My current choice reading book is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. I am currently on page 104. In the past week Louis Zamperini has enlisted in the military and has started his training. He was assigned to a B-24 called the Liberator. They had to train on multiple different systems and be capable of using them. They also varied significantly in price, an example of this is "$1 handheld sight consisting of an aluminum plate with a peg and a dangling weight. For flat runs, he had the Norden bomb sight, an extremely sophisticated analog computer that, $8000, cost more than twice the price the average American home." This shows that they had some equipment that didn’t cost much but also some equipment that cost much more than most things cost, also this shows that items didn’t cost as much back then. This is still true for things that are currently in the aircraft that are being built today. Some of the equipment starts cheap but it all cost more than the old equipment, also it is more advanced and they don’t need as many different systems to be used to do the same thing. Also they have stuff that was extremely top secret, an example of this is “Norden bomb sight was so secret that they were stored in guarded vaults and moved under armed escort, and men were forbidden to photograph or write about them. If the plane was going down Louie was under order to fire his gun into the bomb sight to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, then see about saving himself.” This shows that they value the equipment so much and that it is so top secret and valuable that it must be destroyed before they can leave the plane. This reminds me of another book that I read earlier this year. The book it reminded me of is Operation Overflight where Powers had set activate his self destruct before he left the plane and was under strict orders to destroy the photography equipment before leaving the plane. This book has Louie in a bomber before he gets shot down which is something that I would want to fly. The aircraft that he was in they don’t use now but I still want to fly a bomber like Louie did, he didn’t fly it he just worked on the bomb sights. Before he got shot down Louie and his crew complete multiple missions where they dropped bombs on the Japanese after they attacked Pearl Harbor. They completed multiple successful missions and Louie was able to use both of the sights to hit his target. This part is similar to another book that I read this semester. The book is Flyboys which is about people flying missions into Japan during World War II. They both have them dropping bombs on targets but in Flyboys they also attack other aircraft. This book has reminded me of multiple books that I have read and I will probably read more books in the future that are similar to this one.
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In the past few week I’ve kept reading Blood on the Risers by John Leppelman. I have finished my book in the past week. I really enjoyed this book since it is a true story about someone who was a paratrooper in Vietnam and the hardships that he faced in country. This book is mostly on him in the field so far and what he does every day. It goes over most days and sometimes it he says that he skips a couple of weeks in his story. He normally goes over the major events that happen and if anything important happen then he will talk about it. He also talks about what happens when they’re not on the front line and they have time to rest back at a base for a few days. They always end up going out most nights to the town and enjoying themselves. The author doesn’t normally talk to much about it but he did say that once he woke up early in the morning after he spent the night sleeping in the street. He also said that some of the people that when they visit the town will carry a gun with them. Since they’re paratroopers most people won't want to mess with them. Lepp and his friends went to the town of Bien Hoa and their were infantry in a bar that they wanted to go in and take over. The infantry that were inside the bar all got up and left without a fight since they know what the paratroopers are and what they can do. Also they don’t like the intelligence and the people that just stay in the rear. Those people only hear about what is going on and they don’t know what is actually going on or how hard it really is. They just expect them to meet or exceed a certain number of body count or distance traveled in a day. During one of their tours they had a major from the rear come forward and join them for a few days. The major came in when they army flew in some hot food for the soldiers and he came with it. Everyone that was in their camp hated this major an example of this is in a conversation with Lepp “When I got up to him, I tried to avoid looking at him, hoping he would pick on someone else. ‘Hey, soldier,’ he said loudly. I glanced to my left and said, ‘Who, me?’ ‘Who me, what?’ I was getting mad. ‘ Who me, Major?’ He looked at me with obvious distaste. ‘Why is your shirt unbuttoned, troop?’ ‘Because it’s hot, Major.’ He appeared to be getting madder. ‘ button it up, soldier, and hand me your rifle.’ I unslung my rifle from my shoulder and handed it to the jerk. As I buttoned the top button on fatigue shirt, he jacked the bold back and gave me a shocked look.” it keeps going like this for a little while between the two of them since the major wants everyone to follow the rules exactly and not deviate at all but when you’re in the field and fighting you do what you have to to survive. This major caused issues for people, that afternoon he made many people dig him a latrine. It stood out significantly in the hill side. Later the next day when the major went in to use his latrine the enemy started shelling the area. They were trying to hit the latrine and when they did the major went flying with his pant down around his ankles and everyone that saw it cheered since no one liked him and no one went over to help him when he was calling for help. As soon as the enemy hit him they stopped firing. This part of the book is similar to the previous part of the book but he is becoming more comfortable with what he is doing every day. His job seems interesting and a job that I would want to do in the air force currently. Being a paratrooper is the first job that i wanted to have as an enlisted person in the air force. This book has shown me some of the different things that can be done in the military and what you have to do get something that you want. He has done three different jobs in the Army and each were a little bit different and took some different skills and abilities.
