A Ranger Born
A Memoir of Combat and Valor from Korea to Vietnam
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Narrated by:
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Charles Stransky
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By:
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Robert W. Black
About this listen
Even as a boy growing up amid the green hills of rural Pennsylvania, Robert W. Black knew he was destined to become a Ranger. With their 300-year history of peerless courage and independence of spirit, Rangers are a uniquely American brand of soldier, one foot in the military, one in the wilderness - and that is what fired Black’s imagination. In this searing, inspiring memoir, Black recounts how he devoted himself, body and soul, to his proud service as an elite US Army Ranger in Korea and Vietnam - and what those years have taught him about himself, his country, and our future.
Born at the start of the Great Depression, Black grew up on a farm at a time of great hardship but also tremendous national determination. He was a kid who toughened up fast, who learned the hard way to rely on his strength and his wits, who saw the country go to war with Germany and Japan and wept because he was too young to serve. As soon as the army would take him, Black enlisted. And as soon as he could muscle his way in, he became a Ranger.
As a private first class in the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, Black withstood the humiliations of enlisted service in the peacetime brown-shoe army. When the Korean War began, he volunteered and trained to be an Airborne Ranger. In Korea, this young warrior, his mind and body bursting with the lusts of adolescence, grew up fast, literally in the line of fire. In clean, vivid prose, Black describes the hell of giving his all for a country that lacked the political resolve to give its all to a war against the North Koreans and the Chinese.
If Korea was frustrating, Vietnam was maddening. The heart of this audiobook is devoted to the years of action that Black saw in Long An Province starting in 1967. Black writes of the perplexity of collaborating with South Vietnamese officers whose culture and motives he never fully understood; he conjures up the sudden shock of the Tet Offensive and the daily horror of seeing fellow soldiers and innocent civilians slaughtered - sometimes by stray bullets, often by carelessness or treachery. Vietnam challenged everything Black had come to believe in and left him totally unprepared for the hostility he would face when he returned to a war-weary America.
Written with extraordinary candor and passion, A Ranger Born is the memoir of a man who dedicated the best of his life to everything that is great and enduring about America. At once intimate in its revelations and universal in its themes, it is an audiobook with profound relevance to our own troubled time in history.
©2007 Robert W. Black (P)2018 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Memoir of Hope, Pride, and Military Service
- By: Michael J. MacLeod
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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From the trials of basic training on the home front to the ranks of the legendary 82nd Airborne Division to taking fire in the hot zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, MacLeod chronicles the soldier's evolution as only one who's been in those boots can. Candid, wise, and powerful, his memoir takes listeners on an unforgettable journey through war and allows them to witness bravery firsthand.
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A real story of war.
- By Devin Ronk on 03-07-16
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Loon
- A Marine Story
- By: Jack McLean
- Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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"Kids like me didn't go to Vietnam", writes Jack McLean in his must-listen memoir. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, but decided to put college on hold. After graduation in the spring of 1966, faced with the mandatory military draft, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps for a two-year stint. "Vietnam at the time was a country, and not yet a war", he writes. It didn't remain that way for long.
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Besides a production issue, excellent.
- By LEE on 05-02-19
By: Jack McLean
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All the Way to Berlin
- A Paratrooper at War in Europe
- By: James Megellas
- Narrated by: Richard M. Davidson
- Length: 2 hrs and 34 mins
- Abridged
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In mid-1943 James Megellas, known as "Maggie" to his fellow paratroopers, joined the 82nd Airborne Division, his new "home" for the duration. His first taste of combat was in the rugged mountains outside Naples.
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Incredible book - narrator was terrible
- By joseph metz on 01-06-22
By: James Megellas
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Citizen Soldiers
- The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany
- By: Stephen E. Ambrose
- Narrated by: George K. Wilson
- Length: 21 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A masterful biography of the U.S. Army in the European Theater of Operations during World War II, Citizen Soldiers provides a compelling account of the extraordinary stories of ordinary men in their fight for democracy. From the high command on down to the enlisted men, Stephen E. Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from men on both sides who were there.
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Required reading, excellent narration
- By Jeremy on 06-30-11
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Red Blood, Black Sand
- Fighting Alongside John Basilone from Boot Camp to Iwo Jima
- By: Chuck Tatum
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When Chuck Tatum began Marine boot camp, he was just a smart-aleck teenager eager to serve his country. Little did he know that he would be training under a living legend of the Corps - Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone, who had almost single-handedly fought off a Japanese force of three thousand on Guadalcanal.
