Product Description
DESPERATE LANDS is the unprecedented story of U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers and the missions they have carried out while fighting the war on terror in the Horn of Africa and in Afghanistan. The book is unique and timely, in that it tells the compelling story of our nations struggle and of its soldiers fighting a new and different kind of war never fought before a Global War on Terror. This true story comes at a time when our nation has divided feelings and opinions about this war a division that exists among both government leaders and the American people. These pages offer a different perspective that of lower enlisted soldiers reflecting their personal experience in combat zones in Africa and Afghanistan as they witnessed and experienced the fog of war. The author Special Forces Master Sergeant Regulo Zapata, Jr. shares his extraordinary journey through ancient and desperate lands at the front lines of this ongoing war. Here are true stories of sacrifice, bravery, excitement, horror, anger, tedium, fear, camaraderie, and more a firsthand look behind the headlines at the reality of the exceptional and difficult challenges U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers face as they defend America against the terrorist threat.
Desperate Lands: The War on Terror Through the Eyes of a Special Forces Soldier
Tags: war, Soldier, Afghanistan, story, global war on terror, Master Sergeant Regulo Zapata, Desperate
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I bought this book because of the ratings it got on amazon but like another reader above i am wondering if they were describing the same book as i just read. While there is no doubting the bravery of the man in question i quite frankly found this book very hard to read. I actually found the writing to be nothing short of ‘strange’ – at times it feels like the text was written by a robot or someone who does not have a good command of the english language – with lots of repetition and this is suddenly dispersed with the odd curse which seems like it was just put in there to liven things up – in short it feels uncomfortable to read and i think that the author wrote this book and then someone came along and ‘dubbed it’ ! Apart from all of that the book is extremely boring – dealing with the day to day medial tasks these guys took on and very little action which i think is what most readers/buyers of these types of books expect. Overall one of the worst special forces books i ever read because quite simply i had to ‘fight’ myself to keep reading it to the finish.
I read through the reviews of this book before ordering it from Amazon, and after reading it… I’m really wondering if anyone else read the same book I did. First of all, the book is extremely short – 191 pages. Furthermore, 80 of those 191 pages have black and white pictures on them. So there are actually only 111 pages of full text and many of them aren’t full.
I want to be clear that this isn’t a critique of author’s service in the Army and Nat Guard. I’m thankful for men like Zapata willing to serve the U.S., and I’m sure he served valiantly. That being said, there just wasn’t anything the least bit exciting in this book (or even very informative for that matter). It barely mentioned the training that goes into making a Green Beret and spent very few pages on the actual missions that were carried out. In other books the author will quickly skim over details like filling out forms, shuffling team members, loading a humvee, etc. Not in this book. The reader can look forward to page after page of this kind of exciting narrative only to find that the actual mission lasts only a few pages and ends in a remarkably uneventful fashion. To be fair, there were brief points in the book when the Taliban attempted to drop artillery rounds in U.S. bases, and Zapata and his men did recover several weapons caches and take a few Taliban prisoners. It just wasn’t a very exciting book, to put it mildly. As someone very interested in the Special Forces I would recommend some other books looooong before this one. For anyone interested in the training of Green Berets or SEALs check out Dick Couch’s Chosen Soldier, Warrior Elite, and The Finishing School. Masters of Chaos by Linda Robinson is a great book about the missions and operations of the Green Berets. Lone Survivor and Inside Delta Force are also great reads on SEALs and Delta respectively.
Think you’re having a bad day, a bad week, a bad year?
This story gives the reader a glimpse of all the difficulties, obstacles and annoyances of what it is to serve as a special forces soldier in a war where the enemy wears the same uniform as the civilian, and another army (Pakistani soldiers) are less than cooperative.
Master Sergeant Zapata takes you on a journey from the U.S. to different outposts of the War on Terror, from Africa to Afghanistan. It is a journey of uncertainty, and constant change, of always having to deal with the unexpected, and never knowing what the road ahead will be. Along with fighting, there is the task of having to establish relations with warlords, and everyday citizens, to gain their trust, and their help.
This is no easy war to fight, and Sergeant Zapata’s story provides an explanation as to why.
My humble respect goes to him and all those like him. We are in good hands.
A great book to read if you have ever wondered what is really happening over there with the war on terror. Zapata gives us all insight as to what these soldiers go through day by day. Brings heightened respect to those who are there. Detailed information on what these soldiers face and the little time that they have to react to any situation. I picked up this book and couldnt put it down, how refreshing to have the truth.
I’m sure MSG Zapata is very good at his job. However, his ability to write is lacking, to say the least. The content and the story line is mundane, often times nothing more than rambling on about daily activities. Sure, there are some fancy acronyms in there, but for those of us who actually know what they mean, it’s easy to see that it’s just filler.
There are typos in the text. MSG Zapata’s use of terms, both technical, and those known as jargon, are inaccurate and misused. Many times both sentences and paragraphs are just redundant and drawn out.
MSG’s contribution to the Global War on Terror and to the service of our great nation should never go unappreciated — and this is not what this review is implying. I’m simply stating that the book is lacking substance.
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