Nov/Dec 2012 Book of the Month: C Trick by Donald M. Cooper

The November - December 2012 Book of the Month is by former member of the Berlin Brigade Donald M. Cooper: C TRICK.

His entry into the literary world is the book "C Trick" which has be considered as THE Cold War "memoir for the common man."

C TRICK reads sort of as a glimpse into life during a wartime military (Vietnam) and "[b]efore the all-volunteer Army, there was the draft. This meant that most young American men had to decide how they were going to meet their military obligation. As the Cold War dragged on and the Vietnam War heated up, how a person met this obligation assumed critical importance. The choices were stark. If you were in college, you were safe. If not, you could wait to be drafted with the understanding that you could be sent to Vietnam as a combat soldier, or you could volunteer for an assignment that offered the chance of avoiding infantry combat in a rice paddy. Volunteering, however, also had a price. You would serve for a longer time, often in a foreign country far away from friends and family. "C Trick" tells the story of some of those who volunteered. The book is a tale that describes how one group of young citizen-soldiers met their military obligation during the last half of the Sixties. The book describes what it was like to be a soldier in a special Army unit stationed in what may have been the most important Cold War hot spot. Using prose from the era, the book captures all the humor and frustration experienced by young men coping with the rigors of military life. The reader will experience the frustration of these men when they were expected to perform difficult technical work in an important national security facility while also dealing with military absurdities. This book captures all the details of how these soldiers worked, played and tried to avoid military life while serving in the Army. It is a very refreshing account of how Cold War soldiers spent their time while their lives were on hold." (Amazon.com Book Description).


You can order your copy of C TRICK by Donald M. Cooper:

Congrats to New York Times Best Selling Author Rebecca Cantrell

BerlinBrigade.com wants to extend the most Heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS we can collectively muster to our good friend Rebecca Cantrell (www.RebeccaCantrell.com) who recently became a New York Times Bestselling Author. Rebecca joins that prestigious list of authors for the work that she along with James Rollins (another NYTimes Bestselling Author) did in writing the novel "City of Screams" (Kindle edition).

"City of Screams" is a story set  in the "highlands of Afghanistan, amid the ruins of Shahr-e-Gholghol, an archaeology team is massacred in the night. Sergeant Jordan Stone and his crack forensic team are called in to examine the site, to hunt for the perpetrators of this horrific act. But the discovery of a survivor—a child of ten—will shatter all the team knows about life and death. Among the crumbling bones of dead kings, something hoary and murderous stirs out of the ancient past, lurching forward to claim vengeance on those still living."

You can order your copy for the Kindle:



Also, did you know in Episode 30 of the BerlinBrigade.com Podcast I interviewed the author of the Hannah Vogel series of books; Rebecca Cantrell?  That's right!

Rebecca Cantrell was interviewed in April of 2011 which was right around the time that her second book, "A Night of Long Knives", was being published.

I invite you to listen to the that interview on the EPISODE 30 page by clicking here. Once the page scroll down to the INTERVIEW ONLY player and you can here the wonderful conversation that I was fortunate enough to have with Rebecca Cantrell.

CONGRATULATIONS REBECCA!!!!
 

It Was 23 Years Ago Today (November 9, 1989)

23 years ago on this day the world came to a sudden halt. So very few times in World History has one event been able to stop everything and make the world pay attention. November 9, 1989 is that day. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was the "astonishing event" that change the world.

I recorded a small video message to on the occasion of the 23rd Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Congratulations to Germany and the World!

October/November 2012 Book of the Month: Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War

The BerlinBrigade.com October/November 2012 Book of the Month is Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War by David E. Murphy (Au, Sergei A. Kondrashev, & George Bailey.

Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War takes you behind the scenes of Spy vs. Spy life in East and West Berlin from just after the end of the Second World War to the construction of the notorious/infamous Berlin Wall.

If all you know about the spy-craft and the Cold War is what you have seen in the movies or on some History Channel special, well you have another thing coming with Battleground Berlin. This book brings to you some of the characters that played the game of move and counter-move during some of the most OVERT and COVERT events of the epicenter of the Cold War: Berlin.

On the surface this 556 page hardcover is not light reading but for anyone interested in getting an insider's look to the CIA's and KGB's operations in Berlin then this book is one you cannot pass up. You can order your copy of Battleground Berlin from Amazon.com.