1999, ISBN: 9780345407283
Gebundene Ausgabe
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Harper Perennial, 1993. 22nd Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 5" x 8. 342 pages. . No marks or stamps. Suspenseful love story set in Arizona blending f… Mehr…
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Harper Perennial, 1993. 22nd Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 5" x 8. 342 pages. . No marks or stamps. Suspenseful love story set in Arizona blending flashbacks, dreams and Native American legends. Animals dream about the things they do in the daytime, just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life. So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and latter-day philosopher. But when Cod Noline returns to her hometown, Loyd's advice is painfully out of her reach. Dreamless and at the end of her rope Codi comes back to Grace Arizona to confront her past and face her ailing distant father., Harper Perennial, 1993, 3, Island Books. Good. 4.1 x 1 x 6.8 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 1999. 416 pages. Cover worn.<br>One of the best novels of the year from one of the very best writers at work today.--Rocky Mountain News The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a ba rn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Decades later, Megan, now a wo rld-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking f or cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor l eader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarr e unsolved slaying. Now Megan's return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou country. And f or a good cop with bad memories, hard desire, and chilling nightm ares, the time has come to uncover the truth. Editorial Reviews Review Splendidly atmospheric...with dialogue so sharp you can s have with it.--People One of the best novels of the year from on e of the very best writers at work today.--Rocky Mountain News E ngrossing...a vivid, violent fable...James Lee Burke outshines hi mself in Sunset Limited.--Daily News (N.Y.) America's best novel ist.--The Denver Post Top-drawer work...James Lee Burke just kee ps getting better...Burke writes of the bayous, their people and their violence with electrical luminescence. The dialogue crackle s like heat lightning and the story races from conflict to confli ct. Robicheaux, a modern-day tragic hero, continues to grow as on e of crime fiction's major figures.--San Antonio Express-News Bu rke's dialogue sounds true as a tape recording; his writing about action is strong and economical. . . . Burke is a prose stylist to be reckoned with.--Los Angeles Times Book Review Burke flies miles above most contemporary crime novelists.--The Orlando Senti nel Among writers in the genre, only Tony Hillerman's novels abo ut the Navajo tribal police match Burke's ability to write evocat ively about the natural world. . . . It's hard to imagine readers not bolting it down like a steaming plate of crawfish etouffee.- -Entertainment Weekly Burke writes prose that has a pronounced s treak of poetry in it.--The New York Times James Lee Burke isn't simply a crime writer--he's the Graham Greene of the bayou.--New York Daily News If you haven't already discovered Burke's novel s, find one!--Chicago Tribune James Lee Burke can write some of the best scenes of violence in American literature. He can also t oss out a metaphor or a brief descriptive phrase that can stop a reader cold.--The Washington Post Book World It has become appar ent that not since Raymond Chandler has anyone so thoroughly rein vented the crime and mystery genre as James Lee Burke.--Jim Harri son, author of Legends of the Fall If you haven't read Burke, ge t going.--Playboy Nobody working in the genre holds us more comp ellingly than Mr. Burke, or with such style and ferocity. He stan ds all but alone in the invention of character.--The New Yorker One of our most compelling novelists.--New York Newsday Few writ ers in america can evoke a region as well as Burke.--The Philadel phia Inquirer Robicheaux is a detective to be reckoned with, mor e interesting than Spenser, more complex and satisfying than Trav is McGee . . . James Lee Burke is a writer to be remembered.--USA Today Burke writes prose as moody and memory-laden as his regio n.--Time Burke tells a story in a style all his own; language th at's alive, electric; he's a master at setting mood, laying in at mosphere, all with quirky, raunchy dialog that's a delight.--Elmo re Leonard It's hard to deny the powerful impact of Mr. Burke's hard-boiled poetics.--The Wall Street Journal From the Inside Fl ap aked with sin, Dave Robicheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts , and a woman's revenge.... The townspeople of New Iberia, Louis iana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a barn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Dec ades later, Megan, now a world-famous photojournalist, has come b ack to the bayou, looking for cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave wh o found the body of labor leader Jack Flynn. The sight changed th e boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarre unsolved slaying. Now Megan's retur n has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a s torm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites i n this bayou county. And for a good cop with bad memories, hard d esires, and chilling nightmares, the time has come to uncover the truth. From the Back Cover In a land soaked with sin, Dave Robi cheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts, and a woman's revenge.... The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a ba rn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Decades later, Megan, now a wo rld-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking f or cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor l eader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarr e unsolved slaying. Now Megan's return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou county. And fo r a good cop with bad memories, hard desires, and chilling nightm ares, the time has come to uncover the truth. About the Author J ames Lee Burke is the author of sixteen previous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Cimarron Rose, Cadillac Jukebox, Burning Angel, and Dixie City Jam. He lives with his wife in Miss oula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. Excerpt. ® Reprinted b y permission. All rights reserved. The jailer, Alex Guidry, lived outside of town on a ten-acre horse farm devoid of trees or shad e. The sun's heat pooled in the tin roofs of his outbuildings, an d grit and desiccated manure blew out of his horse lots. His oblo ng 1960s red-brick house, its central-air-conditioning units roar ing outside a back window twenty-four hours a day, looked like a utilitarian fortress constructed for no other purpose than to rep el the elements. His family had worked for a sugar mill down tow ard New Orleans, and his wife's father used to sell Negro burial insurance, but I knew little else about him. He was one of those aging, well-preserved men with whom you associate a golf photo on the local sports page, membership in a self-congratulatory civic club, a charitable drive that is of no consequence. Or was ther e something else, a vague and ugly story years back? I couldn't r emember. Sunday afternoon I parked my pickup truck by his stable and walked past a chain-link dog pen to the riding ring. The dog pen exploded with the barking of two German shepherds who carome d off the fencing, their teeth bared, their paws skittering the f eces that lay baked on the hot concrete pad. Alex Guidry cantere d a black gelding in a circle, his booted calves fitted with Engl ish spurs. The gelding's neck and sides were iridescent with swea t. Guidry sawed the bit back in the gelding's mouth. What is it? he said. I'm Dave Robicheaux. I called earlier. He wore tan ri ding pants and a form-fitting white polo shirt. He dismounted and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and threw it to a blac k man who had come out of the stable to take the horse. You want to know if this guy Broussard was in the detention chair? The an swer is no, he said. He says you've put other inmates in there. For days. Then he's lying. You have a detention chair, though, don't you? For inmates who are out of control, who don't respond to Isolation. You gag them? No. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at the dog pen. The water bowl was turned over and fli es boiled in the door of the small doghouse that gave the only re lief from the sun. You've got a lot of room here. You can't let your dogs run? I said. I tried to smile. Anything else, Mr. Robi cheaux? Yeah. Nothing better happen to Cool Breeze while he's in your custody. I'll keep that in mind, sir. Close the gate on yo ur way out, please. I got back in my truck and drove down the sh ell road toward the cattle guard. A half dozen Red Angus grazed i n Guidry's pasture, while snowy egrets perched on their backs. T hen I remembered. It was ten or eleven years back, and Alex Guidr y had been charged with shooting a neighbor's dog. Guidry had cla imed the dog had attacked one of his calves and eaten its entrail s, but the neighbor told another story, that Guidry had baited a steel trap for the animal and had killed it out of sheer meanness . I looked into the rearview mirror and saw him watching me from the end of the shell drive, his legs slightly spread, a leather riding crop hanging from his wrist. Monday morning I returned to work at the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department and took my mail out of my pigeonhole and tapped on the sheriff's office. He tilt ed back in his swivel chair and smiled when he saw me. His jowls were flecked with tiny blue and red veins that looked like fresh ink on a map when his temper flared. He had shaved too close and there was a piece of bloody tissue