PARARESCUE CORPS

Spradlin chronicles several missions
of a team of U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen as they travel to some of the planet’s
most perilous spots in order to save lives and live up to their motto: “These
things we do, so others may live.”

Be it on the forbidding cold mountainside
of Denali in Alaska, the wild and impenetrable Amazon jungle, or the boundless flood
plain of the Nile River, the elite men (there are no women) of the U.S.A.F. Pararescue
Corps risk their lives rescuing lost and injured soldiers. Author Spradlin adroitly
mixes accounts of fearless engagement, physical prowess, and military
tactics in a fast-moving book that can get the right reader hooked. This book
is not for everybody, however; some readers might grow tired of the
never-ending heroism, the steely resolve, the exaggerated accounts of brazen
engagement—as in an early incident when one empties his M-4 at an oncoming missile
in Afghanistan—or the heavy usage of military jargon and peppering of
initialisms and acronyms (PJ, LZ, NCO, SERE, CRO, etc.). However, for those
readers who eat this stuff up, it will be camouflage-coated candy. The PJs are
a diverse crew judging by naming convention, but they are nearly identical in
derring-do.

Easy-to-read action-based
stories for military aficionados and adrenaline junkies only. (Adventure. 9-13)