Community Corner
Books And DVDs For Memorial Day From the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library
Selections include "Black Hawk Down," "Flags of Our Fathers," and "Saving Private Ryan."
In honor of Memorial Day, we’ve gathered together a list of books and DVDs that tell the story of those who served in the United States Armed Forces.
The library will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday, May 31—so pick up your books ahead of time!
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Non-Fiction
Among Heroes
A U.S. Navy Seal’s True Story of Friendship, Heroism, and the Ultimate Sacrifice
Brandon Webb
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Offers profiles of eight fellow Navy SEAL members who lost their lives in the defense of their country, and sharing their heroic exploits, personal qualities, and the friendship that they shared.
Ashley’s War
The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Presents the story of First Lieutenant Ashley White and a groundbreaking team of female American warriors who served alongside Special Operations soldiers on the battle field in Afghanistan.
eBook on Hoopla Audiobook on Hoopla Library Catalog
Black Hawk Down
A Story of Modern War
Mark Bowden
A searing portrayal of modern warfare recounts a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, that resulted in the deaths of eighteen Americans and more than five hundred Somalis, examining the rationales behind the disastrous raid.
eBook on Hoopla Audiobook on Hoopla Library Catalog
Brothers Forever
The Enduring Bond Between a Marine and a Navy Seal That Transcended Their Ultimate Sacrifice
Tom Sileo, Tom Manion
Describes the story of how two Naval Academy roommates and close friends made the ultimate sacrifice defending America three years apart, one as a fallen US Marine, the other as a fallen US Navy SEAL.
Citizen Soldiers
The U.S. Army From the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945
Stephen E. Ambrose
A look at the last year of World War II in Europe–from D-Day to the surrender of Germany–draws on hundreds of interviews with and oral histories of the enlisted men and junior officers who helped win the war.
Audiobook on Hoopla Library Catalog
Connecticut Yankees at Antietam
John Banks
Connecticut Yankees at Antietam honors the brave soldiers who fought in the single bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
eBook on Hoopla Library Catalog
D-Day
The Battle for Normandy
Antony Beevor
Presents an account of the Normandy invasion that offers insight into the experiences of soldiers and French civilians, documenting the heavy casualties suffered on all fronts and the ways in which the war influenced relations between America and Europe.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Devotion
An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice
Adam Makos
Traces the inspirational story of famous Navy aviator duo Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown, recounting how they defied convention to serve their country, overcame racial barriers, and protected one another on a daring Korean War Mission.
Flags of Our Fathers
James Bradley
Focusing on the men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, this stirring chronicle of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II follows the young men–most of them barely out of high school–into the fiercest hand-to-hand combat of the war.
Ghost Soldiers
The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission
Hampton Sides
Chronicles the daring mission of the elite U.S. Army Sixth Ranger Battalion to slip behind enemy lines in the Philippines and rescue the 513 American and British POWs who had spent over three years in a hellish, Japanese-run camp near Cabanatuan.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Helmet for My Pillow
From Parris Island to the Pacific, a Young Marine’s Stirring Account of Combat in World War Ii
Robert Leckie
A soldier gives a riveting account of his World War II odyssey, from basic training all the way to the raging battles on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, sparing no detail of the horrors and sacrifices of war, in a book from which material was adapted for the forthcoming HBO miniseries The Pacific.
eBook on Hoopla Audiobook on Hoopla
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Lone Survivor
The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10
Marcus Luttrell
The leader, and only survivor, of a team of U.S. Navy SEALs sent to northern Afghanistan to capture a well-known al Qaeda leader chronicles the events of the battle that killed his teammates and offers insight into the training of this elite group of warriors.
eBook on OverDrive Audiobook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Medal of Honor
Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty
Peter Collier
A fascinating array of portraits, essays, and personal histories captures the heroism of more than one hundred of the living recipients of Aemrica’s highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, accompanied by 250 stunning duotone photographs.
eBook on Hoopla Library Catalog
Monuments
America’s History in Art and Memory
Judith Dupré
A leading architectural historian examines more than three dozen notable American monuments, including the Alamo, Gettysburg, Mount Rushmore, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and offers interviews with architects and other information.
Old Glory
American War Poems From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terrorism
Robert Hedin
For the first time, in one volume, the rich canon of American war poems, from “Yankee Doodle” to Robert Creeley’s “Ground Zero.”
Rampage
Macarthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila
James M. Scott
The author of Target Tokyo presents a history of the Battle of Manila that traces the capture of the Philippine capital by Japanese forces, the massacre of an estimated 100,000 civilians and liberation campaign that ultimately destroyed the city.