paper stuck in the cleft in hi s chin. Unconsciously he kept stuffing his shirt down over his pa unch into his gunbelt. You mind if I come back to work a week ear ly? I asked. This have anything to do with Cool Breeze Broussard 's complaint to the Justice Department? I went out to Alex Guidr y's place yesterday. How'd we end up with a guy like that as our jailer? It's not a job people line up for, the sheriff said. He scratched his forehead. You've got an FBI agent in your office ri ght now, some gal named Adrien Glazier. You know her? Nope. How' d she know I was going to be here? She called your house first. Your wife told her. Anyway, I'm glad you're back. I want this bul lshit at the jail cleared up. We just got a very weird case that was thrown in our face from St. Mary Parish. He opened a manila folder and put on his glasses and peered down at the fax sheets i n his fingers. This is the story he told me. Three months ago, u nder a moon haloed with a rain ring and sky filled with dust blow ing out of the sugarcane fields, a seventeen-year-old black girl named Sunshine Labiche claimed two white boys forced her car off a dirt road into a ditch. They dragged her from behind the wheel, walked her by each arm into a cane field, then took turns raping and sodomizing her. The next morning she identified both boys fr om a book of mug shots. They were brothers, from St. Mary Parish, but four months earlier they had been arrested for a convenience store holdup in New Iberia and had been released for lack of evi dence. This time they should have gone down. They didn't. Both had alibis, and the girl admitted she had been smoking rock with her boyfriend before she was raped. She dropped the charges. La te Saturday afternoon an unmarked car came to the farmhouse of th e two brothers over in St. Mary Parish. The father, who was bedri dden in the front room, watched the visitors, unbeknown to them, through a crack in the blinds. The driver of the car wore a green uniform, like sheriff's deputies in Iberia Parish, and sunglasse s and stayed behind the wheel, while a second man, in civilian cl othes and a Panama hat, went to the gallery and explained to the two brothers they only had to clear up a couple of questions in N ew Iberia, then they would be driven back home. It ain't gonna t ake five minutes. We know you boys didn't have to come all the wa y over to Iberia Parish just to change your luck, he said. The b rothers were not cuffed; in fact, they were allowed to take a twe lve-pack of beer with them to drink in the back seat. A half hou r later, just at sunset, a student from USL, who was camped out i n the Atchafalaya swamp, looked through the flooded willow and gu m trees that surrounded his houseboat and saw a car stop on the l evee. Two older men and two boys got out. One of the older men wo re a uniform. They all held cans of beer in their hands; all of t hem urinated off the levee into the cattails. Then the two boys, dressed in jeans and Clorox-stained print shirts with the sleeve s cut off at the armpits, realized something was wrong. They turn ed and stared stupidly at their companions, who had stepped backw ard up the levee and were now holding pistols in their hands. Th e boys tried to argue, holding their palms outward, as though the y were pushing back an invisible adversary. Their arms were olive with suntan, scrolled with reformatory tattoos, their hair spike d in points with butch wax. The man in uniform raised his gun and shouted an unintelligible order at them, motioning at the ground . When the boys did not respond, the second armed man, who wore a Panama hat, turned them toward the water with his hand, almost g ently, inserted his shoe against the calf of one, then the other, pushing them to their knees, as though he were arranging manikin s in a show window. Then he rejoined the man in uniform up the ba nk. One of the boys kept looking back fearfully over his shoulder . The other was weeping uncontrollably, his chin tilted upward, h is arms stiff at his sides, his eyes tightly shut. The men with guns were silhouetted against a molten red sun that had sunk acro ss the top of the levee. Just as a flock of ducks flapped across the sun, the gunmen clasped their weapons with both hands and sta rted shooting. But because of the fading light, or perhaps the na ture of their deed, their aim was bad. Both victims tried to ris e from their knees, their bodies convulsing simultaneously from t he impact of the rounds. The witness said, Their guns just kept popping. It looked like somebody was blowing chunks out of a wate rmelon. After it was over, smoke drifted out over the water and the shooter in the Panama hat took close-up flash pictures with a Polaroid camera. The witness used a pair of binoculars. He says the guy in the green uniform had our department patch on his sle eve, the sheriff said. White rogue cops avenging the rape of a b lack girl? Look, get that FBI agent out of here, will you? He lo oked at the question in my face. She's got a broom up her ass. H e rubbed his fingers across his mouth. Did I say that? I'm going to go back to the laundry business. A bad day used to b, Island Books, 1999, 2.5, Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the most promine nt figures in American public life, General Colin L. Powell serve d as the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both President George Bush and President Bill Clinton. He was a major architect of Desert Storm, the dramatic Allied success in the fo rty-three-day Gulf War, which began in January 1991. General Po well was born in New York City in 1937 and raised in the South Br onx by his parents, who had immigrated to America from Jamaica. H e came up through the New York City public school system and rece ived a commission as an army second lieutenant upon graduation fr om the City College of New York in 1958. Early in his career, G eneral Powell was stationed in Germany and in a number of posts i n the United States, and served two tours in Vietnam, 1962-1963 a nd 1968-1969. He was also a battalion commander in Korea from 197 3 to 1974 and later commanded the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Div ision (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and V Corps in G ermany. General Powell was appointed Deputy National Security A dvisor by President Ronald Reagan in January 1987 and in December 1987 became National Security Advisor, a post he held until Janu ary 1989. He served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1989 until his retirement on September 30, 1993. Gener al Powell has received numerous U.S. military awards and decorati ons, as well as civilian awards honoring his public service, incl uding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded twi ce. He has also been decorated by the governments of Argentina, B ahrain, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Ven ezuela, and received an honorary knighthood (Knight Commanders of Bath) from the Queen of England. From the Hardcover edition. E xcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My Americ an Journey: Excerpt Point Two - Get mad, then get over it. IRAQ By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uni nterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the Presid ent understood that war was going to look a lot different once fi ghting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. Once the ground war begin s, I said, we don't get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefi ght, you don't lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundr ed men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You'l l see a kid's scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while a mmo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We ha ve to brace ourselves for some ugly images. I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. There's going to be confusio n. You won't know what is happening for a while. And so in the ea rly hours, please don't press us for situation reports. The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney ha d never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only fr om the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days. As the bo mbing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sh arp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, t wo of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and whic h the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the st ructure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, w hich the whole world witnessed on television as victims were haul ed from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this trag edy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month int o the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquar ters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing tar gets more closely before each day's missions. If nothing else, t he Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to start the comb ined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick visit C heney and I had made to the war zone between February 8 and 10, S chwarzkopf had told us that he would be ready to go by February 2 1. As soon as Cheney and I got back to Washington, we reported th is date to an impatient George Bush. Three days later, however, N orm called and told me that the 21st was out. The President want s to get on with this, I said. What happened? Walt Boomer needs more time, Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st and 2nd Marine Divi sions were deployed to drive head-on from the center of the line toward Kuwait City. But first they had to breach a savage complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erecting. The Marines would have to penetrate belts of antipersonnel and antita nk mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire, more minefi elds, and deep tank traps, and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and