Death Ground: Today's American Infantry in Battle Mass market paperbound - 2003

First line

"All okay, jumpmaster."

From the jacket flap

"An informative and thought-provoking history of recent infantry operations with reasoned glimpses of its possible future."
-DR. SHAWN WHETSTONE "Military Heritage
"This is [Colonel Bolger's] most significant work to date, important both for students of the contemporary U.S. Army and for general readers- even those normally uninterested in military affairs. Bolger documents the infantry's change over the past sixty years from a mass force of citizen soldiers to a small body of elite professionals. He presents each currently existing type of infantry-paratroopers, air assault, mechanized, light, rangers, and marines. . . . In each case study, Bolger emphasizes the quality and preparation, making it quite clear that will without skill and motivation without competence are certain routes to disaster. . . . While praising today's infantry as the best the country has ever fielded, Bolger raises the prospect that the U.S. military, by emphasizing technology and economy, will leave the country with an elite infantry too small to sustain heavy losses and too specialized to be quickly replaced."-"Publishers Weekly
DEATH GROUNDToday's American Infantry in Battle

Media reviews

“If Bolger is as good a soldier as he is a writer, he may become the first four-star general to also win a Pulitzer Prize.”
–Booklist


“Infantry conjures many images: uncomfortable conditions, savage close combat, constant patrols, and the thousand-mile stare. Our popular media gives the impression that the wonders of precision weapons can win wars without subjecting the soldiers of modern militaries to these conditions . . . . The American way of war has always emphasized sending bullets, not men, a historical structure that continues in the current force structure. . . . Bolger’s choice of operations illustrates two key points; first, that modern warfare has not made the infantry obsolete, and second, even very contemporary military history can be quite valuable in contemplating future combat.”
–DR. SHAWN WHETSTONE
Military Heritage