Red Platoon
A True Story of American Valor
Clinton Romesha
A comprehensive account of the 13-hour firefight at the Battle of Keating by a Medal of Honor recipient describes the harrowing events of the October 3, 2009 attack and how the sacrifices and victories of heroic men raised questions about whether the strategically vulnerable outpost should ever have been built.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Scorpion Down
Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: the Untold Story of the Uss Scorpion
Ed Offley
Offers a detailed view of the U.S.S. Scorpion, a nuclear submarine, and its sinking on Memorial Day, 1968, by a Soviet submarine, the exact circumstances of which were covered up by the United States government.
Audiobook on Hoopla Library Catalog
Service
A Navy Seal at War
Marcus Luttrell
A combat trained Navy SEAL shares dramatic stories from his Special Operations assignments throughout the world while highlighting the contributions of remarkable soldiers
Audiobook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Ship of Ghosts
The Story of the Uss Houston, Fdr’s Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors
James D. Hornfischer
Describes the loss of the cruiser U.S.S. Houston in the Dutch East Indies during the early days of World War II in the Pacific and the fate of the warship’s surviving crew, who were captured by the Japanese and forced to work as slaves on Japan’s brutal Burma-Thailand Death Railway.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Thirteen Soldiers
A Personal History of Americans at War
John McCain, Mark Salter
Presents an evocative history of Americans at war through the personal accounts of thirteen remarkable soldiers who fought in major military conflicts, from the Revolutionary War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unbroken
A World War Ii Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Laura Hillenbrand
Tells the gripping true story of a U.S. airman who was the soul surviver when his bomber crashed into the sea during World War II and had to face thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater.
eBook on OverDrive Audiobook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Walk in My Combat Boots
True Stories From America’s Bravest Warriors
James Patterson, Matt Eversmann
The decorated war hero who inspired the movie, Black Hawk Down, shares firsthand wartime accounts describing the courageous battlefield sacrifices of men and women from every branch and operational specialty of the U.S. military.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
The World War Ii Memorial
A Grateful Nation Remembers
Douglas Brinkley
Commemorates the American veterans who served in World War II, providing insights into the memorial’s symbolism and it stages of construction.
Fiction
Memorial Day
Vince Flynn
Learning about an imminent terrorist attack, CIA operative Mitch Rapp takes the lead in a commando raid into northern Pakistan, where he obtains information about a planned nuclear attack but suspects that a greater threat exists.
Audiobook on Hoopla Library Catalog
The Red Badge of Courage
Stephen Crane
A powerful and realistic novel details the men of C-for-Charlie company, before, during, and after the Allied effort at Guadalcanal and is the basis for the Academy Award-nominated film by Terrence Malick.
eBook on OverDrive Audiobook on OverDrive Library Catalog
The Thin Red Line
James Jones
Plunged into the brutality of war, Henry Fleming, a young Union soldier, must struggle with the principles of courage, patriotism, and survival, in a collection that also includes other stories and poems.
The Things They Carried
Tim O’Brien
The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a compelling novel of America during the Vietnam War.
eBook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Tree of Smoke
Denis Johnson
An anniversary edition of a collection of interconnected fictional stories follows the members of an American platoon fighting in the Vietnam War, in a book that mirrors the author’s own wartime experiences
Audiobook on OverDrive Library Catalog
Dvds
Band of Brothers
Follows the 101st Airborne as it drops into Normandy on D-Day and fights its way through Europe to the end World War II.
Jarhead
Presents the true struggles of Marine infantry soldier Anthony “Swoff” Swofford, from his days in training to the Gulf War.
Memorial Day
SSgt. Kyle Vogel leaves a handwritten letter on the seat of his car, grabs a pistol, and steps into a Minnesota forest. Flash back a few months as Vogel lies wounded in a hospital near Anbar Province, Iraq. The night before he’s due to return to combat, his doctor, Lt. Kelly Tripp, presses him on why he’s so obsessed with collecting battle souvenirs. Kyle proceeds to tell her what happened on Memorial Day, 1993, when, as a 13-year old boy, he discovered his Grandpa Bud’s WWII footlocker.
Remembering Vietnam
The Wall at 25
Tells the story of the memorial through the eyes of those who conceived it, those who were instrumental in pushing it through bureaucratic and political resistance, those intimately involved with its 25-year history, and those it honors.
Saving Private Ryan
Captain John Miller must take his men behind enemy lines to find Private Ryan, whose three brothers have been killed in combat. Faced with impossible odds, the men question their orders.
This press release was produced by the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library. The views expressed here are the author’s own.