In the past week I’ve started a new book. The book is called Blood on the Risers. As a warning this book so far has a lot of language that wouldn’t be appropriate for school. This book is an autobiography about John Leppelman who fought in the Vietnam war. The main character's name is Lepp but you don’t hear his name very often. Most of the time they use either last names or an abbreviation of a last name that is easier to say and shorter an example of this Catozi is called Cat since it is shorter. He has signed up to be part of the airborne group. This means he jumps out of an airplane to go and fight where he is needed. My dad recommended this book for me since he knows that I like book like this and this is something that I would want to do in the military. Since I’ve started this book I’ve enjoyed it. It talks about what is happening to him and his friends along with his squadron in Vietnam. The book starts with him enlisting and going through his training. He doesn’t try to hide anything that is happening to him or what they’re saying. An example of this is “One had taken a head shot, and his brains and pieces of skull were splattered on the tree. His head looked like a watermelon that had been split by a machete.” this shows that he just says it like it happens and he doesn’t change it to make it more appropriate for readers. So far in this book Lepp has enlisted shortly after leaving high school which is similar to my story and he has gone through his training. During his enlistment the person swearing them in wishes them all luck and especially to the lunatic who has chosen to join the airborne. He describes some of the training that they do and that a lot of people don’t make it through all the training since it is so hard. The people who don’t make it through the training have to go back and go through normal training. Some of the people dropped when they had to learn to jump from an airplane. They started with a thirty five foot tower jumping from it on a line like a zip line. They learned the form they need to have while jumping. Then they went to jumping off a two hundred foot tower. The tower raised them up and dropped them with the parachute already open. The final step was actually jumping from an airplane. During each phase of training people dropped out. After they finished their training they shipped over to Vietnam, the person training Lepp told him on completion that he thought Lepp would be dead within two months of making it into the country. Once inside the country the Vietnamese people acted different then the people in America and they all had to get used to it. While they were waiting to get their assignment they new troops had to perform maintenance on the base that no one wanted to do. The first thing that they had to do was to clean out the toilet collector, they had to put the waste into fifty-five gallon drums and burn it. The whole time they’re in Vietnam it is well over a hundred degrees fahrenheit. At night it only gets down to about eight degrees. On the first actual mission that Lepp goes on he jumps out of an airplane and he lands in a tree and is dangling about twenty feet in the air and has to drop to the ground. Another person that was jumping that no one like had to be medivaced out since he broke his arm on landing while trying to take some pictures. I'm enjoying this book very much since it holding my attention and it is a story from someone who was actually fighting in the Vietnam War.
I've finished Flyboys in the past week. I wasn't a fan of the book the book the whole time so I tried to finish it quickly as I could. The book has changed tone once again. In the beginning it was boring and hard to read, in the middle it got interesting but dark and twisted making you want to read but also having what you were reading was disturbing. Then near the end the fighting has stopped and they start talking about all the losses from both the Americans and the Japanese. Some of the parents and people that new the Flyboys couldn't get over the loss that they faced or the people that convinced them to join in the first place. An example of this is “Already hard drinkers. Marve’s parents- Hoyt Sr. and Clarinda - and his brother Hoyt Jr., upped their intake to drown their sorrow. Hoyt Jr. suffered a special survivor’s guilt. He was the one who had talked Marve into enlisting.” this shows that he at first thought it was a good idea for him to join but after learning start had happened to him and that he died since Hoyt Jr. convinced him to join the military. There were stories like this from both sides but the Japanese were trained to stop caring for life and do anything they had to do, they would even give up their own life if it was required to complete the mission. Since last week the book continued to talk about the torture that was instilled upon both the Japanese and Americans. They also talked about how after the fires had stopped from the incendiary bombs that got dropped on Tokyo families were split up. One family that they talked about went back to where their house used to be so they all could get back together. The father and daughter were together and the mother got separated from them. She also had a baby on her back. The father and daughter went back to the house and waited a long time for the mother to return but they didn't realize that she was already their. They didn't recognize her since she had a fire blanket on from the military. She had burn marks on her back from where the baby was. There was worse burns where she was touching the baby like on her elbows. The baby belonged to the daughter not the mother carrying the baby. That night the daughter lost two of her sons in the fire. The rest of the book talks about the families is the fallen Flyboys and some I'd the hard times they went through. One mother went insane since the navy never told her what exactly happened to her son. Her husband had to have all the letters from the navy go to the local VA and have them call him when they got a letter about his son so he could spare his wife from reading the letters. Overall it was a different read from what I've normally been reading this year but it was still a historical book. It was a more difficult read since it was hard to keep wanting to read it but I enjoyed the challenge. I would recommend it but you would have to like history and be able to read a book that is slow in the beginning but knowing that it picks up and becomes interesting later on in it.
