Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq (Unabridged)
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3.9 • 17 Ratings
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
"America had a secret weapon," writes Steve Call of the period immediately following September 11, 2001, as planners contemplated the invasion of Afghanistan. This weapon consisted of small teams of Special Forces operatives trained in close air support (CAS) who, in cooperation with the loose federation of Afghan rebels opposed to the Taliban regime, soon began achieving impressive - and unexpected - military victories over Taliban forces and the al-Qaeda terrorists they had sponsored. The astounding success of CAS tactics coupled with ground operations in Afghanistan soon drew the attention of military decision makers and would eventually factor into the planning for another campaign: Operation Iraqi Freedom.
But who, exactly, are these air-power experts and what is the function of the TACPs (Tactical Air Control Parties) in which they operate? Danger Close provides a fascinating look at a dedicated, courageous, innovative, and often misunderstood and misused group of military professionals.
Drawing on the gripping first-hand accounts of their battlefield experiences, Steve Call allows the TACPes to speak for themselves. He accompanies their narratives with informed analysis of the development of CAS strategy, including potentially controversial aspects of the interservice rivalries between the Air Force and the Army, which have at times complicated and even obstructed the optimal employment of TACP assets. Danger Close makes clear, however, that the systematic coordination of air power and ground forces played an invaluable supporting role in the initial military victories in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
This first-ever examination of the intense, life-and-death world of the close air support specialist will introduce listeners to a crucial but little-known aspect of contemporary warfare and add a needed chapter in American military history studies.
This book is published by Texas A&M University Press. It is part of the Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series.
Customer Reviews
POOR Narration, Good Content
I listen to a great deal of audiobooks, so naturally I have a lot to compare this piece to. I have listened to about 10 modern war audiobooks as well to relate this one with. The content in this book is pretty good. I enjoyed hearing about this side of the war and these men truly deserve a ton of credit. However, the narrator Claton Butcher was as poor of a choice as any for this project. I can't even imagine what Steve Call was thinking when choosing this guy. It's close to one of the worst narrations I have ever listened to. I'm talking well over 100 audio books in the past two years. It's unfortunate because I think it's going to create a sense of lost credibility for Steve Call.
Furthermore, I thought I liked the style of writing at first. Where Steve Call takes and literally dictates exact word for word interviews with soldiers, etc. However, after awhile, the poor grammer and terrible english got old. Again, it's not Steve's fault, but it just got old. Your used to a certain level of writing talent I guess and then are faced with trying to have conversations be put into words and read by a boring, slow talking unskilled narrator. So, this writing style doubled with the rediculous narration, made me do something I have rarely done. But it worked. I hit 2x speed on the audio. This made it all barrable. I found out that this narrators extremely slow reading and poor skill was causing most of the dislike. After this, the book was above barable.
Again, Steve did a nice job depicting this side of the war. I just think in the end, the project was poorly put together for an audiobook. This is one I guess I should have read outright.
No disrespect to the soldiers in this book or even Mr. Call.
Hopefully Steve continues writing more of these stories and just picks better narrators in the future. Mr. Butcher, work on how you stress your "T" sounds in narration, it will take away much of the frustration. Furthermore, speed it up a bit.
Danger close
I’m not sure who pics the narrator of these audiobooks but they bombed on this one. I wish I could get my money back.