion. And this is just the beginning of the story - his adventures continue for many years and the story takes interesting twists and turns ending up in a courtroom drama. Why this isn't a major motion picture I don't understand. Read this book. In fact - read all Winston Groom books they are fantastic.

If you have to waste your money, go ahead & purchase the book, but don't even think about wasting your time reading it. I've read a couple of these books now & the historical backround on bioterror is dated. Better information is available free on the internet.

However, three positive things come to mind that I gleaned from this book; 1.) how to properly put on & test a gas mask, 2. ) to locate your Israile style sealed-room on the downwind side of the dwelling, 3.) the reason to put your expedient positive-pressure (vacuum cleaner) device outside your safe-room (to keep the nasties outside).

Most of these, looking back should be obvious to any thinking individual, yet sometimes we tend to overlook the obvious so my wasted time reading this book could actually save my life someday.

All in all, I'd recommend you spend your $$$ and time on other far better resources. A Book I got a lot of useful information out of is "No Such Thing As Doomsday" by Philip Hoag.

(...) The "new version" still is a pre Y2K version. (...)

The book is average, worth purchasing but there are a few items that are disquieting. For example Larry Harris, a "former CIA microbiologist" is quoted extensively and apparently revered by the author. However, if you do some research on Larry Harris, you will find that he is a grade A survivalist, racist kook. The book also says anthrax is contagious! Worth $12 (...)

This book gives you a little history of bioterrorism. It gives a complete description of all different types of bioterrorism along with the likelyhood of occurance and the current possibilities of treatment and cure. The book also gives you several ways of preparing for the most likely diseases by purchasing self treatment in advance. "Dead Doctors Don't Treat Patients"