Horner Chuck - Every Man a Tiger

Table of Contents

Some action vignettes from [Special Forces] roots in WWII and Vietnam rival Clancy fiction.

The plethora of insider history and firsthand operation specifics... will please the historically minded.

A ground-level account of the Persian Gulf War.

A damned exciting read... A fascinating blend of a first-person account, a third-person narrative, a compact analysis of military philosophy and warfighting theory, and an absorbing piece of history... There will be somein the future when our army again goes to warwho will take this work to the battlefield as a reminder of how great commanders accomplished the mission.

Two areas of this book merit special attention and should be mandatory reading for all military officers. Clancys narrative of the army in transition and his chapter on maneuver warfare are superb... What the reader gains from [Frankss] candid admissions is a deep appreciation of the mind of a commander charged with employing 146,000 soldiers and 50,000 vehicles across 120 miles of enemy territory in the face of determined resistance.

Franks manages to tell a good story, offer insights into leadership, and set the record straight.

Scripps Howard News Service

NONFICTION

Into the Storm: A Study in Command
(written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret., and Tony Koltz)
Every Man a Tiger (written with General Charles Horner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)
Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces
(written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)
Battle Ready (written with General Tony Zinni, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND STEVE PIECZENIK

CREATED BY TOM CLANCY AND MARTIN GREENBERG

Normally, a book like this would be dedicated to those who paid the ultimate price in the desert; but here a different view is in order. Those of us who deployed were proud to be there; it was an honor to be allowed to participate in the effort to free Kuwait. At the same time, we felt gratitude for the troops who didnt deploy and were supporting us with spare parts and doing the other things that needed to be done back home or at their bases overseas. We were also extremely grateful to the reservists who were activated to man our home basesguarding the gate, or working in the hospitals, or taking care of our families. Most of all, we felt a deep sense of gratitude to the people who supported us so vigorously with mail, cookies, and encouragement. They didnt fully understand why we were in the desert; they sure were concerned about a war and its attendant casualties; but they gave us their love and prayers without reservations.

I once observed that fighter pilots are little boys who never really get past the stage of buzzing past little girls on their bikes. I still believe this to be true. But then how does one deal with a general of fighter pilots? All the more so, how does one deal with a professional warrior who has the most elegant and subtle intellectual disguise this side of Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber?

Well, okay, you need a few things right off. To fly an F-16 fighter plane, you have to have the skills of a concert pianistin fact, you need to know how to play two pianos at once, since all the buttons you use to fight the airplane (thats why its called a fighter) and all the buttons that work the radar, guns, and missiles are located on the stick and throttle quadrant so that you can kill people without having to look down. So, there you are, flying an aircraft that looks and evidently acts like a Chevy Corvette (but in three dimensions), head up, eyes out of the cockpit, looking for some Bad Guy to give a Slammer (AIM-120 AMRAAM missile) to.... Well, just flying the damned airplane isnt all that easywhich is why, as anyone can tell you, one of the differences between a fighter pilot and an ape is that it doesnt cost $1,000,000 to train an ape.

There are numerous other such differences between fighter pilots and apes, of courseyou can, for example, trust your wife around an ape....

Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah. There you are, at 20,000 feet with a highly expensive fighter plane strapped to your back, flying it with the sort of skill the average guy with perfect eyesight, the reflexes of a mongoose, and the killer instinct of Jack Dempsey after a few hard drinks can develop in, oh, ten or twenty years of practice. Right hand is on the stick, identifying the various weapons-control buttons by feeling with your fingertips, while your left hand is doing the same on the throttle quadrant. There are other people out there who want to kill you. Some in their own airplanes, others on the ground with surface-to-air missiles, which are like fighter planes, but dumber, though somewhat faster, and still others with various firearms ranging from the ubiquitous AK-47 7.62mm (.30 caliber) to 100 millimeter (four-inch, and these bullets explode when they hit or get close to you), because, amazingly enough, not everyone likes fighter pilots.