Hazardous duty

In Hazardous Duty - a real life, nonfiction thriller set in the ruins of Bosnia and the sands of Saudi Arabia, the deadly alleys of Mogadishu and the teeming streets of Port-au-Prince - Colonel David Hackworth completes a second tour of battlefield duty, this time as a war correspondent.

In his hard-hitting, inimitable style, he tells of the sacrifices of ordinary grunts in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Korea, and Haiti, and offers a tough-love critique of American military leadership, explaining America's role in new post-Cold War conflicts. Colonel David H. Hackworth is America's most decorated living soldier, with more than one hundred awards, including two Distinguished Service Crosses, nine Silver Stars, eight Bronze Stars for valor, and eight Purple Hearts, which he considers the most meaningful because, he says, "they can't be faked." More than any other military commentator, he has the trust and confidence of the millions of soldiers - from foreign armies as well as our own - who cheered every word of his widely acclaimed autobiography. A wake-up call for military reform, Hazardous Duty pulls no punches in calling America's top political and military leaders to account for selling out duty, honor, and country. Colonel Hackworth returns from America's new battlefields to report that the Pentagon is wasting billions of dollars. He offers no-nonsense solutions for streamlining the military services and rationalizing their missions to confront the new face of war.