On April 18, 1942, 16 B-25s launched from the carrier Hornet, under the command of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, flew 650 miles to Japan, dropped their bombs on Tokyo and other targets, and escaped to China and neutral Soviet territory. Although a very small affair in comparison with the B-29 strikes three years later, the Doolittle raid was a severe psychological blow to Japanese military leaders and had far-reaching strategic effects ...

Four days before Christmas 1943, a badly damaged American bomber struggled to fly over wartime Germany. At its controls was a 21-year-old pilot. Half his crew lay wounded or dead. It was their first mission. Suddenly, a sleek, dark shape pulled up on the bomber’s tail—a German Messerschmitt fighter. Worse, the German pilot was an ace, a man able to destroy the American bomber in the squeeze of a trigger.

The Unseen War offers a comprehensive assessment of the air contribution to the three weeks of major combat that ended the rule of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in 2003. In contrast to Operation DESERT STORM in 1991, the role of allied air power in the Nation’s second war against Iraq was not apparent to most observers, due to the concurrent land and air offensives coupled with the overwhelming majority of reporters embedded ...

On Combat looks at how the stresses of deadly battle affect the human body: the impact on the nervous system, heart, breathing, visual and auditory perception, and memory. The reader will learn what measures warriors take to prevent such debilitations to stay in the fight, survive, and win. On Combat presents emerging research for inoculating the mind to stress, fear, and even pain.

Since 9/11, more than 240,000 women soldiers have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan—more than 140 have died there, and they currently make up 14 percent of the total active duty forces. Despite advances, today’s servicewomen are constantly pressed to prove themselves, to overcome challenges men never face, and to put the military mission ahead of all other aspects of their lives, particularly marriage and motherhood.