cross trenches filled with burning oil. All the while, they w ould be under fire from Iraqi troops and artillery. Boomer wanted time to shift his point of attack twenty miles to the west, wher e one Iraqi defensive position had been largely abandoned under a ir attack and another line farther back was incomplete. He also w anted more airstrikes to weaken the enemy defenses before his tro ops moved. It'll cost a few days, Norm said. He wanted to put of f the ground offensive until February 24. Remember the strategy, I reminded him. The frontal assaults were intended only to tie d own the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the Marines' mission . If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop, I said. Having engaged the enemy, his troops would have accomplished their miss ion by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps to pull off th e left hook in the sparsely defended western desert. We don't nee d to kill a bunch of kids singing The Marines' Hymn,' I said. O ne of my fundamental operating premises is that the commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless p roved otherwise. The field commander is on the scene, feeling the terrain, directing the troops, facing and judging the enemy. I t herefore advised Cheney to accept Norm's recommendation. Cheney r eluctantly went to the President and got a postponement to Februa ry 24. I backed Norm, though I thought he was being overly cauti ous. Over the previous weeks, I had watched VII Corps, with its t ens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. We had secretly moved our armored and airborne forces to Iraq's exposed western flank, and we had been holding our breath to see if the Iraqis responded. All they did was send another un dermanned division to that part of the desert. That's it, I told myself. They had been sucked in by our moves hinting at a major f rontal assault and an amphibious landing on Kuwait from the Persi an Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and it was nowher e near enough to stop our left hook. Earlier we had worried that the desert soil on the western flank might not be able to support heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands, howe ver, and gave us a Go. We questioned local Bedouins, and they con firmed the solidness of the terrain. The offensive timetable was further clouded as Mikhail Gorbachev tried to play peacemaker. O n February 18, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, went to Mo scow to hear a plan under which we would stop hostilities if the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was in a bind. It was too late for this approach, he believed. After the expenditure o f $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousa nd miles, Bush wanted to deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqi in vaders in Kuwait. He did not want to win by a TKO that would allo w Saddam to withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen a s turning his back on a chance for peace. On February 20, Norm c alled saying he had talked to his commanders and needed still ano ther delay, to the 26th. He had the latest weather report in hand , he said, and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and 25th, m aybe clearing on the 26th. Bad weather equaled reduced air suppor t, which equaled higher casualties. I was on the spot. So far, Ch eney had accepted my counsel. But now I did not feel that Norm wa s giving me sufficiently convincing arguments to take back to Che ney and the President, first that Boomer needed to move his Marin es, then that the Marines needed more air support, then that the weather was bad, and on still another occasion, that the Saudi ar my was not ready. What should I expect next, a postponement to th e 28th? Look, I told Norm, ten days ago you told me the 21st. Th en you wanted the 24th. Now you're asking for the 26th. I've got a President and a Secretary of Defense on my back. They've got a bad Russian peace proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give me a better case for postponement. I don't think you unders tand the pressure I'm under. Schwarzkopf exploded. You're giving me political reasons why you don't want to tell the President no t to do something militarily unsound! He was yelling. Don't you u nderstand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talkin g about Marines' lives. He had to worry about them, he said, even if nobody else cared. That did it. I had backed Norm at every s tep, fended off his critics with one hand while soothing his anxi eties with the other. Don't you pull that on me! I yelled back. D on't you try to lay a patronizing guilt trip on me! Don't tell me I don't care about casualties! What are you doing, putting on so me kind of show in front of your commanders? He was alone, Schwa rzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much hea t as I was. You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgmen t out of political expediency. I've felt this way for a long time ! he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. Coli n, I feel like my head's in a vise. Maybe I'm losing it. Maybe I' m losing my objectivity. I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to push the commander in the field over the edge on th e eve of battle. You're not losing it, I said. We've just got a p roblem we have to work out. You have the full confidence of all o f us back here. At the end of the day, you know I'm going to carr y your message, and we'll do it your way., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
| usa, n.. | Biblio.co.uk |
1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
Gebundene Ausgabe
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times… Mehr…
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the most promine nt figures in American public life, General Colin L. Powell serve d as the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both President George Bush and President Bill Clinton. He was a major architect of Desert Storm, the dramatic Allied success in the fo rty-three-day Gulf War, which began in January 1991. General Po well was born in New York City in 1937 and raised in the South Br onx by his parents, who had immigrated to America from Jamaica. H e came up through the New York City public school system and rece ived a commission as an army second lieutenant upon graduation fr om the City College of New York in 1958. Early in his career, G eneral Powell was stationed in Germany and in a number of posts i n the United States, and served two tours in Vietnam, 1962-1963 a nd 1968-1969. He was also a battalion commander in Korea from 197 3 to 1974 and later commanded the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Div ision (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and V Corps in G ermany. General Powell was appointed Deputy National Security A dvisor by President Ronald Reagan in January 1987 and in December 1987 became National Security Advisor, a post he held until Janu ary 1989. He served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1989 until his retirement on September 30, 1993. Gener al Powell has received numerous U.S. military awards and decorati ons, as well as civilian awards honoring his public service, incl uding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded twi ce. He has also been decorated by the governments of Argentina, B ahrain, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Ven ezuela, and received an honorary knighthood (Knight Commanders of Bath) from the Queen of England. From the Hardcover edition. E xcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My Americ an Journey: Excerpt Point Two - Get mad, then get over it. IRAQ By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uni nterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the Presid ent understood that war was going to look a lot different once fi ghting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. Once the ground war begin s, I said, we don't get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefi ght, you don't lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundr ed men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You'l l see a kid's scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while a mmo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We ha ve to brace ourselves for some ugly images. I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. There's going to be confusio n. You won't know what is happening for a while. And so in the ea rly hours, please don't press us for situation reports. The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney ha d never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only fr om the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days. As the bo mbing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sh arp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, t wo of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and whic h the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the st ructure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, w hich the whole world witnessed on television as victims were haul ed from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this trag edy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month int o the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquar ters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing tar gets more closely before each day's missions. If nothing else, t he Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to start the comb ined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick visit C heney and I had made to the war zone between February 8 and 10, S chwarzkopf had told us that he would be ready to go by February 2 1. As soon as Cheney and I got back to Washington, we reported th is date to an impatient George Bush. Three days later, however, N orm called and told me that the 21st was out. The