FOUR STIMULATING  AND READABLE BOOKS 

BY RETIRED NAVY REAR ADMIRAL PETE BOOTH
(Former carrier-based fighter pilot, carrier skipper 
and civilian master mariner)

 

War Novel

Humble in Victory is a great read with a covey of powerful and believable characters, a fast-moving plot that grabs the reader at every turn and some tough lessons of what combat readiness really means.  Strap it on!  You won’t be disappointed!  By far and away, it’s the best novel I’ve read in a lifetime of reading some good ones. Published on 9/11/01, it looks ahead to 2010 and a gender-equal U.S. Navy engaged in deadly combat against the trio of Iraq , Saudi Arabia and Iran seeking control of the Caspian Sea oil.  It’s all about real Americans doing the tough job for Navy and country with honor, patriotism, courage and sacrifice.  4,500 sold with thousands of happy readers!  As most of the author’s assumptions have come true, the reader may find him or herself somewhat uncomfortable.   The one-liner on my business card states simply, “Humble in Victory—a prescient war-at-sea novel circa 2010.”  Challenge:  If Humble is not among the very best novels you’ve read, your money back.  Promise! 

True Faith and Allegiance cover

True Faith and Allegiance captures the spirit and intensity of the Cold War from the mid-fifties to the mid-eighties, a period of indescribable danger to our nation and the word—the most perilous in the history of the US.  The journals are viewed through the eyes of several thousand real sailors and aviators doing the tough job for Navy and nation 24/7 with whom I was proud to have served. 280 scanned photos and documents bring this easy-to-read journals of the Cold War into sharp focus and vivid reality.  Strap on a Phantom jet; catapult into a black-assed night and catch an arresting wire on a gyrating flight deck; experience the horror and carnage of the Forrestal fire; peek into the inner-sanctums at the highest levels of the Pentagon; ride the captain’s chair on a super carrier and relive the foibles of a destroyer ensign on a learning fast-track.  Published 2006  

Sea Buoy cover

Sea Buoy Outbound is a page-turning, fast-read, chock-full of real lessons and ideas that will stimulate the most jaded of maritime professionals or those with an abiding interest in men, sea and ships.  The author is both a Naval Officer with extensive sea time and a civilian mariner with a sizable dollop of civilian maritime experience.  420 pages and 200 scans of places, ships and shipmates, civilian and Navy.  Half Navy and half civilian maritime experiences including accidents at sea, Forrestal fire, destroyer ensign, carrier command, getting the civilian license, second mate on a cruise ship, American Cruise Lines honcho, master of research ships in the far, winter North Atlantic and drug interdiction in the Pacific.   The romance of the sea is in full bloom!  Published 2009.  The book is on the CNO’s and Naval War College’s professional reading list as well as that of the Nimitz Library at the U. S. Naval Academy.  

AIRCRAFT CARRIER COMMAND:  Commanding any warship takes the finest sense of knowledge, experience and leadership.  A carrier, even more so given that only about eight are ready for sea out of our eleven nuclear powered carriers; each represents an irreplaceable national asset.  In some 300 pages, this book lays out the basics of command in a brief first section, followed by a host of bold-faced pragmatics in running an incredibly complex operation.  This is followed by a detailed analysis of two-dozen case histories of groundings, fires and collisions with no holds barred.  Finally, are some 100 pages of command commentary by 24 seasoned carrier and combatant former commanding officers—how about 150 years of sea-command?  This latter section is the meat of the book and one that any ship captain, flag officer or future OOD is invited to study, dissect, agree, disagree or modify, for absolutes in command are few and far between.  Great reader comments, even before publication in the summer of 2011.

 
free counter