On This Day In History Exotic Dancer And Convicted Spy Mata Hari Sentenced To Die

As History.com notes, on this day in 1917 exotic dancer and convicted spy Mata Hari was sentenced to die in Paris, France.

You can read about Mata Hari via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mata-hari-sentenced-to-die

Relentless Strike: The Secret History Of The Joint Special Operations Command

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review in the Washington Times of Sean Naylor's Relentless Strike: The Secret History of the Joint Special Operations Command.

Forget the high-level Washington blather about troop levels and anti-terrorist strategy in the Middle East. Oblivious to such nonproductive chatter, a fighting force unique to the American military experience is waging a war that relies heavily upon deadly deception.

Unlike Vietnam, no public body counts are made. There are occasional headlines, to be sure — for instance, the killing of the Islamic State’s No. 2 man in late March by covert operatives, and the elimination of Osama bin Laden. But as should be true in shadow warfare, the least said the better. In essence, lethal operations with a small or nonexistent U.S. footprint.

Such is the message delivered by military writer Sean Naylor in a must-read book about the overseer of this secret army, formally the Joint Special Operations Command (jay-sock, in military-speak). The command brings together elements of the Army, Navy and Air Force, augmented by CIA operatives — men and women of exceptional skills who are bold enough to make decisions on their own, and execute them with deadly force.

Mr. Naylor’s section on origins and organization of JSOC is a jumble of names the recitation of which will be of scant interest to most readers. To obscure JSOC’s role in the shadow war, operational units change names frequently. For instance, a Navy unit named Task Force Sword in due course becomes Task Force 11. One outfit was dubbed “Army of Northern Virginia,” with a nod to Gen. Robert E. Lee.

The meat of the book consists of examples of the ingenuity JSOC fighters employ against the enemy. What is striking is that many of the tricks were developed by field operatives who devised new innovate ways to dispose of enemies.

A prime example: A JSOC unit recruited Iraqis — code-named Mohawks — to conduct intelligence operations which required the ability to blend in with the population. In one operation, a Mohawk would enter an Internet cafe known to be popular with suspect terrorists and upload software on the computer. That employed a keystroke recognition system that enabled monitors to read messages. Some softwear “would covertly activate a webcam if the computer had one, allowing the task force to positively identify a target.”

Once a target was identified, the message would go out: The subject was “at cafe 6 at computer 4, go get him.” Other operatives would “track the insurgent far enough away from the cafe to minimize the chance of enemies figuring out how the Americans had located the target,” who would be snatched off the street.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/11/book-review-relentless-strike-the-secret-history-o/

First Over There: The Attack On Cantigny: America's First Battle Of World War I

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review of Matthew J. Davenpost's First Over There for the Washington Times. 

When a reluctant President Woodrow Wilson sent the first American soldiers into the European war in 1917, both he and U.S. commanders decreed that they must fight as independent units, and not be used as cannon-fodder replacements for battle-worn British and French troops.

Thus ensued a major battle of the war, one that put a decisive crimp in a German “final offensive” attempt to break a three-year stalemate of trench warfare by breaking through Allied lines. And the battle for positions around the obscure French village of Cantigny brought the first flickers of fame to a soldier who would lead the U.S. military during World War II.

George C. Marshall was a promising but relatively obscure lieutenant colonel in 1917. One handicap — and a large one in the army of the era — was that he was a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, not West Point. The close-knit fraternity of “ring-knockers,” as the West Pointers were known, frowned on outsiders.

But Marshall had caught the attention of Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Force. And of the four divisions making up the AEF, Pershing singled out the First Division to make the first American assault of the war. 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/23/book-review-first-over-there-the-attack-on-cantign/ 

General John R. Gavin: 'Fighting The Cold War: A Soldier's Memoir'

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review of retired General John R. Gavin's book, Fighting the Cold War: A Soldier's Memoir, for the Washington Times.

As the leadership of the United States Army has become intensely intellectualized in recent decades, Gen. John R. “Jack” Galvin gained a deserved reputation as one of the “brainiest generals” ever to don a uniform.

Born into an Irish-American family in small-town Wakefield, Mass., Gen. Galvin was a protege-quality student from the beginning. After West Point he began his career as an airborne infantry officer. His account of the care taken to measure such things as drop-zone wind speeds should bring solace to anyone who has ever jumped out of an airplane.

