book 1 of 25

I've made a goal of reading 25 books this year.  Last year the goal was 30 and I made it...by the skin of my teeth.  Hopefully, I can read more than 25 this year.  However, there are some quite large books on my "to-read" list this year. 
I just finished "Joker One" by Donovan Campbell.  I typically don't read these kinds of books.  Military and Military strategy isn't my cup of tea.   I heard this guy on NPR a few years ago and I was intrigued.  Donvan is a Princeton and Harvard Business School graduate.  It's been sitting out on my "to-read" list forever, so I finally got to it.   The first of the book was filled with a lot of military jargon and I lost a little bit of interest.  I did keep reading and I'm glad I did.  The story is of the every day life of this particular platoon in Ramadi Iraq early 2004.  It made me realize that life and death decisions are made by young men with very little "real world" experience.  It is heart wrenching to read about the physical and emotional danger these boys go through day in and day out. More often than not the true heros are never recognized in the way they should be. It also opened my eyes to the enemy.  Undoubtedly, there are terrorists that wish for nothing more than these boys to be killed.  However, there are also many civilians that feel they are protecting what belongs to them.  They don't understand the reasons for war.  Most of the time I don't either.
There is a lot of harsh language in this book, but such is the language of war.