President want s to get on with this, I said. What happened? Walt Boomer needs more time, Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st and 2nd Marine Divi sions were deployed to drive head-on from the center of the line toward Kuwait City. But first they had to breach a savage complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erecting. The Marines would have to penetrate belts of antipersonnel and antita nk mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire, more minefi elds, and deep tank traps, and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and cross trenches filled with burning oil. All the while, they w ould be under fire from Iraqi troops and artillery. Boomer wanted time to shift his point of attack twenty miles to the west, wher e one Iraqi defensive position had been largely abandoned under a ir attack and another line farther back was incomplete. He also w anted more airstrikes to weaken the enemy defenses before his tro ops moved. It'll cost a few days, Norm said. He wanted to put of f the ground offensive until February 24. Remember the strategy, I reminded him. The frontal assaults were intended only to tie d own the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the Marines' mission . If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop, I said. Having engaged the enemy, his troops would have accomplished their miss ion by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps to pull off th e left hook in the sparsely defended western desert. We don't nee d to kill a bunch of kids singing The Marines' Hymn,' I said. O ne of my fundamental operating premises is that the commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless p roved otherwise. The field commander is on the scene, feeling the terrain, directing the troops, facing and judging the enemy. I t herefore advised Cheney to accept Norm's recommendation. Cheney r eluctantly went to the President and got a postponement to Februa ry 24. I backed Norm, though I thought he was being overly cauti ous. Over the previous weeks, I had watched VII Corps, with its t ens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. We had secretly moved our armored and airborne forces to Iraq's exposed western flank, and we had been holding our breath to see if the Iraqis responded. All they did was send another un dermanned division to that part of the desert. That's it, I told myself. They had been sucked in by our moves hinting at a major f rontal assault and an amphibious landing on Kuwait from the Persi an Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and it was nowher e near enough to stop our left hook. Earlier we had worried that the desert soil on the western flank might not be able to support heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands, howe ver, and gave us a Go. We questioned local Bedouins, and they con firmed the solidness of the terrain. The offensive timetable was further clouded as Mikhail Gorbachev tried to play peacemaker. O n February 18, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, went to Mo scow to hear a plan under which we would stop hostilities if the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was in a bind. It was too late for this approach, he believed. After the expenditure o f $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousa nd miles, Bush wanted to deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqi in vaders in Kuwait. He did not want to win by a TKO that would allo w Saddam to withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen a s turning his back on a chance for peace. On February 20, Norm c alled saying he had talked to his commanders and needed still ano ther delay, to the 26th. He had the latest weather report in hand , he said, and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and 25th, m aybe clearing on the 26th. Bad weather equaled reduced air suppor t, which equaled higher casualties. I was on the spot. So far, Ch eney had accepted my counsel. But now I did not feel that Norm wa s giving me sufficiently convincing arguments to take back to Che ney and the President, first that Boomer needed to move his Marin es, then that the Marines needed more air support, then that the weather was bad, and on still another occasion, that the Saudi ar my was not ready. What should I expect next, a postponement to th e 28th? Look, I told Norm, ten days ago you told me the 21st. Th en you wanted the 24th. Now you're asking for the 26th. I've got a President and a Secretary of Defense on my back. They've got a bad Russian peace proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give me a better case for postponement. I don't think you unders tand the pressure I'm under. Schwarzkopf exploded. You're giving me political reasons why you don't want to tell the President no t to do something militarily unsound! He was yelling. Don't you u nderstand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talkin g about Marines' lives. He had to worry about them, he said, even if nobody else cared. That did it. I had backed Norm at every s tep, fended off his critics with one hand while soothing his anxi eties with the other. Don't you pull that on me! I yelled back. D on't you try to lay a patronizing guilt trip on me! Don't tell me I don't care about casualties! What are you doing, putting on so me kind of show in front of your commanders? He was alone, Schwa rzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much hea t as I was. You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgmen t out of political expediency. I've felt this way for a long time ! he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. Coli n, I feel like my head's in a vise. Maybe I'm losing it. Maybe I' m losing my objectivity. I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to push the commander in the field over the edge on th e eve of battle. You're not losing it, I said. We've just got a p roblem we have to work out. You have the full confidence of all o f us back here. At the end of the day, you know I'm going to carr y your message, and we'll do it your way., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
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1996, ISBN: 0345407288
[EAN: 9780345407283], Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Ballantine Books], BIOGRAPHY: GENERAL,BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL,POLITICAL & MILITARY,MEMOIRS,HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS,WARFARE DEFENCE, 656 … Mehr…
[EAN: 9780345407283], Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Ballantine Books], BIOGRAPHY: GENERAL,BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL,POLITICAL & MILITARY,MEMOIRS,HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS,WARFARE DEFENCE, 656 pages. Cover wornA GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the, Books<
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1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times… Mehr…
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . ... ., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
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1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
[PU: Ballantine Books], 656 Seiten Taschenbuch, Größe: 10.6 x 3.1 x 17.5 cm Gepflegter, sauberer Zustand. 2085496/2 Altersfreigabe FSK ab 0 Jahre, DE, [SC: 3.00], gebraucht; sehr gut, gew… Mehr…
[PU: Ballantine Books], 656 Seiten Taschenbuch, Größe: 10.6 x 3.1 x 17.5 cm Gepflegter, sauberer Zustand. 2085496/2 Altersfreigabe FSK ab 0 Jahre, DE, [SC: 3.00], gebraucht; sehr gut, gewerbliches Angebot, Reprint, Banküberweisung, Kreditkarte, PayPal, Internationaler Versand<
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1999, ISBN: 9780345407283
Gebundene Ausgabe
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Harper Perennial, 1993. 22nd Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 5" x 8. 342 pages. . No marks or stamps. Suspenseful love story set in Arizona blending f… Mehr…
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Harper Perennial, 1993. 22nd Printing . Trade Paperback. Very Good. 5" x 8. 342 pages. . No marks or stamps. Suspenseful love story set in Arizona blending flashbacks, dreams and Native American legends. Animals dream about the things they do in the daytime, just like people do. If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life. So says Loyd Peregrina, a handsome Apache trainman and latter-day philosopher. But when Cod Noline returns to her hometown, Loyd's advice is painfully out of her reach. Dreamless and at the end of her rope Codi comes back to Grace Arizona to confront her past and face her ailing distant father., Harper Perennial, 1993, 3, Island Books. Good. 4.1 x 1 x 6.8 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 1999. 416 pages. Cover worn.<br>One of the best novels of the year from one of the very best writers at work today.--Rocky Mountain News The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a ba rn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Decades later, Megan, now a wo rld-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking f or cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor l eader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarr e unsolved slaying. Now Megan's return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou country. And f or a good cop with bad memories, hard desire, and chilling nightm ares, the time has come to uncover the truth. Editorial Reviews Review Splendidly atmospheric...with dialogue so sharp you can s have with it.--People One of the best novels of the year from on e of the very best writers at work today.--Rocky Mountain News E ngrossing...a vivid, violent fable...James Lee Burke outshines hi mself in Sunset Limited.--Daily News (N.Y.) America's best novel ist.