From October 2006 to December 2007, Daniel A. Sjursen-then a U.S. Army lieutenant-led a light scout platoon across Baghdad. The experiences of Ghost Rider platoon provide a soldier's-eye view of the incredible complexities of warfare, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency in one of the world's most ancient cities. Sjursen reflects broadly and critically on the prevailing narrative of the surge as savior of America's longest war, on the overall military strategy in Iraq, and on U.S. relations with ordinary Iraqis. At a time when just a handful of U.S. senators and representatives have a family member in combat, Sjursen also writes movingly on questions of America's patterns of national service. Who now serves and why? What connection does America's professional army have to the broader society and culture? What is the price we pay for abandoning the model of the citizen soldier? With the bloody emergence of ISIS in 2014, Iraq and its beleaguered, battle-scarred people are again much in the news. Unlike other books on the U.S. war in Iraq, Ghost Riders of Baghdad is part battlefield chronicle, part critique of American military strategy and policy, and part appreciation of Iraq and its people. At once a military memoir, history, and cultural commentary, Ghost Riders of Bahdad delivers a compelling story and a deep appreciation of both those who serve and the civilians they strive to protect. Sjursen provides a riveting addition to our understanding of modern warfare and its human costs.

The Civil War is over. American expansion pushes westward across the United States, unaware of the supernatural dangers that lurk in the Wild West. A Bostonian tourist is thrust against his will into this savage land of outlaws and desperados. Finding allies in a war veteran, a native tracker, a gold rush baroness, a mysterious magician and a trusty dog, Jacobi Nicholson will find that he is destined to heal some of the scars this unforgiving landscape has given his new friends. Bound by the spectres of an old frontier myth, will the gang defy the Law to do what is right and go beyond legend…?

A SWEEPING NOVEL THAT JUXTAPOSES THE LEGENDS OF THE CIVIL WAR WITH THE LIVES OF THE MODERN-DAY MOUNTAIN FOLK.

April 1945. As Allied bombs rain down on Europe, a 400-year-old institution looks set to be wiped off the face of the Earth. The famous white Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, unique and precious animals representing centuries of careful breeding, are scattered across rural Austria and Czechoslovakia in areas soon to be swallowed up by Soviet forces - there, doubtless, to become rations for the Red Army. Their only hope lies with the Americans: what if a small, highly mobile US task force could be sent deep behind German lines, through fanatical SS troops, to rescue the horses before the Soviets arrive. Just five light tanks, a handful of armoured cars and jeeps, and 300 battle-weary GIs must plunge headlong into the unknown on a rescue mission that could change the course of European history. So begins Operation Cowboy, the greatest Second World War story that has never been fully told. GIs will join forces with surrendered German soldiers and liberated prisoners of war to save the world's finest horses from fanatical SS and the ruthless Red Army in an extraordinary battle during the last few days of the war in Europe.

Disguising herself as a boy to join the Union army alongside her husband, Malinda Blalock raids the farms of Confederate sympathizers and promotes the efforts of governor Zebulon Vance, who would protect Appalachian interests.

It is April 1945 and the world's most prized horses are about to be slaughtered ... As the Red Army closes in on the Third Reich, a German colonel sends an American intelligence officer an unusual report about a POW camp soon to be overrun by the Soviets. Locked up, the report says, are over a thousand horses, including the entire herd of white Lipizzaner's from Vienna's Spanish Riding School, as well as Europe's finest Arabian stallions'stolen to create an equine "master race." The horses are worth millions and, if the starving Red Army reaches the stables first, they will kill the horses for rations. The Americans, under the command of General George Patton, whose love of horses was legendary, decide to help the Germans save the majestic creatures. So begins "Operation Cowboy," as GIs join forces with surrendered German soldiers and liberated prisoners of war to save the world's finest horses from fanatical SS soldiers and the ruthless Red Army in an extraordinary battle during the last few days of the war in Europe. This is an epic untold story from the waning days of World War II. Drawing from newly unearthed archival material, family archives held by descendants of the participants, and interviews with many of the participants published throughout the years, Ghost Riders is the definitive account of this truly unprecedented and moving story of kindness and compassion at the close of humanity's darkest hour.

Gene Autry meets the Ghost Riders in this 1955 in this young adult novel, originally published in 1955. [Facsimile Reprint Edition]