I'm currently on page 392. This week I've read a lot since it has changed what it talks about. This book has gotten significantly darker and most people won't be able to read this book since it has gotten very dark. This book has started to talk about what they do to their prisoners both the Japaneses and the Americans. The Japaneses killed people that they had captured. They made them dig their own grave and they were killed in different ways. One of the fly boys that got captured was marched up a hill and told to kneel along side his grave. The location of where it was was where many people got killed. This person had a Japaneses person take a sword and trying to cut off his head. He got most of the way through and his head was being held on by a little bit of neck skin that held the head still on. If he stood up the head would be dangling down in front of him and would still be attached. They then buried his body and left him their. The next day a commander needed a higher end meal to serve so he ordered people to go and get the body and cook it. They had some soldiers go over and dig him up and then have the doctor go and cut out his internal organs and serve them to the commanders. There was another fly boy that got murder was by having him tied to a tree and had the young soldiers stab him repeatedly with sharpened sticks of bamboo. They wouldn’t stop and just keep going, when the young ones were done the older warriors went in and finished killing him with a bayonet, they also stabbed him repeatedly. The entire time this took was about five minutes, where the fly boy was awake and alive for some of it. Another time that this story got darker was when the Americans went in to bomb Tokyo. They used B-29s to drop the bombs on the people, there were 339 B-29s and they dropped 8519 five hundred pounds bombs. The Americans dropped incendiary bombs on Tokyo which caused a large fire to spread. The fire was over eighteen hundred degrees fahrenheit. In the book it says that ”Rivers of fire flowed down the streets. Canals boiled and humans burst spontaneously into flames, blazing like matchsticks. People’s heads exploded in the heat, the liquid brains in their burst kulls bubbling an eerie fluorescence. The feet of the fleeing masses scrunched eyeballs that had popped from sockets under pressure.” this shows how many bombs were being dropped from the airplanes and what was happening to the people on the ground in the village. There was also another line that said the Miho Yoskioka was running for a temple and thought she saw deities but when she got inside realized that they were just burned bodies that were still standing up. In the past week the story has gotten a lot darker and what is being said in it some people wouldn’t be able to read since it goes into detail and talks about each thing (like the beheading and the bombing) for extended periods. It also gives detail from multiple people in the area and what they were going through.
This week I had to read 96 pages which I read more than that this week. I was on page 193 last week and read to page 292 this week. Currently going on in my book they are talking about starting bombing Japan and what they were doing for bombing. They just started bombing Japan near where I finished reading. "Grady always smiled when he talked. But at that moment he wasn't smiling." This
In the past week I've read from page 96 to page 193. This book talks about some of the darker things that happened during World War II. It makes any enemy seem terrible and that they try to torture us and when we do the same thing back to someone else it says that it is our right to do it and that the enemy deserves it. An example of it is "When U.S. prisoners were killed, it was 'murder in flagrant disregard of the Geneva Conventions.' But when Americans murder Others, 'they had it coming to them.'" This shows that Americans think they are above what the rules state. Also they don't like people doing the same thing they do to other people. When it happens to them they think that is murder while when we do it to other people we say that they have it coming. Some of the things that we did the the Japanese that got shot down and were in the water was that we shot them. While they were parachuting down aircraft or people on the ground would shot them. While some people were in life boats a submarine came up and shot the survivors that were in the water. A different time they had airplanes come and strafe the people in the water. Strafing is when an airplane comes in and shoots what is on the ground. They made a sport out of shooting the people in the water. The cameras that they have on the airplane noses recorded what they did, they then put it into a movie and went and showed it to people. They enjoyed it while eating popcorn thinking that it was something that they could enjoy, they had a narrator talking about what they were doing and that the pilots were doing a good job. The Americans had a poster with a girl writing a note to her boyfriend and a skull in it. The poster was talking about how she was writing a thank you note to her boyfriend for the skull that he sent her. It was a skull from a captured japanese fighter. Another thing that the americans did to a captured person was taking a large knife and tried to cut out his teeth. He has his knife on his teeth and slipped and stabbed him in the back of the mouth. The American then cut him from the cheeks to the ears on both sides. He then went back to trying to cut out his teeth while standing on his neck. Another American came up and shot the person that was getting tortured and the other one kept going. The didn’t show this as torture to the american people they showed this as something that should be praised since they are getting rid of the enemy. This book is a book that is hard to read. It is hard to read since it doesn’t capture people’s attention. Since it is hard to read this book then it is hard for me to reach my reading goal. This book is just telling facts which I normally like reading if the author is able to present it in an interesting way. James Bradley (author of Flyboys) doesn’t write this book in a way that would capture someone's attention and keep it so they would want to keep reading it and finish it as quickly as they can.
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May 2017
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