Reading List

Chief of Staff of the Air Force

Professional Reading List

book

Hidden Figures

20th Century Fox

Hidden Figures tells the true story of three African-American female mathematicians working for NASA during the beginning of the U.S. Space Program. They were vital to many of the program’s early successes, including – one of history's greatest operations – the launching of the first manned orbit.

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Tuskegee Airmen

HBO Studios

The exciting story of the "Fighting 99th" - the first squadron of Black American pilots to be allowed to fight for their country. It is 1943 and the Germans are winning WWII as the U.S. suffers huge losses on the ground and in the air. Four newly recruited pilots are united by a desire to serve their country, at a time when black flyers are not welcomed in the Air Force. Now, through the brutal demands of their training, to the perils of flying over nations at war, the men they call "The Tuskegee Airmen" must undertake the riskiest mission of their lives- to prove to America that courage knows no color. Their success could earn them respect, save lives, and help win a terrible war. Their failure could destroy more hopes and dreams than their own.

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The Vietnam War

PBS

THE VIETNAM WAR is a ten-part, 18-hour film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that will air on PBS in September 2017. In an immersive 360-degree narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. THE VIETNAM WAR features testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

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Frontline: Confronting ISIS

PBS Distribution

This documentary analyzes two years of US-led efforts to defeat ISIS. In it, correspondent Martin Smith travels with one of Iraq’s Shia militia groups, as well as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who are less than a mile from ISIS. He also meets the father of a Jordanian pilot who was burned to death by ISIS, and sits down for candid interviews with leaders including current and former U.S. Secretaries of Defense Ashton Carter and Chuck Hagel, embattled Iraqi president Haider al-Abadi, and Saudi Arabia’s controversial Grand Mufti, Abdul Aziz Sheikh.