Next, Vietnam, and here Gen. Galvin’s career took a potentially terminal dip. He was involved in helicopter attack operations, and he and a superior office did not mesh. So he was shunted back to Saigon as a logistics officer — relieved, essentially. (A later Vietnam tour was successful). During a teaching stint at West Point, he moonlighted as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, studying the poet Yeats. And at one point he almost resigned to teach college full-time.

But a knack for languages — Spanish and German — brought him prime assignments in NATO and Central America. His account of the latter experience shows how the attitudes and policies of local leaders can affect what the United States can do, militarily and diplomatically.

... During his 44-year career, Gen. Galvin would hold three major four-star positions: serving as commander in chief of the United States Southern Command in Latin America; the commander in chief of the United States European Command; and as NATO supreme allied commander, Europe.

Gen. Galvin’s greatest contribution to national security was his central role in adapting a post-Soviet NATO to the radical changes in the international balance of power. He was the man trusted by the military to insure America’s national security was not damaged by the drastic arms reductions — especially in nuclear weapons — following the Soviet collapse.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/22/book-review-fighting-the-cold-war-a-soldiers-memoi/

Sharpe Author Bernard Cornwell Visits Waterloo

 

Bernard Cornwell, author of the Sharpe series and Waterloo: The True Story of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles, visited the scene of the great battle.

 

I have walked all of Wellington’s battlefields. Assaye, in India, is the least changed - a place where you can still kick musket balls out of the furrows where the Highlanders of the 74th suffered so grievously. I have climbed the Arapiles of Salamanca in Spain, perhaps the most beautiful of all the Duke’s battlefields, and marvelled at the grim walls of Badajoz where so many were to die in a night of slaughter, yet none of those places is as evocative as Waterloo.

 

The field of Waterloo has not been well kept. The damage began early when the Dutch made the Lion Mound, that great decaying monstrosity which marks the spot where the young Prince of Orange was wounded. My favourite moment of all the Sharpe books comes in Sharpe’s Waterloo when our hero does so much for the British cause by shooting the Prince who was, by far, the least capable commander on the field, yet whose monument now dominates the landscape.  

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link to the British newspaper the Telegraph:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/battle-of-waterloo/11514684/Sharpe-author-Bernard-Cornwell-visits-Waterloo.html


You can read my Greathistory.com interview with Bernard Cornwell via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2012/12/a-q-with-sharpe-creator-bernard-cornwell.html

You can also visit Bernard Cornwell's web site at http://www.bernardcornwell.net/.

Review Of Alvin York: A New Biography Of The Hero Of The Argonne

Veteran journalist and author Joseph C. Goulden offers a good review of Colonel Douglas V. Mastriano's Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne in the Washington Times.

Those of us of a certain generation first became aware of the World War I hero via the 1941 movie, “Sergeant York,” starring Gary Cooper in the title role, for which he won an Academy Award. Even at age 7, sitting in a movie house in East Texas, I realized that Alvin York was a special human, both as a warrior who shot up a German machine gun nest and captured 132 prisoners, and as a decent man with devout religious beliefs.

In subsequent years, York was nitpicked by skeptics ranging from jealous colleagues-in-arms who had never liked the taciturn Tennessee country boy, to persons who scoffed at the audacity of a born-again Christian crediting God for bringing him through fierce combat unharmed.

Now, Col. Douglas V. Mastriano, a U.S. Army veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, restores York to his rightful place in military history. His book is also a valuable depiction of how a created-on-the-fly Army entered battle during the war, a welcome addition to the flood of anniversary books gushing from publishers these days.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/19/book-review-a-war-hero-who-lived-his-faith/

Stalin's General: The Life Of Georgy Zhukov

Joseph C. Goulden, the veteran journalist and author, wrote an interesting review of Geoffrey Robert's Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov. 

The review of the book on the World War II Russian general was published in today' Washington Times.

You can read the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/2/russian-general-best-in-world-war-ii/  

George Washington Named Britain's Greatest Ever Military Opponent

Foxnews.com reports that George Washington has been named Britain's greatest ever foe, according to Britain's National Army Museum.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/15/george-washington-named-britain-greatest-ever-military-opponent/#ixzz1s5i2fdPm?test=latestnews

You can also read Jasper Copping's report at the Telegraph via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9204961/George-Washington-named-Britains-greatest-ever-foe.html