--The Denver Post Top-drawer work...James Lee Burke just kee ps getting better...Burke writes of the bayous, their people and their violence with electrical luminescence. The dialogue crackle s like heat lightning and the story races from conflict to confli ct. Robicheaux, a modern-day tragic hero, continues to grow as on e of crime fiction's major figures.--San Antonio Express-News Bu rke's dialogue sounds true as a tape recording; his writing about action is strong and economical. . . . Burke is a prose stylist to be reckoned with.--Los Angeles Times Book Review Burke flies miles above most contemporary crime novelists.--The Orlando Senti nel Among writers in the genre, only Tony Hillerman's novels abo ut the Navajo tribal police match Burke's ability to write evocat ively about the natural world. . . . It's hard to imagine readers not bolting it down like a steaming plate of crawfish etouffee.- -Entertainment Weekly Burke writes prose that has a pronounced s treak of poetry in it.--The New York Times James Lee Burke isn't simply a crime writer--he's the Graham Greene of the bayou.--New York Daily News If you haven't already discovered Burke's novel s, find one!--Chicago Tribune James Lee Burke can write some of the best scenes of violence in American literature. He can also t oss out a metaphor or a brief descriptive phrase that can stop a reader cold.--The Washington Post Book World It has become appar ent that not since Raymond Chandler has anyone so thoroughly rein vented the crime and mystery genre as James Lee Burke.--Jim Harri son, author of Legends of the Fall If you haven't read Burke, ge t going.--Playboy Nobody working in the genre holds us more comp ellingly than Mr. Burke, or with such style and ferocity. He stan ds all but alone in the invention of character.--The New Yorker One of our most compelling novelists.--New York Newsday Few writ ers in america can evoke a region as well as Burke.--The Philadel phia Inquirer Robicheaux is a detective to be reckoned with, mor e interesting than Spenser, more complex and satisfying than Trav is McGee . . . James Lee Burke is a writer to be remembered.--USA Today Burke writes prose as moody and memory-laden as his regio n.--Time Burke tells a story in a style all his own; language th at's alive, electric; he's a master at setting mood, laying in at mosphere, all with quirky, raunchy dialog that's a delight.--Elmo re Leonard It's hard to deny the powerful impact of Mr. Burke's hard-boiled poetics.--The Wall Street Journal From the Inside Fl ap aked with sin, Dave Robicheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts , and a woman's revenge.... The townspeople of New Iberia, Louis iana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a barn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Dec ades later, Megan, now a world-famous photojournalist, has come b ack to the bayou, looking for cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave wh o found the body of labor leader Jack Flynn. The sight changed th e boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarre unsolved slaying. Now Megan's retur n has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a s torm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites i n this bayou county. And for a good cop with bad memories, hard d esires, and chilling nightmares, the time has come to uncover the truth. From the Back Cover In a land soaked with sin, Dave Robi cheaux is dueling with killers, ghosts, and a woman's revenge.... The townspeople of New Iberia, Louisiana, didn't crucify Megan Flynn's father. They just didn't catch whoever pinned him to a ba rn wall with sixteen-penny nails. Decades later, Megan, now a wo rld-famous photojournalist, has come back to the bayou, looking f or cop Dave Robicheaux. It was Dave who found the body of labor l eader Jack Flynn. The sight changed the boy, shaped him as a man. And after forty years, Robicheaux is still haunted by the bizarr e unsolved slaying. Now Megan's return has stirred up the ghosts of the long-buried past, igniting a storm of violence that will rip apart lives of blacks and whites in this bayou county. And fo r a good cop with bad memories, hard desires, and chilling nightm ares, the time has come to uncover the truth. About the Author J ames Lee Burke is the author of sixteen previous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Cimarron Rose, Cadillac Jukebox, Burning Angel, and Dixie City Jam. He lives with his wife in Miss oula, Montana, and New Iberia, Louisiana. Excerpt. ® Reprinted b y permission. All rights reserved. The jailer, Alex Guidry, lived outside of town on a ten-acre horse farm devoid of trees or shad e. The sun's heat pooled in the tin roofs of his outbuildings, an d grit and desiccated manure blew out of his horse lots. His oblo ng 1960s red-brick house, its central-air-conditioning units roar ing outside a back window twenty-four hours a day, looked like a utilitarian fortress constructed for no other purpose than to rep el the elements. His family had worked for a sugar mill down tow ard New Orleans, and his wife's father used to sell Negro burial insurance, but I knew little else about him. He was one of those aging, well-preserved men with whom you associate a golf photo on the local sports page, membership in a self-congratulatory civic club, a charitable drive that is of no consequence. Or was ther e something else, a vague and ugly story years back? I couldn't r emember. Sunday afternoon I parked my pickup truck by his stable and walked past a chain-link dog pen to the riding ring. The dog pen exploded with the barking of two German shepherds who carome d off the fencing, their teeth bared, their paws skittering the f eces that lay baked on the hot concrete pad. Alex Guidry cantere d a black gelding in a circle, his booted calves fitted with Engl ish spurs. The gelding's neck and sides were iridescent with swea t. Guidry sawed the bit back in the gelding's mouth. What is it? he said. I'm Dave Robicheaux. I called earlier. He wore tan ri ding pants and a form-fitting white polo shirt. He dismounted and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel and threw it to a blac k man who had come out of the stable to take the horse. You want to know if this guy Broussard was in the detention chair? The an swer is no, he said. He says you've put other inmates in there. For days. Then he's lying. You have a detention chair, though, don't you? For inmates who are out of control, who don't respond to Isolation. You gag them? No. I rubbed the back of my neck and looked at the dog pen. The water bowl was turned over and fli es boiled in the door of the small doghouse that gave the only re lief from the sun. You've got a lot of room here. You can't let your dogs run? I said. I tried to smile. Anything else, Mr. Robi cheaux? Yeah. Nothing better happen to Cool Breeze while he's in your custody. I'll keep that in mind, sir. Close the gate on yo ur way out, please. I got back in my truck and drove down the sh ell road toward the cattle guard. A half dozen Red Angus grazed i n Guidry's pasture, while snowy egrets perched on their backs. T hen I remembered. It was ten or eleven years back, and Alex Guidr y had been charged with shooting a neighbor's dog. Guidry had cla imed the dog had attacked one of his calves and eaten its entrail s, but the neighbor told another story, that Guidry had baited a steel trap for the animal and had killed it out of sheer meanness . I looked into the rearview mirror and saw him watching me from the end of the shell drive, his legs slightly spread, a leather riding crop hanging from his wrist. Monday morning I returned to work at the Iberia Parish Sheriff's Department and took my mail out of my pigeonhole and tapped on the sheriff's office. He tilt ed back in his swivel chair and smiled when he saw me. His jowls were flecked with tiny blue and red veins that looked like fresh ink on a map when his temper flared. He had shaved too close and there was a piece of bloody tissue paper stuck in the cleft in hi s chin. Unconsciously he kept stuffing his shirt down over his pa unch into his gunbelt. You mind if I come back to work a week ear ly? I asked. This have anything to do with Cool Breeze Broussard 's complaint to the Justice Department? I went out to Alex Guidr y's place yesterday. How'd we end up with a guy like that as our jailer? It's not a job people line up for, the sheriff said. He scratched his forehead. You've got an FBI agent in your office ri ght now, some gal named Adrien Glazier. You know her? Nope. How' d she know I was going to be here? She called your house first. Your wife told her. Anyway, I'm glad you're back. I want this bul lshit at the jail cleared up. We just got a very weird case that was thrown in our face from St. Mary Parish. He opened a manila folder and put on his glasses and peered down at the fax sheets i n his fingers. This is the story he told me. Three months ago, u nder a moon haloed with a rain ring and sky filled with dust blow ing out of the sugarcane fields, a seventeen-year-old black girl named Sunshine Labiche claimed two white boys forced her car off a dirt road into a ditch. They dragged her from behind the wheel, walked her by each arm into a cane field, then took turns raping and sodomizing her. The next morning she identified both boys fr om a book of mug shots. They were brothers, from St. Mary Parish, but four months earlier they had been arrested for a convenience store holdup in New Iberia and had been released for lack of evi dence. This time they should have gone down. They didn't. Both had alibis, and the girl admitted she had been smoking rock with her boyfriend before she was raped. She dropped the charges. La te Saturday afternoon an unmarked car came to the farmhouse of th e two brothers over in St. Mary Parish. The father, who was bedri dden in the front room, watched the visitors, unbeknown to them, through a crack in the blinds. The driver of the car wore a green uniform, like sheriff's deputies in Iberia Parish, and sunglasse s and stayed behind the wheel, while a second man, in civilian cl