Mike Guardia has 8 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 9 ratings. The most-rated is Hal Moore on Leadership.
Hal Moore on Leadership
Summary
Hal Moore led his life by a set of principles - a code developed through years of experience, trial-and-error, and the study of leaders of every stripe. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Moore's life touched upon many historical events: the Occupation of Japan, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the refashioning of the US Army into an all-volunteer force. At each juncture, he learned critical lessons and had opportunities to affect change through measured responses. Hal Moore on Leadership offers a comprehensive guide to the principles that helped shape Moore's success both on and off the battlefield. They are strategies for the outnumbered, outgunned, and seemingly hopeless. They apply to any leader in any organization - business or military. These lessons and principles are nothing theoretical or scientific. They are simply rules of thumb learned and practiced by a man who spent his entire adult life leading others and perfecting his art of leadership.
©2017 Spoken Realms (P)2018 Spoken Realms
Tomcat Fury
Summary
From the Gulf of Sidra to the skies over Afghanistan, Tomcat Fury is the complete combat history of the F-14 Tomcat, as told by the pilots who flew it. For more than three decades, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the US Navy’s premier carrier-based, multirole fighter jet. From its harrowing combat missions over Libya to its appearance on the silver screen in movies like Top Gun and Executive Decision, the F-14 has become an icon of American air power. Now, for the first time in a single volume, Tomcat Fury explores the illustrious combat history of the F-14, from the Gulf of Sidra to the Iran-Iraq War to the skies over Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror.
©2020 Mike Guardia and Johnny Heller (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
Wings of Fire
Summary
From Israel to Afghanistan. The definitive combat history of the F-15 Eagle and Strike Eagle...as told by the pilots who flew them. For more than 40 years, the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15 Eagle has been the US Air Force’s premier multi-role fighter jet. Made popular by its ubiquity during the Persian Gulf War, the F-15 has become one of the most recognized and revered fighter jets in the world today. Throughout its illustrious combat history, the F-15 has earned more than 100 air-to-air victories...with zero losses.
©2020 Mike Guardia (P)2020 Mike Guardia
Crusader
Summary
Although he missed combat in World War II and Korea, Donn Starry became one of the most influential commanders of the Vietnam War and after Vietnam was one of the "intellectual giants" who reshaped the US Army and its doctrines. Throughout his career he worked to improve training, leadership, and conditions for the men who served under him. Starry was a leading advocate for tank warfare in Vietnam, and his recommendations helped shape the contours for American armor in Southeast Asia - and paved the way for his success as commander of the 11th Armored Cavalry during the invasion of Cambodia. When commander of Fort Knox and the Armor Center and School in the 1970s, Starry redeveloped armor tactics and doctrine and improved training. In his 16 months as commander of V Corps, he thoroughly tested the doctrine of Active Defense, then used his observations to create a new doctrine, AirLand Battle, which paved the way for overwhelming victory in the Gulf War. Like most battlefield commanders from the Vietnam era, Starry's legacy is often overshadowed by the controversy of the war itself and the turmoil of the immediate postwar Army. However, with the invasion of Cambodia and the development of AirLand Battle, it is hard to imagine anyone who has had a greater impact on modern maneuver warfare. In this new biography of General Donn Starry, armor officer Mike Guardia examines the life and work of this pioneering, crusading officer using extracts from interviews with veterans and family and from Starry's personal papers.
©2018 Mike Guardia (P)2019 Spoken Realms
Hal Moore
Summary
Hal Moore, one of the most admired American combat leaders of the last 50 years, has until now been best known to the public for being portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie We Were Soldiers. In this biography, we finally learn the full story of one of America's true military heroes. A 1945 graduate of West Point, Moore's first combats occurred during the Korean War, where he fought in the battles of Old Baldy, T-Bone, and Pork Chop Hill. At the beginning of the Vietnam War, Moore commanded the First Battalion of the Seventh Cavalry in the first full-fledged battle between US and North Vietnamese regulars. Drastically outnumbered and nearly overrun, Moore led from the front, and though losing 79 soldiers, accounted for 1,200 of the enemy before the communists withdrew. This battle pioneered the use of "air mobile infantry" - delivering troops into battle via helicopter - which became the staple of US operations for the remainder of the war. He later wrote of his experiences in the best-selling book We Were Soldiers Once...and Young.
