Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsRICK “SHAQ” GOLDSTEIN SAYS: THIS IS NOT THE PATTERSON YOU KNEW…WOW! WOW! PROUD TO BE A VETERAN!
Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2021
I am an **HONORABLY*DISCHARGED*VIET*NAM*ERA*VETERAN**
And I used to read James Patterson books… thirty-three in all… but stopped a few years ago… because my life and interests were through with so-called “beach reads”. I was also extremely disappointed with an earlier Patterson attempt at non-fiction crime drama also. At this stage of my life… the so-called “Golden-Years” that were either falsely promised… or described incorrectly… I find that the memories of what transpired during my military service… won’t ever be truly shared in intricate detail. Some because of habit of retaining security levels and procedures… and also… because so few people really pay attention with their heart as well as their mind when you perhaps… prematurely start (even after in some cases waiting fifty-years to share your experience… horror… and camaraderie!) to open up your relentlessly defended secret vault within.
This book’s stories… told by a myriad of Honorable Veterans… of varied ages… sexes… and dates of service… was an absolute treasure trove of riches to me… as story by story… which boomed out at the speed that bullets would fly… if you propped up a fifty-pound- concrete-block on the trigger of an automatic machine gun on FULL-AUTO! Unlike many other books based on “THE-VETERANS-TRUE-VOICE”… and don’t get me wrong… some are very good. They usually plod out of the gate with detailed life experiences of the veteran’s prior life before service… again… it’s not entirely bad… but this book… literally EXPLODES off the page at supersonic speed. Within a few blinks of the eye… you are in the meat of each veteran’s story. There is no sneaking up on the intent… target… and aftermath. What is so unbelievably exciting and entrancing to me… is that I share so many of the MOTIVATIONS… DESIRES… GOAL REACHING… CHALLENGES… FEARS (fear is part of life for heroes… the only difference is… heroes recognize their fear… and still move forward!)… Tears… frustrations… and in many cases… the realization that it’s time to get out of the military… no matter how many things you believed in and accomplished. Some of our Veteran Heroes never get to make that decision.
What I truly find so exhilarating… Yes! I find it exhilarating… is that there is no author or editors… pre-conceived message point… no company/author/publisher… overall agenda and/or point to prove… or smash down a specific political party’s throat. The reader will be caught unknowingly in a split second career change… or life or death… or simply here’s how I want to finish my life decision by the individual veteran. There are times such as a when a female medical attendant gets put on a cargo plane that has the front filled with heroes in coffins… a little further up are wounded veterans who the medical team were told prior to boarding… are all going to die.. But they want to get them back to America to die there… and intermingled in between all of them are family members of the dead… the dying… and the medical team personnel who regardless of which military branch they may be in… I am telling you from the deepest part of my heart… they ALL have wings… whether you can see them or not. If you don't get choked up and fight back tears you're not human!
As willing as my fellow veterans are to give their lives… and in some cases almost as bad or worse... not dying… but having to make up their mind and soul… if they can… or want to survive and exist in a “new-normal”… so gloriously laid out on these superbly touching… feeling… pages that are dripping with emotion… you will be so impressed… and depending on your age… you should also become challenged to make more of yourself and serve something way greater than oneself. The heroes on these pages were told in many… many… cases they could not make or qualify… for the elite jobs… in the elite divisions… on the elite teams… and damn it… they paid the price… and they did!
The one negative to me personally that these true gripping tales of our American Heroes… is a promise/demon that it has reawakened in me… is the deathly fear of what I would do… even at this stage of my life… if I came across someone trying to burn the American Flag.
Thank you to all my fellow veterans… G-d Bless America… and thank you to James Patterson for truly rising above with this book!
