"A rip-roaring read about spycraft and the CIA's inner workings . . . an inspiring group portrait of extraordinary CIA women whose careers are multisided profiles in courage."-Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars The acclaimed author of Code Girls returns with a revelatory history of three generations at the CIA-the women who fought to become operatives, transformed spy craft, and tracked down Osama Bin Laden. Created in the aftermath of World War Two, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency's secrets. Despite discrimination-even because of it-women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA's shrewdest operatives. They were unlikely spies-and that's exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA's critical archives-first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn't see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of Al Qaeda-though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside. After the 9/11 attacks, more women joined the Agency as a new job, "targeter," came to prominence. They showed that data analysis would be crucial to the post-9/11 national security landscape-an effort that culminated spectacularly in the CIA's successful efforts to track down Bin Laden in his Pakistani compound.

One of the most hotly contested issues of our time - the US-Mexico border - stretches more than 2,000 miles. It's protection is led by a thin-line of overworked and underfunded US Border Patrol agents. Vincent Vargas, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan with the US Army's 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, later served with the Border Patrol. His new book, BORDERLINE: Defending the Homefront, which publishes November 14, 2023, provides a thorough insiders look at just how dangerous defending the border is.

"The most bracingly honest, refreshing account of the Afghan war" (Sebastian Junger, New York Times? bestselling author) from a Marine Corps Combat Cameraman and director of the acclaimed documentary Combat Obscura. At just eighteen years old, Miles Lagoze joined the Marine Corps a decade after the war began and found himself surrounded by people not unlike those he'd left behind at home-aimless youth searching for stability, community, and economic security. Deployed to Afghanistan as a Combat Cameraman-an active-duty videographer and photographer-Lagoze produced slick images of glory and heroism for public consumption. But his government-approved footage concealed a grim reality. Here, Lagoze pulls back the curtain and illustrates the grisly truth of the longest war in American history. As these young men and women were deployed to an unfamiliar country half a world away-history's "graveyard of empires"-they carried the scars of the fractured homeland that sent them. Lagoze shows us Marines straddling the edge of chaos. We see forces desensitized to gore and suffering by the darkest reaches of the internet, unsure of their places in an unraveling world and set further adrift by the uncertain mission to which they had been assigned abroad. Whistles from the Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan shows the parts of the Afghanistan War we were never meant to see-Afghan locals and American infantry drawn together by their fears of the ghostly, ever-present terror of the Taliban; moments of dark resignation as the devastating toll of years in war's crossfire reveals itself between bouts of adrenaline-laced violence; and nights of reckless, drug-fueled abandon to dull the pain. In full, vivid color, Miles Lagoze shows us an oft-overlooked generation of young Americans we cast out into the desert, steeped in nihilism, and shipped back home with firsthand training in extremism, misanthropy, and insurrection.

When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force at eighteen, he did so out of necessity. He hadn't been accepted into college thanks to an indifferent high school career. He'd too often slept through his classes as he worked long hours at a Chinese restaurant to help pay the bills for his trailer-dwelling family in Lake City, Florida. But the Air Force recognizes his potential and sends him to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan. By 2011, Fritz was an airborne cryptologic linguist and one of only a tiny number of people in the world trained to do this job on low-flying gunships. He monitors communications on the ground and determines in real time which Afghans are Taliban and which are innocent civilians. This eavesdropping is critical to supporting Special Forces units on the ground, but there is no training to counter the emotional complexity that develops as you listen to people's most intimate conversations. Over the course of two tours, Fritz listens to the Taliban for hundreds of hours, all over the country night and day, in moments of peace and in the middle of battle. What he hears teaches him about the people of Afghanistan-Taliban and otherwise-the war, and himself. Fritz's fluency is his greatest asset to the military, yet it becomes the greatest liability to his own commitment to the cause. Both proud of his service and in despair that he is instrumental in destroying the voices that he hears, What the Taliban Told Me is a brilliant, intimate coming-of-age memoir and a reckoning with our twenty years of war in Afghanistan.

THE SPACE RACE weaves together the stories of Black astronauts seeking to break the bonds of social injustice to reach for the stars, including Guion Bluford, Ed Dwight and Charles Bolden, among many others. In THE SPACE RACE, directors Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and Lisa Cortés profile the pioneering Black pilots, scientists and engineers who joined NASA to serve their country in space, even as their country failed to achieve equality for them back on Earth. From 1963, when the assassination of JFK thwarted Captain Ed Dwight's quest to reach the moon, to 2020, when the echoes of the civil unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd reached the International Space Station, the story of African Americans at NASA is a tale of world events colliding with the aspirations of uncommon men. The bright dreams of Afrofuturism become reality in THE SPACE RACE, turning science fiction into science fact and forever redefining what "the right stuff" looks like, giving us new heroes to celebrate and a fresh history to explore.

The war in Afghanistan impacted Americans in profound ways, yet only a small percentage of Americans know what it's like to be there, fight there, come home from there, and then live the rest of their lives wondering if their service made a difference. This Troubled Ground (Koehler Books; September 12, 2023) by Les Carroll goes there-to the cold, dark, and heartbreaking tarmac at Dover Air Force Base, to the Kabul newsrooms, to briefing rooms, and to the deadly battlefields in their many forms across Afghanistan. Inspired by true events, this book follows a haunting, sometimes uplifting but ultimately tragic journey into war through the eyes of an Air Force officer searching for meaning as his path intersects with a mother's desperate quest to find hope after her son is killed serving with the US Marines in Afghanistan. Les Carroll grew up in South Carolina, served in the Air Force and Air National Guard for twenty-eight years, and retired in 2013. He served two tours in Afghanistan and one tour at the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover Air Force Base. This Troubled Ground was created out of those experiences. He is an award-winning military and civilian journalist and acclaimed documentary filmmaker. His documentary Bringing the Fallen Home aired nationally in 2014. He wrote and published three books in the mid-1990s.

