Scott Baron – författare

Only the best officers are given command of U.S. Navy ships, and only the elite of these are selected for aircraft carriers. The USS America was the third of four Kitty Hawk-class super-carriers. Commissioned in 1965, decommissioned in 1996, she served three times in Vietnam, and once each in Libya, the Persian Gulf and Bosnia. This book profiles the 23 men who commanded the America and her crew of 5,000 during 31 years. Most of them were combat veterans--World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Mayaguez Rescue Operations, Lebanon, Haiti, Libya, Bosnia, and Desert Storm. Four were Naval Academy graduates; seven were test pilots; one became Inspector General of the Navy; one wore both Navy wings and submariner dolphins; and one was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for nearly six years. Two retired as admirals--one was Chief of Naval Operations--five as vice admirals, and 11 as rear admirals. Each profile gives a career account based on official biographies, published memoirs, and interviews with the commanders or their families.

Men and women who serve in the armed forces are subject to a different legal code than those they protect. Throughout American history, some have--through action or failure to act or by circumstances--found themselves facing prosecution by the United States military. One measure of a nation's sense of justice is how it treats those who surrender some of their rights to defend the rights of fellow citizens.Beginning with the first court-martial (predating the nation itself) and continuing to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the War on Terror, this book examines the proceedings of 15 courts-martial that raised such important legal questions as: When does advocacy become treason? Who bears ultimate responsibility when troops act illegally? What are the limits in protesting injustice? The defendants include such familiar names as Paul Revere and William Calley.The authors examine such overlooked cases as the Somers Mutiny, the trial of the San Patricios and the Port Chicago Mutiny. These trials demonstrate that guaranteeing military justice--especially in the midst of armed conflict--is both a challenge and a necessity in a free society.

The award of a military decoration does not define valor--it only recognizes it. Many acts of notable courage and self-sacrifice occur on the battlefield but are often obscured in the fog of battle or lost to history, unrecognized and unheralded.The largely overlooked men and women in this volume did incredible things in dire circumstances. Although in some cases decorations were awarded--including several Medals of Honor--their stories remain unknown.

The incredible stories of twenty-two lone survivors of maritime disasters are presented in this collection of war and peacetime incidents. The dramatic accounts--including those of a British sailor who survived 133 days at sea on an open raft and a German sailor who spent 28 hours in the ocean without a life preserver--are based on a wide array of sources, including interviews with the survivors and their families and official records to back up their accuracy. Most took place in World War II, when the navies and merchant fleets of many nations roamed the seas. Each story is one of boundless courage, a tenacious will to survive, and, in many cases, good luck.

Today, women in all U.S. military services are involved in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They serve as pilots and crewmen of assault helicopters, bombers, fighters, and transport planes, and are frequently engaged in firefights with enemy insurgents while guarding convoys, traveling in hostile territory, or performing military police duties. Like their male counterparts, they carry out their missions with determination and great courage. The advent of the insurgency war, which has no rear or front lines, has made the debate regarding women in combat irrelevant. In such a war zone, anyone can be killed or injured at any moment. The stories of these courageous women are told by James E. Wise and Scott Baron, who use a format similar to the one employed with such success in the book "Stars in Blue". The profiles of some forty women and their photographs are included. To record their stories, the authors conducted numerous personal interviews, and in every case Wise and Baron were struck by the women''s extraordinary display of dedication to their mission and to the soldiers and sailors with whom they served. Because the service of women in the military has been under reported to date, most of the women included in this book will be unknown to readers and reveal another dimension to the service of women in the desert and the vital role they play in the armed forces. While the book''s focus is on today''s women in combat, it also reaches back to Vietnam, Korea, and World War II to offer selected stories of inspiring women who served at the "cusp of the spear" as they fought and died for their country.

Reminding readers that the Cold War was actually a time of hot wars, spying, murders, defections, shoot downs of reconnaissance aircraft, and a space race, the authors uncover some unknown or long-forgotten incidents of the period. Among them, the murder of a U.S. naval attache on the Orient Express, an East German soldier s leap to the West in Berlin, two CIA officers twenty years in a Chinese prison, Cpt. Bert Mizusawa s rescue under fire of a Soviet defector in the Korean DMZ, a North Korean pilot s defection in a MiG fighter, the USS Forrestal fire, and the Soviets putting the first man in space.