A torrent of Internet blogs has poured from U.S. forces overseas, providing a unique view of our wars. Retired officer and blogger Burden does not claim this collection of extracts represents a cross section of what's available, nor does he disguise his biases. All the officers in the book are competent; all the enlisted men and women are brave; and all the husbands love their wives and vice versa. Every writer supports America's war aims, admires the President, despises enemy fighters (generally referred to as terrorists) and holds a low opinion of Americans who oppose the war (generally referred to as liberals). The best (if sometimes troublesome) selections relate personal experiences: a woman trucker is severely wounded; a tanker fights his way into Fallujah, enthusiastically describing the men he kills; a base commander fires an obstreperous Iraqi employee. More literary efforts are less successful, with several wince-inducing attempts at poetic battlefield imagery. Tributes to fallen comrades often fall into mawkishness. Burden warns that unfettered war blogging may soon disappear under the heavy hand of military censorship, but if our leaders are worried about criticism of their policies, Burden's book will reassure them.
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This alphabetically arranged, 2,700-entry encyclopedia treats aspects of U.S. popular culture, defined as "all the experiences in life shared by people in common, generally though not necessarily disseminated by the mass media."

This collection comprises stories written in the late 1950s and early '60s, a period when Dick was also taking off as a novelist. Some of this has had an influence on his short stories, which are generally longer than before, and which, in some cases are early versions of what would eventually become novels such as the Simulacra and the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Generally speaking, these are all good to great stories...