othes and a Panama hat, went to the gallery and explained to the two brothers they only had to clear up a couple of questions in N ew Iberia, then they would be driven back home. It ain't gonna t ake five minutes. We know you boys didn't have to come all the wa y over to Iberia Parish just to change your luck, he said. The b rothers were not cuffed; in fact, they were allowed to take a twe lve-pack of beer with them to drink in the back seat. A half hou r later, just at sunset, a student from USL, who was camped out i n the Atchafalaya swamp, looked through the flooded willow and gu m trees that surrounded his houseboat and saw a car stop on the l evee. Two older men and two boys got out. One of the older men wo re a uniform. They all held cans of beer in their hands; all of t hem urinated off the levee into the cattails. Then the two boys, dressed in jeans and Clorox-stained print shirts with the sleeve s cut off at the armpits, realized something was wrong. They turn ed and stared stupidly at their companions, who had stepped backw ard up the levee and were now holding pistols in their hands. Th e boys tried to argue, holding their palms outward, as though the y were pushing back an invisible adversary. Their arms were olive with suntan, scrolled with reformatory tattoos, their hair spike d in points with butch wax. The man in uniform raised his gun and shouted an unintelligible order at them, motioning at the ground . When the boys did not respond, the second armed man, who wore a Panama hat, turned them toward the water with his hand, almost g ently, inserted his shoe against the calf of one, then the other, pushing them to their knees, as though he were arranging manikin s in a show window. Then he rejoined the man in uniform up the ba nk. One of the boys kept looking back fearfully over his shoulder . The other was weeping uncontrollably, his chin tilted upward, h is arms stiff at his sides, his eyes tightly shut. The men with guns were silhouetted against a molten red sun that had sunk acro ss the top of the levee. Just as a flock of ducks flapped across the sun, the gunmen clasped their weapons with both hands and sta rted shooting. But because of the fading light, or perhaps the na ture of their deed, their aim was bad. Both victims tried to ris e from their knees, their bodies convulsing simultaneously from t he impact of the rounds. The witness said, Their guns just kept popping. It looked like somebody was blowing chunks out of a wate rmelon. After it was over, smoke drifted out over the water and the shooter in the Panama hat took close-up flash pictures with a Polaroid camera. The witness used a pair of binoculars. He says the guy in the green uniform had our department patch on his sle eve, the sheriff said. White rogue cops avenging the rape of a b lack girl? Look, get that FBI agent out of here, will you? He lo oked at the question in my face. She's got a broom up her ass. H e rubbed his fingers across his mouth. Did I say that? I'm going to go back to the laundry business. A bad day used to b, Island Books, 1999, 2.5, Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the most promine nt figures in American public life, General Colin L. Powell serve d as the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both President George Bush and President Bill Clinton. He was a major architect of Desert Storm, the dramatic Allied success in the fo rty-three-day Gulf War, which began in January 1991. General Po well was born in New York City in 1937 and raised in the South Br onx by his parents, who had immigrated to America from Jamaica. H e came up through the New York City public school system and rece ived a commission as an army second lieutenant upon graduation fr om the City College of New York in 1958. Early in his career, G eneral Powell was stationed in Germany and in a number of posts i n the United States, and served two tours in Vietnam, 1962-1963 a nd 1968-1969. He was also a battalion commander in Korea from 197 3 to 1974 and later commanded the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Div ision (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and V Corps in G ermany. General Powell was appointed Deputy National Security A dvisor by President Ronald Reagan in January 1987 and in December 1987 became National Security Advisor, a post he held until Janu ary 1989. He served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1989 until his retirement on September 30, 1993. Gener al Powell has received numerous U.S. military awards and decorati ons, as well as civilian awards honoring his public service, incl uding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded twi ce. He has also been decorated by the governments of Argentina, B ahrain, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Ven ezuela, and received an honorary knighthood (Knight Commanders of Bath) from the Queen of England. From the Hardcover edition. E xcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My Americ an Journey: Excerpt Point Two - Get mad, then get over it. IRAQ By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uni nterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the Presid ent understood that war was going to look a lot different once fi ghting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. Once the ground war begin s, I said, we don't get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefi ght, you don't lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundr ed men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You'l l see a kid's scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while a mmo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We ha ve to brace ourselves for some ugly images. I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. There's going to be confusio n. You won't know what is happening for a while. And so in the ea rly hours, please don't press us for situation reports. The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney ha d never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only fr om the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days. As the bo mbing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sh arp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, t wo of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and whic h the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the st ructure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, w hich the whole world witnessed on television as victims were haul ed from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this trag edy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month int o the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquar ters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing tar gets more closely before each day's missions. If nothing else, t he Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to start the comb ined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick visit C heney and I had made to the war zone between February 8 and 10, S chwarzkopf had told us that he would be ready to go by February 2 1. As soon as Cheney and I got back to Washington, we reported th is date to an impatient George Bush. Three days later, however, N orm called and told me that the 21st was out. The President want s to get on with this, I said. What happened? Walt Boomer needs more time, Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st and 2nd Marine Divi sions were deployed to drive head-on from the center of the line toward Kuwait City. But first they had to breach a savage complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erecting. The Marines would have to penetrate belts of antipersonnel and antita nk mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire, more minefi elds, and deep tank traps, and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and cross trenches filled with burning oil. All the while, they w ould be under fire from Iraqi troops and artillery. Boomer wanted time to shift his point of attack twenty miles to the west, wher e one Iraqi defensive position had been largely abandoned under a ir attack and another line farther back was incomplete. He also w anted more airstrikes to weaken the enemy defenses before his tro ops moved. It'll cost a few days, Norm said. He wanted to put of f the ground offensive until February 24. Remember the strategy, I reminded him. The frontal assaults were intended only to tie d own the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the Marines' mission . If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop, I said. Having engaged the enemy, his troops would have accomplished their miss ion by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps to pull off th e left hook in the sparsely defended western desert. We don't nee d to kill a bunch of kids singing The Marines' Hymn,' I said. O ne of my fundamental operating premises is that the commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless p roved otherwise. The field commander is on the scene, feeling the terrain, directing the troops, facing and judging the enemy. I t herefore advised Cheney to accept Norm's recommendation. Cheney r eluctantly went to the President and got a postponement to Februa ry 24. I backed Norm, though I thought he was being overly cauti ous. Over the previous weeks, I had watched VII Corps, with its t ens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. We had secretly moved our armored and airborne forces to Iraq's exposed western flank, and we had been holding our breath to see if the Iraqis responded. All they did was send another un dermanned division to that part of the desert. That's it, I told myself. They had been sucked in by our moves hinting at a major f rontal assault and an amphibious landing on Kuwait from the Persi an Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and it was nowher e near enough to stop our left hook. Earlier we had worried that the desert