On December 5, 2005, Air Force Special Ops Paratrooper Israel Del Toro's life changed completely when, returning to his base, the Humvee he was in ran over an IED. The resulting explosion and fire burned Del Toro over 80% of his body. He survived, somehow, and was transported back to a U.S. hospital. Against enormous odds, his trials and tribulations to live were just beginning. For the first time, Del Toro tells the full story of his ordeal in his truly inspiring memoir, A PATRIOT'S PROMISE: Protecting My Brothers, Fighting for My Life, and Keeping My Word (St. Martin's Press, on sale July 4, 2023, $28.99). For the next four months, Del Toro lay in a coma. On three separate occasions his devoted wife, Carmen, was called to his side as doctors feared he would not make it overnight. His story is not only one of courage and overcoming horrific obstacles from war, but also conquering myriad roadblocks throughout his life. At age 12, he lost his father and became the man of the house. Having been told by his high school guidance counselor he should just concentrate on going to a local junior college, the determined teen ended up with a scholarship to the University of Illinois. But just as things started rounding into shape in his young life, his mother unexpectedly died. Now Del Toro had to fully embrace the promise he gave his father to take care of his younger siblings. He walked away from his college dream and returned home to care for his family. With his siblings growing up, and family members close by, Del Toro made the tough decision to enlist in the Air Force. His skills were a natural fit and his superior officers could see his natural leadership qualities. Though recently married, with a baby boy to care for as well, he was deployed to Afghanistan. His strength and perseverance made his fellow cadets gravitate towards him. And then.December 5, 2005. Still, after being told he'd spend 18 months in the hospital, Del Toro was so determined to return home that he was released only two months into his stay. He still needed daily care from his wife, Carmen, and his greatest fear remained - would his young three-year-old son be frightened of his physical appearance? When father and son met again after months of separation, the young boy ran into his father's arms. All he wanted was his Dad back. His amazing story began inspiring other wounded troops, and soon thereafter Del Toro became an advocate for others in the Burn Unit and those badly injured. He continues to inspire today, speaking at numerous organizations and foundations, and numbers among his strongest friends President George W. Bush, Prince Harry, Gary Sinise, and Jon Stewart. Del Toro has gone on to set records and win medals at The Warrior Games and The Invictus Games. He won the Pat Tillman Courage Award at the ESPYs. Perhaps his most amazing accomplishment, though, occurred in February of 2010 when he became the first completely disabled airman ever to re-enlist in the Air Force and become an instructor. Though he couldn't deploy again he was at least back in the game.

Pod Crashing Episode 257 Jacob And Ashley Schick From The Good Stuff The Good Stuff Podcast delves into the inspiring stories of success and perseverance. Through well-crafted story monologues, we showcase individuals who have made a positive impact through their acts of kindness, successful careers, businesses, and military service.

What we see on television, as well as what we read in newspapers, watch on YouTube, and hear on the radio, routinely glorifies the military, obscures the real costs of war, and dehumanizes people the U.S. government has deemed dangerous or expendable. In War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine (Hardcover; $27.99; 978-1-62097-791-0; On sale 6/13/2023) acclaimed journalist and political analyst Norman Solomon takes American media and political leaders to task for selectively concealing tragic consequences of war. From Iraq through Afghanistan and Syria and on to little-known deployments in a range of countries around the globe, the United States has been at perpetual war for at least the past two decades. Yet many of these forays remain still off the radar of average Americans. Additionally, the increased use of high technology, airpower, and remote drones has put distance between soldiers and the civilians who die. And back at home, the cloak of invisibility masks massive Pentagon budgets that receive bipartisan approval even as policymakers struggle to fund the domestic agenda.

Pod Crashing Episode 250 With Coach Bill Courtney From An Army Of Normal Folks Coach Bill Courtney of Oscar-Winning Undefeated launches 'An Army of Normal Folks' Movement and podcast empower Americans to change our country by 'each of us doing what we can. Business leader and football coach Bill Courtney joins with other "ordinary" Americans doing extraordinary work to solve our nation's problems through the new movement, An Army of Normal Folks. "Our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words in Washington, but by An Army of Normal Folks just deciding 'hey, I can help,'" said Courtney. Based on his own example, Courtney is joining with the nonprofit Iron Light Labs to launch An Army of Normal Folks. Founder of Classic American Hardwoods, Inc., in 2003, he became a volunteer football coach in America's third poorest zip code and yet 31 out of 32 seniors in his last two seasons went to college. Their success on and off the field was the subject of the documentary film, Undefeated, which won an Academy Award in 2012. "We believe that everyone has the power to create change, no matter how 'ordinary' they or their actions may seem," said Courtney. "And if there's An Army of Normal Folks just doing what we can, imagine how different our country could be." As part of the movement, Courtney hosts the iHeartMedia podcast An Army of Normal Folks. iHeartMedia is the No. 1 podcast publisher globally according to Podtrac. The podcast features interviews with members of the Army such as Arkansas Police Officer Tommy Norman and Back on My Feet Founder Anne Mahlum. It aims to inspire listeners and present fascinating models that can be replicated in their own communities. All individuals are invited to join An Army of Normal Folks.