If you’ve read something lately that you think would be of interest to other alumni, please consider submitting a book review. We’ll publish a selection of submissions throughout the year and devote the June edition of e-Veritas to book reviews. Find the criteria for your submission here.
Alumni Authors:
New Canadian Military/Adventure Novel
On September 13th, RMC69 grad Gordon Burns Hamilton will be releasing a military-adventure novel, Conflicts. In this novel, two generations of Royal Military College graduates work to get a college classmate out of a dangerous African prison. As their efforts move from diplomacy to more dynamic actions, the team discovers that their friend has a more complex background than they understood, causing conflicts between loyalty and justice.
Conflicts is available for pre-order at https://www.aospublishing.com/gordon-hamilton
G. Burns Hamilton served as an engineer captain and as an Assistant Professor at the Royal Military College of Canada. He also been a lecturer at both McGill and Concordia universities. Gordon Burns has been Canada’s representative on NATO’s Civil Aviation Planning Committee and Planning Board for Ocean Shipping. The consulting company that he founded and led for 29 years, Sypher, has advised governments and private agencies in eighty countries.
Here are some of the books we are reading this issue:
Wargames from World War II: Examples of Axis and Allied Wargaming Rules and Umpire Guidelines
It has only taken me a decade to complete this book. It gives actual examples of games played during World War II, a war in which wargaming was just seen as another tool for training and operation planning.
The games played just before and during World War II mattered. As a result of those wargames, battles were fought, campaigns were launched; lives were lost, lives were saved. An overview of such games has been covered in the literature before. This book is different as it aims to examine the detail of these wargames by including primary material; extracts from source documents, wargaming rules and umpiring guides from the pre-war period until 1945.
Included are detailed guidelines on the German use of wargaming during the war based on post war analysis by the American military. This includes outlines of best practise and the value of these games.
Samples of the German map based tactical exercises set at platoon and company level. An example of a British attack on a village. British and American umpire manuals with rules for arbitrating field exercises, sand table and map wargames.
Author John Curry
A comprehensive history of the operations conducted by Canadian artillery units in Afghanistan, from 2002 to 2006. Based on hundreds of interviews and primary source documents, there is no other book that provides as accurate a picture of the invaluable contribution made by the artillery.
Available on Kindle or paperback
Authors Brian Redi, Mark Zuehlke and Wolf Riedel
Acclaimed journalist Simon Shuster gives us the first inside account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the perspective of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team, who granted him unprecedented access.
Time correspondent Simon Shuster chronicles the life and wartime leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky from the dressing rooms of his variety show in Ukraine to the muddy trenches of his war with Russia. Based on four years of reporting; extensive travels with President Zelensky to the front; and dozens of interviews with him, his wife, his friends and enemies, his advisers, ministers and military commanders, The Showman tells an intimate and eye-opening story of the President’s evolution from a slapstick actor to a symbol of resilience, revealing how he managed to rally the world’s democracies behind his cause.
The book’s early chapters offer the first detailed account of Zelensky’s life in a nuclear bunker in the opening weeks of the invasion and the circumstances of his wife’s escape to safety with their children. Later, as the Russians retreat from Kyiv, we see Zelensky and his team emerge from the bunker and lead Ukraine in a series of crucial victories. The result is a riveting, up-close picture of the invasion as experienced by its number one target and improbable hero.
Authors Simon Shuster and Daniel Gamburg
This program features an introduction narrated by the author. It has been modified to maintain the author’s anonymity.
The first and only audiobook by a member of America’s most secret military unit―an explosive and unlikely story of immigration, service, and sacrifice.
Inside our military is a team of operators whose work is so secretive that the name of the unit itself is classified. Highly-trained in warfare, self-defense, infiltration, and deep surveillance, “the Unit,” as the Department of Defense has asked us to refer to it, has been responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacks in the Western world. Never before has a member of this unit shared their story — until now.
From Adam Gamal, one of the only Muslim Arab Americans to serve inside “the Unit,” comes an incisive firsthand account of our nation’s most secretive military group. When Adam arrived in the United States at the age of twenty, he spoke no English, and at 5’1″ and 112 pounds, he was far from what you might expect of a soldier. But compelled into service by a debt he felt he owed to his new country, he rose through the ranks of the military to become one of its most elite and skilled operators.
With humor and humility, Adam shares stories of life-threatening injuries, of the camaraderie and capabilities of his team, and of the incredible missions―but also of the growth he experienced as he learned to understand his own moderate faith.
Enthralling and eye-opening, The Unit is at once a gripping account of the fight against terror, an urgent examination of the need for diversity, and an inside look at how America fights its battles abroad in the modern age of terrorism.
Authors Adam Gamal and Kelly Kennedy