An inspiring book about heroism and sacrifice.
A French immigrant and U.S. Army captain tells the story behind the remarkable act of bravery that earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Son of an American father and an Algerian mother, Groberg lived in Europe until he was 12. His uncle Abdou, whom the author would visit on trips to Algeria, exerted an especially strong influence on him. A witness to the Franco-Algerian War, Abdou taught the boy that “freedom ha[d] to be earned” even if it meant risking one’s life. When the author's family immigrated to the United States, Abdou joined the Algerian army to combat a radical Islamist organization, the Groupe Islamique Armé, and died in the line of duty. Vowing to be part of the anti-terrorist solution, the author enlisted in the Army after graduating from college. He began the officer training that ended with a difficult but ultimately successful stint at Ranger School. His first deployment was to the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan, “the most dangerous place on earth.” There, he came face to face with his own greenness as a platoon leader and saw firsthand the way war changed both the men he led and the Afghanis he encountered. A second deployment followed a year and half later, this time as a personal security detachment commander. During one outing of U.S. and Afghani VIPs, Groberg spotted a suicide bomber walking nearby. He sprinted toward the man and pushed him away from the delegation. In the explosion that followed, four men—three of whom were Groberg’s friends—died. The author sustained career-ending injuries and a soul-crushing case of survivor’s guilt that nearly destroyed him. In this short, candid book, Groberg—with the assistance of Sileo (co-author: Fire in My Eyes: An American Warrior’s Journey from Being Blinded on the Battlefield to Gold Medal Victory, 2014, etc.)—offers insight into the profound sense of duty that drives members of the military while celebrating one man’s extraordinary courage.
An inspiring book about heroism and sacrifice.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6588-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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