soil on the western flank might not be able to support heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands, howe ver, and gave us a Go. We questioned local Bedouins, and they con firmed the solidness of the terrain. The offensive timetable was further clouded as Mikhail Gorbachev tried to play peacemaker. O n February 18, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, went to Mo scow to hear a plan under which we would stop hostilities if the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was in a bind. It was too late for this approach, he believed. After the expenditure o f $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousa nd miles, Bush wanted to deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqi in vaders in Kuwait. He did not want to win by a TKO that would allo w Saddam to withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen a s turning his back on a chance for peace. On February 20, Norm c alled saying he had talked to his commanders and needed still ano ther delay, to the 26th. He had the latest weather report in hand , he said, and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and 25th, m aybe clearing on the 26th. Bad weather equaled reduced air suppor t, which equaled higher casualties. I was on the spot. So far, Ch eney had accepted my counsel. But now I did not feel that Norm wa s giving me sufficiently convincing arguments to take back to Che ney and the President, first that Boomer needed to move his Marin es, then that the Marines needed more air support, then that the weather was bad, and on still another occasion, that the Saudi ar my was not ready. What should I expect next, a postponement to th e 28th? Look, I told Norm, ten days ago you told me the 21st. Th en you wanted the 24th. Now you're asking for the 26th. I've got a President and a Secretary of Defense on my back. They've got a bad Russian peace proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give me a better case for postponement. I don't think you unders tand the pressure I'm under. Schwarzkopf exploded. You're giving me political reasons why you don't want to tell the President no t to do something militarily unsound! He was yelling. Don't you u nderstand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talkin g about Marines' lives. He had to worry about them, he said, even if nobody else cared. That did it. I had backed Norm at every s tep, fended off his critics with one hand while soothing his anxi eties with the other. Don't you pull that on me! I yelled back. D on't you try to lay a patronizing guilt trip on me! Don't tell me I don't care about casualties! What are you doing, putting on so me kind of show in front of your commanders? He was alone, Schwa rzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much hea t as I was. You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgmen t out of political expediency. I've felt this way for a long time ! he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. Coli n, I feel like my head's in a vise. Maybe I'm losing it. Maybe I' m losing my objectivity. I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to push the commander in the field over the edge on th e eve of battle. You're not losing it, I said. We've just got a p roblem we have to work out. You have the full confidence of all o f us back here. At the end of the day, you know I'm going to carr y your message, and we'll do it your way., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
Gebundene Ausgabe
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times… Mehr…
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the most promine nt figures in American public life, General Colin L. Powell serve d as the twelfth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both President George Bush and President Bill Clinton. He was a major architect of Desert Storm, the dramatic Allied success in the fo rty-three-day Gulf War, which began in January 1991. General Po well was born in New York City in 1937 and raised in the South Br onx by his parents, who had immigrated to America from Jamaica. H e came up through the New York City public school system and rece ived a commission as an army second lieutenant upon graduation fr om the City College of New York in 1958. Early in his career, G eneral Powell was stationed in Germany and in a number of posts i n the United States, and served two tours in Vietnam, 1962-1963 a nd 1968-1969. He was also a battalion commander in Korea from 197 3 to 1974 and later commanded the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Div ision (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and V Corps in G ermany. General Powell was appointed Deputy National Security A dvisor by President Ronald Reagan in January 1987 and in December 1987 became National Security Advisor, a post he held until Janu ary 1989. He served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1989 until his retirement on September 30, 1993. Gener al Powell has received numerous U.S. military awards and decorati ons, as well as civilian awards honoring his public service, incl uding the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was awarded twi ce. He has also been decorated by the governments of Argentina, B ahrain, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, the United Kingdom, and Ven ezuela, and received an honorary knighthood (Knight Commanders of Bath) from the Queen of England. From the Hardcover edition. E xcerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My Americ an Journey: Excerpt Point Two - Get mad, then get over it. IRAQ By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uni nterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the Presid ent understood that war was going to look a lot different once fi ghting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. Once the ground war begin s, I said, we don't get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefi ght, you don't lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundr ed men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You'l l see a kid's scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while a mmo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We ha ve to brace ourselves for some ugly images. I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. There's going to be confusio n. You won't know what is happening for a while. And so in the ea rly hours, please don't press us for situation reports. The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney ha d never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only fr om the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days. As the bo mbing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sh arp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, t wo of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and whic h the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the st ructure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, w hich the whole world witnessed on television as victims were haul ed from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this trag edy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month int o the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquar ters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing tar gets more closely before each day's missions. If nothing else, t he Al Firdos bunker strike underscored the need to start the comb ined air/ground offensive and end the war. During a quick visit C heney and I had made to the war zone between February 8 and 10, S chwarzkopf had told us that he would be ready to go by February 2 1. As soon as Cheney and I got back to Washington, we reported th is date to an impatient George Bush. Three days later, however, N orm called and told me that the 21st was out. The President want s to get on with this, I said. What happened? Walt Boomer needs more time, Schwarzkopf answered. Boomer's 1st and 2nd Marine Divi sions were deployed to drive head-on from the center of the line toward Kuwait City. But first they had to breach a savage complex of entrenchments that the Iraqis had spent months erecting. The Marines would have to penetrate belts of antipersonnel and antita nk mines, tangled rolls of booby-trapped barbed wire, more minefi elds, and deep tank traps, and then climb twenty-foot-high berms and cross trenches filled with burning oil. All the while, they w ould be under fire from Iraqi troops and artillery. Boomer wanted time to shift his point of attack twenty miles to the west, wher e one Iraqi defensive position had been largely abandoned under a ir attack and another line farther back was incomplete. He also w anted more airstrikes to weaken the enemy defenses before his tro ops moved. It'll cost a few days, Norm said. He wanted to put of f the ground offensive until February 24. Remember the strategy, I reminded him. The frontal assaults were intended only to tie d own the entrenched Iraqis, and that included the Marines' mission . If Boomer hits serious resistance, he's to stop, I said. Having engaged the enemy, his troops would have accomplished their miss ion by allowing VII Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps to pull off th e left hook in the sparsely defended western desert. We don't nee d to kill a bunch of kids singing The Marines' Hymn,' I said. O ne of my fundamental operating premises is that the commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless p roved otherwise. The field commander is on the scene, feeling the terrain, directing the troops, facing and judging the enemy. I t herefore advised Cheney to accept Norm's recommendation. Cheney r eluctantly went to the President and got a postponement to Februa ry 24. I backed Norm, though I thought he was being overly cauti ous. Over the previous weeks, I had watched VII Corps, with its t ens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks, pour into Saudi Arabia. We had secretly moved