©2013 Mike Guardia (P)2017 Tantor
Shadow Commander
Summary
The fires on Bataan burned on the evening of April 9, 1942 - illuminating the white flags of surrender against the nighttime sky. Woefully outnumbered, outgunned, and ill-equipped, battered remnants of the American-Philippine army surrendered to the forces of the Rising Sun. Yet amongst the chaos and devastation of the American defeat, Army Captain Donald D. Blackburn refused to lay down his arms. With future SF legend Russell Volckmann, Blackburn escaped from Bataan and fled to the mountainous jungles of North Luzon, where they raised a private army of over 22,000 men against the Japanese. Once there, Blackburn organized a guerrilla regiment from among the native tribes in the Cagayan Valley. "Blackburn's Headhunters," as they came to be known, devastated the Japanese 14th Army within the western provinces of North Luzon and destroyed the Japanese naval base at Aparri - the largest enemy anchorage in the Philippines. After the war, Blackburn remained on active duty and played a key role in initiating Special Forces operations in Southeast Asia. In 1958, as commander of the 77th Special Forces Group, he spearheaded Operation White Star in Laos - the first major deployment of American Special Forces to a country with an active insurgency. Seven years later, Blackburn took command of the highly classified Studies and Observations Group (SOG), charged with performing secret missions now that main-force Communist incursions were on the rise. In the wake of the CIA's disastrous Leaping Lena program, in 1964 Blackburn revitalized the Special Operations campaign in South Vietnam. Sending cross-border reconnaissance teams into Cambodia and North Vietnam, he discovered the clandestine networks and supply nodes of the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. Taking this information directly to General Westmoreland, Blackburn received authorization to conduct full-scale operations against the NVA and Viet Cong operating in Laos and Cambodia. In combats large and small, the Communists realized they had met a master of insurgent tactics - and he was on the US side. Following his return to the United States, Blackburn was appointed "Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities," where he was the architect of the infamous Son Tay Prison Raid. Officially termed Operation Ivory Coast, the Son Tay raid was the largest POW rescue mission - and indeed, the largest Special Forces operation - of the Vietnam War. During a period when United States troops in Southeast Asia faced guerrilla armies on every side, it has been little recognized today that America had a superb covert commander of its own, his guerrilla skills honed in resistance against Japan. This book follows Donald D. Blackburn through both his youthful days of desperate combat against an Empire, and through his days as a commander, imparting his lessons to the newly-realized ranks of America's own Special Forces.
©2011 Mike Guardia (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Foxbat Tales
Summary
From the Middle East to the Iron Curtain…the definitive combat history of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25. July 1967: At the Moscow Air Show, the Soviets unveiled six new state-of-the-art aircraft. From among this lineup of new fighters and interceptors stood the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 - purportedly capable of outrunning and outmaneuvering any aircraft in NATO’s inventory. Yet even before its public appearance in Moscow, the MiG-25 had been a grave concern for Western analysts. Indeed, this new interceptor could fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 and cruise at altitudes heretofore deemed unreachable for a tactical fighter. Moreover, NATO’s intelligence community was baffled by how the Soviet Union had cobbled together such a “masterpiece” of modern engineering. The reality, however, was that this “interceptor” was a poorly designed airframe with an oversized motor. Although it excelled as a reconnaissance aircraft, it fared poorly as a dogfighter - and it was typically the loser when pitted against Western aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle. From the Sinai Peninsula...to the Soviet-Afghan War...to Operation Desert Storm, Foxbat Tales is the definitive operational and combat history of the MiG-25.
©2020 Mike Guardia (P)2021 Spoken Realms
The Fires of Babylon
Summary
On the morning of August 2, 1990, Iraqi armored divisions invaded the tiny emirate of Kuwait. The Iraqi Army, after its long war with Iran, had more combat experience than the US Army. The Kuwaitis had collapsed easily enough, but the invasion drew fierce condemnation from the United Nations, which demanded Hussein's withdrawal. Undeterred by the rhetoric, the Iraqi dictator massed his forces along the Saudi Arabian border and dared the world to stop him. In response, the United States led the world community in a coalition of 34 nations in what became known as Operation Desert Storm. Leading this charge into Iraq were the men of Eagle Troop in the US Army's Second Armored Cavalry Regiment. Commanded by then-Captain H. R. McMaster - who would go on to serve as National Security Advisor in the Trump administration - Eagle Troop was the lead element of the US VII Corps' advance into Iraq. On February 26, 1991, Eagle Troop encountered the Tawakalna Brigade of Iraq's elite Republican Guard. By any calculation, the 12 American tanks didn't stand a chance. Yet within a mere 23 minutes, the M1A1 tanks of Eagle Troop destroyed more than 50 enemy vehicles and plowed a hole through the Iraqi front. History would call it the Battle of 73 Easting.
©2015 Mike Guardia (P)2017 Tantor