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Zusatztext “If Bolger is as good a soldier as he is a writer! he may become the first four-star general to also win a Pulitzer Prize.” – Booklist “Infantry conjures many images: uncomfortable conditions! savage close combat! constant patrols! and the thousand-mile stare. Our popular media gives the impression that the wonders of precision weapons can win wars without subjecting the soldiers of modern militaries to these conditions . . . . The American way of war has always emphasized sending bullets! not men! a historical structure that continues in the current force structure. . . . Bolger’s choice of operations illustrates two key points; first! that modern warfare has not made the infantry obsolete! and second! even very contemporary military history can be quite valuable in contemplating future combat.” –DR. SHAWN WHETSTONE Military Heritage Informationen zum Autor Daniel P. Bolger Klappentext "An informative and thought-provoking history of recent infantry operations with reasoned glimpses of its possible future.” -DR. SHAWN WHETSTONE Military Heritage "This is [Colonel Bolger's] most significant work to date! important both for students of the contemporary U.S. Army and for general readers- even those normally uninterested in military affairs. Bolger documents the infantry's change over the past sixty years from a mass force of citizen soldiers to a small body of elite professionals. He presents each currently existing type of infantry-paratroopers! air assault! mechanized! light! rangers! and marines. . . . In each case study! Bolger emphasizes the quality and preparation! making it quite clear that will without skill and motivation without competence are certain routes to disaster. . . . While praising today's infantry as the best the country has ever fielded! Bolger raises the prospect that the U.S. military! by emphasizing technology and economy! will leave the country with an elite infantry too small to sustain heavy losses and too specialized to be quickly replaced.” -Publishers Weekly DEATH GROUND Today's American Infantry in Battle PROLOGUE A Few Good Men In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, devise stratagems; in death ground, fight. —Sun Tzu, The Art of War Everybody expected shooting, serious shooting. Tension, bad karma—bad juju indeed, to use the local lingo— hung in the humid evening air, as strong as the sweet tang of rotting garbage, as pervasive as the dull stench of lingering human waste, as unnerving as the strong aroma of drying animal blood. Yes, somebody was definitely going to get it this time. The only question involved exactly when and where. Nobody bothered to ask why. That was obvious, given the antagonists. Put U.S. Marine riflemen and Haitian paramilitary toughs at close quarters, and a clash could be expected sooner or later. It had always been that way in and around the squalid port town of Cap-Haitien. Both sides knew the deal. The two groups were supposed to be working together to keep order. Clever men in tailored suits back in Washington cooked up this scheme, but they missed some rather important realities out among the dusty shanties of Haiti. It might sooner be expected that Marines and Imperial Japanese soldiers would cooperate in policing Iwo Jima in 1945. No, the Marines knew their enemy. They had always known. The Haitian gunmen knew, too. As they used to say in western movies, the town just wasn’t big enough for the two of them. It only made sense. After all, the Marines had been gearing up for months to storm ashore in Cap-Haitien, the island republic’s second city, with orders to destroy the Forces Armées d’Haiti (FAd’H) and their police auxiliaries. Embarked aboard the amphibious assault carrier USS Wasp and the big landing ships USS Nashville and USS Ashland, the young rifle...
