Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground...

Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (Vintage ... | Robert D. Kaplan | Sequel to Imperial Grunts

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Hog Pilots, Blue W...

	Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (Vintage ... Robert D. Kaplan Vintage, 2008 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 19 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, acclaimed journalist Robert D. Kaplan continues his exploration of the American military's challenging and varied commitments around the world.

From protecting sea lanes, to providing disaster relief, to preparing for potential military confrontation with North Korea and Iran, Kaplan describes the astonishing, vital, and often unacknowledged operations regularly performed by American military personnel in the air, at sea, and on the ground. Vivid and illuminating, this book takes us deep into the highly technical and exotic cultures of the armed forces, telling soldiers' stories from the perspective of the troops on the ground.

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A wonderful, informative and refreshing read

Compared to his earlier book, The Imperial Grunts, this one is not as good but it enhanced my view of the US Military much more than the "Imperial Grunts" since that book was mostly written about the ground forces deployed around the world. This one is about the naval, air forces and ground forces altogether but its emphasis is more on Air Force and Navy. It's a very informative book on the status of the US military and its future. Robert D. Kaplan is an able author with tons of knowledge about the past and he wonderfully mixes the past with present and then predicts the future to the best of his ability. I recommend his books to the military and political enthusiasts.

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Sequel to Imperial Grunts

As pointed out by several other reviewers, this book is a sequel to the earlier and better Imperial Grunts. Kaplan revisits some of the locales of the earlier book and reports tremendous progress in places like Columbia and the Philippines. He spends time on a nuclear carrier, a destroyer and a nuclear fast attack submarine. Those were the best parts of the book. He spends time with A 10 pilots on deployment to Thailand and provides well-deserved credit to these blue collar fighter pilots who fly the unloved but tremendously valuable attack aircraft. It was so unloved by the fighter mafia that runs the US Air Force that they were going to retire the plane. The Army, which depends on air support, and has no air wing of its own like the Marine Corp, offered to take over the plane and add it to its own air arm. The Air Force quickly restored the A 10 units to full flying status and no more was heard for a while about retiring them.

Kaplan does travel a lot and the depth of his interviews in the earlier book isn't here but it is still a good source of information about the far flung US military as it fights the savage wars of peace.

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Not as Good as Imperial Grunts

Though not as good a book as the author's "Imperial Grunts" this sequel is a very well-done work. As in the previous book, Kaplan visits U.S. military outposts, large and small, around the world, describing the quiet and usually effective efforts our elite troops are executing to keep peace and prepare, if necessary, for war. As another reviewer noted, this is primarily a military travelogue and Kaplan, who I believe is one of the premier travel writers of this or any other time, winnows out the fascinating and the exotic as he writes about the various U.S. posts and the troops who man them. Some of the chapters are very compelling, such as the one describing the "pilots" of the unmanned Predators, the one describing the B-2 bomber pilots, the submarine crews, the green berets and so on. All in all, a fine account of today's military culture and the many ways we are waging -- overtly and covertly -- the Global War on Terrorism and wars to come.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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