some holiday reading ....

May i recommend the following as a partial list of excellent reading material for the holiday period including Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year....

First start with "How the Irish Saved Civilization" and follow it immediately with Thomas Cahill's other books in no particular order "The Gifts of The Jews", "Desire of the Everlasting Hills" and "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea" all extremely well written books on how we got to where we are and who helped get us there....

Also very high on my must read list this year "The Book of Honor" by Ted Gup ... the fascinating and true stories of the men and women behind the CIA "Stars" ....

A MUST read and MUST buy for anyone into politics is "Never Give In!" the best of Sir Winston S. Churchill's speeches, edited by his Grandson Winston S Churchill.

Sports fans who have not yet SHOULD read "Moneyball", by Michael Lewis, the authoritative tome of the building of the Oakland A's baseball team of the 2000s ... especially since the re-tooling of that team is so much in the forefront of today's sports news.

On the lighter side i heartily recommend any and all of the "Uncle John's Bathroom Readers" a must for trivia buffs who have very little free time to read ....

literary classics that are always up for a re-read or DEFINITELY a FIRST READ include "Doctor Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak, "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann and "Abraham Lincoln" by Carl Sandburg ... in the case of Lincoln a MUST in my opinion for EVERY American junior high and high school student without exception.

For military buffs .. may i recommend "Beyond the Wild Blue Yonder" by Walter J. Boyne ... a fairly comprehensive history of the United States Air Force.

I shall offer two more selections just for general principles which i have not yet read but are most DEFINITELY my next two purchases ... the first is "The Bounty" by Caroline Alexander, about the famous mutiny aboard His Majesty's Armed Transport .... and the second is "How the Scots Invented the Modern World" by Arthur Herman.

Happy reading and remember to tell a friend or buy any of these as either a gift to someone special or for yourself ....


and now just what everyone has been waiting for .... this BLOG's Military Units of Distinction ....

the envelope please ................................ (drum roll)


US Air Force - 355th Wing, Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona

US Marine Corps - D Co., 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, Twenty-Nine Palms, California

US Coast Guard - USCG Cutter Willow (WLB 202), Newport, Rhode Island

US Navy - USS Nevada, (SSBN 733), NBK Bangor, Washington

US Army - 20th Engineer Brigade (Combat) (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina


once more into the breach dear friends .... THANK YOU from the bottom of this citizen's (and fellow veteran) heart.... in the word of Sir Winston S Churchill ... "NEVER GIVE IN"