our armored and airborne forces to Iraq's exposed western flank, and we had been holding our breath to see if the Iraqis responded. All they did was send another un dermanned division to that part of the desert. That's it, I told myself. They had been sucked in by our moves hinting at a major f rontal assault and an amphibious landing on Kuwait from the Persi an Gulf. They had shown us everything they had, and it was nowher e near enough to stop our left hook. Earlier we had worried that the desert soil on the western flank might not be able to support heavy armored vehicles. The engineers had tested the sands, howe ver, and gave us a Go. We questioned local Bedouins, and they con firmed the solidness of the terrain. The offensive timetable was further clouded as Mikhail Gorbachev tried to play peacemaker. O n February 18, the Iraqi foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, went to Mo scow to hear a plan under which we would stop hostilities if the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait. President Bush was in a bind. It was too late for this approach, he believed. After the expenditure o f $60 billion and transporting half a million troops eight thousa nd miles, Bush wanted to deliver a knockout punch to the Iraqi in vaders in Kuwait. He did not want to win by a TKO that would allo w Saddam to withdraw with his army unpunished and intact and wait for another day. Nevertheless, the President could not be seen a s turning his back on a chance for peace. On February 20, Norm c alled saying he had talked to his commanders and needed still ano ther delay, to the 26th. He had the latest weather report in hand , he said, and bad weather was predicted for the 24th and 25th, m aybe clearing on the 26th. Bad weather equaled reduced air suppor t, which equaled higher casualties. I was on the spot. So far, Ch eney had accepted my counsel. But now I did not feel that Norm wa s giving me sufficiently convincing arguments to take back to Che ney and the President, first that Boomer needed to move his Marin es, then that the Marines needed more air support, then that the weather was bad, and on still another occasion, that the Saudi ar my was not ready. What should I expect next, a postponement to th e 28th? Look, I told Norm, ten days ago you told me the 21st. Th en you wanted the 24th. Now you're asking for the 26th. I've got a President and a Secretary of Defense on my back. They've got a bad Russian peace proposal they're trying to dodge. You've got to give me a better case for postponement. I don't think you unders tand the pressure I'm under. Schwarzkopf exploded. You're giving me political reasons why you don't want to tell the President no t to do something militarily unsound! He was yelling. Don't you u nderstand? My Marine commander says we need to wait. We're talkin g about Marines' lives. He had to worry about them, he said, even if nobody else cared. That did it. I had backed Norm at every s tep, fended off his critics with one hand while soothing his anxi eties with the other. Don't you pull that on me! I yelled back. D on't you try to lay a patronizing guilt trip on me! Don't tell me I don't care about casualties! What are you doing, putting on so me kind of show in front of your commanders? He was alone, Schwa rzkopf said, in his private office, and he was taking as much hea t as I was. You're pressuring me to put aside my military judgmen t out of political expediency. I've felt this way for a long time ! he said. Suddenly, his tone shifted from anger to despair. Coli n, I feel like my head's in a vise. Maybe I'm losing it. Maybe I' m losing my objectivity. I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was to push the commander in the field over the edge on th e eve of battle. You're not losing it, I said. We've just got a p roblem we have to work out. You have the full confidence of all o f us back here. At the end of the day, you know I'm going to carr y your message, and we'll do it your way., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
1996
ISBN: 0345407288
[EAN: 9780345407283], Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Ballantine Books], BIOGRAPHY: GENERAL,BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL,POLITICAL & MILITARY,MEMOIRS,HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS,WARFARE DEFENCE, 656 … Mehr…
[EAN: 9780345407283], Gebraucht, guter Zustand, [PU: Ballantine Books], BIOGRAPHY: GENERAL,BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL,POLITICAL & MILITARY,MEMOIRS,HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS,WARFARE DEFENCE, 656 pages. Cover wornA GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . Then he joined the Army. The rest is history--Vietnam, the Pent agon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history that until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the first time, Colin Powel l himself tells us how it happened, in a memoir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a so ldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is the powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the moun taintop of the political landscape of America. At a time when Ame ricans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's pas sionate views on family, personal responsibility, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the opportunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly a bsorbing account, it is history with a vision. The stirring, only -in-America story of one determined man's journey from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascina ting.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquent. --Los Angeles Tim es Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Must reading for anyon e who wants to reaffirm his faith in the promise of America. --Ja ck Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that is much like its subj ect--articulate, confident, impressive, but unpretentious and wit ty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book w ell worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candi d, introspective autobiography is a joy for all with an appetite for well-written political and social commentary. --The Detroit N ews Editorial Reviews From the Inside Flap A GREAT AMERICAN SUC CESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New Yo rk Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the Americ an dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica . He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely ave rage start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is histor y--Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, Desert Storm--but a history tha t until now has been known only on the surface. Here, for the fir st time, Colin Powell himself tells us how it happened, in a memo ir distinguished by a heartfelt love of country and family, warm good humor, and a soldier's directness. MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is t he powerful story of a life well lived and well told. It is also a view from the mountaintop of the political landscape of America . At a time when Americans feel disenchanted with their leaders, General Powell's passionate views on family, personal responsibil ity, and, in his own words, the greatness of America and the oppo rtunities it offers inspire hope and present a blueprint for the future. An utterly absorbing account, it is history with a vision . The stirring, only-in-America story of one determined man's jou rney from the South Bronx to directing the mightiest of military forces . . . Fascinating.--The Washington Post Book World Eloquen t. --Los Angeles Times Book Review PROFOUND AND MOVING . . . . Mu st reading for anyone who wants to reaffirm his faith in the prom ise of America. --Jack Kemp The Wall Street Journal A book that i s much like its subject--articulate, confident, impressive, but u npretentious and witty. . . . Whether you are a political junkie, a military buff, or just interested in a good story, MY AMERICAN JOURNEY is a book well worth reading. --San Diego Union Tribune Colin Powell's candid, introspective autobiography is a joy for a ll with an appetite for well-written political and social comment ary. --The Detroit News About the Author One of the, Books<
1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times… Mehr…
Ballantine Books. Good. 4 x 1.25 x 7 inches. Paperback. 1996. 656 pages. Cover worn<br>A GREAT AMERICAN SUCCESS STORY . . . AN ENDEARING AND WELL-WRITTEN BOOK. --The New York Times Book Review Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was bor n in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school . ... ., Ballantine Books, 1996, 2.5<
1996, ISBN: 9780345407283
[PU: Ballantine Books], 656 Seiten Taschenbuch, Größe: 10.6 x 3.1 x 17.5 cm Gepflegter, sauberer Zustand. 2085496/2 Altersfreigabe FSK ab 0 Jahre, DE, [SC: 3.00], gebraucht; sehr gut, gew… Mehr…
[PU: Ballantine Books], 656 Seiten Taschenbuch, Größe: 10.6 x 3.1 x 17.5 cm Gepflegter, sauberer Zustand. 2085496/2 Altersfreigabe FSK ab 0 Jahre, DE, [SC: 3.00], gebraucht; sehr gut, gewerbliches Angebot, Reprint, Banküberweisung, Kreditkarte, PayPal, Internationaler Versand<
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Detailangaben zum Buch - My American Journey
EAN (ISBN-13): 9780345407283
ISBN (ISBN-10): 0345407288
Gebundene Ausgabe
Taschenbuch
Erscheinungsjahr: 1996
Herausgeber: BALLANTINE BOOKS
688 Seiten
Gewicht: 0,349 kg
Sprache: eng/Englisch
Buch in der Datenbank seit 2007-07-31T18:37:21+02:00 (Berlin)
Detailseite zuletzt geändert am 2024-03-19T06:04:31+01:00 (Berlin)
ISBN/EAN: 0345407288
ISBN - alternative Schreibweisen:
0-345-40728-8, 978-0-345-40728-3
Alternative Schreibweisen und verwandte Suchbegriffe:
Autor des Buches: joseph, persico, colin powell
Titel des Buches: american journey autobiography, americans journey, joseph journey, mies america, persico, colin powell
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