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not as good as helmet or old breed
- By C. Kenny on 01-21-17
By: Chuck Tatum
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We Are Soldiers Still
- A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam
- By: Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (USA Ret.), Joseph L. Galloway
- Narrated by: Joseph L. Galloway
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway revisit their relationships with 10 American veterans of the battle, as well as Lt. Gen. Nguyen Hu An, who commanded the North Vietnamese Army troops on the other side, and two of his old company commanders.
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A must listen for lovers of history
- By Borgnimbblefoot on 08-24-08
By: Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (USA Ret.), and others
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Behind Japanese Lines
- With the OSS in Burma
- By: Richard Dunlop
- Narrated by: David Baker
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The extraordinary firsthand account of an American special forces unit in the jungles of southeast Asia and their guerilla operations against the Japanese during World War II!
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The OSS in Burma
- By William R. Todd-Mancillas (Name includes hyphen and capitalized M). on 08-03-14
By: Richard Dunlop
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Tiger Bravo's War
- By: Rick St. John
- Narrated by: David L. White
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Tiger Bravo’s War follows a band of young paratroopers, from the same battalion in the elite 101st Airborne Division portrayed in Stephen Ambrose’s World War II best seller Band of Brothers, during their first year in combat in the Vietnam War - from a bayonet charge in War Zone D and street fighting during the 1968 Tet Offensive, to a rescue mission of a surrounded platoon and rock and roll in the company mess hall, and much more.
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Vietnam from an Officer's Perspective...
- By Michael Richards on 05-11-18
By: Rick St. John
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The Greatest U.S. Marine Corps Stories Ever Told
- Unforgettable Stories of Courage, Honor, and Sacrifice
- By: Iain Martin, Colonel Joseph H. Alexander - introduction
- Narrated by: Pete Simonelli
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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On Friday, November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress approved a resolution for the organization of the Corps, creating what would become the hallowed few, the proud - the Marines. Since then, the men and women of the United States Marine Corps have created the finest traditions of service and honor, and supplied a pantheon of heroes who have upheld them.
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Marines Will Hate This Narrator.
- By Blaine E. Moyer on 04-18-17
By: Iain Martin, and others
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Platoon Leader
- A Memoir of Command in Combat
- By: James R. McDonough
- Narrated by: Joel Rooks
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Abridged
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A remarkable memoir of small-unit leadership and the coming of age of a young soldier in combat in Vietnam.
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abridged? it was mutilated!
- By J. Padilla on 02-09-16
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The Liberator
- One World War II Soldier's 500-Day Odyssey from the Beaches of Sicily to the Gates of Dachau
- By: Alex Kershaw
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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From July 10, 1943, the date of the Allied landing in Sicily, to May 8, 1945, when victory in Europe was declared - the entire time it took to liberate Europe - no regiment saw more action, and no single platoon, company, or battalion endured worse, than the ones commanded by Felix Sparks, who had entered the war as a greenhorn second lieutenant of the 157th "Eager for Duty" Infantry Regiment of the 45th "Thunderbird" Division. Sparks and his fellow Thunderbirds fought longest and hardest to defeat Hitler.
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Now I Know What a Hero Really Is
- By Steven on 11-27-12
By: Alex Kershaw
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The Chosen Few
- A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistan
- By: Gregg Zoroya, William H. McRaven - foreward
- Narrated by: Gregg Zoroya
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A single company of US paratroopers—calling themselves the "Chosen Few"—arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.
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Wow! What an amazing group of men!
- By Myla on 06-22-18
By: Gregg Zoroya, and others
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The Fighters
- By: C. J. Chivers
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost 2.5 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001. C.J. Chivers has reported from both fronts from the beginning, walking side by side with combatants for more than a dozen years. He describes the experience of war today as it is endured by those most at risk - the camaraderie and profound sense of purpose, alongside courage, frustration, and moral confusion mixed with technical precision. In these remote places where the reason for their presence is sometimes not clear, these young men kill or are killed, facing palpable and often constant threat of ambush or hidden bombs....
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a very human perspective...
- By dustin on 08-22-18
By: C. J. Chivers
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Legend
- A Harrowing Story from the Vietnam War of One Green Beret's Heroic Mission to Rescue a Special Forces Team Caught Behind Enemy Lines
- By: Eric Blehm
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In Legend, acclaimed best-selling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A 12-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia - where US forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
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awesome
- By Jacob on 11-13-15
By: Eric Blehm
What listeners say about A Ranger Born
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- L. Smerling
- 12-04-22
Not the complete autobiography
I have read this autobiography and know the author personally. The audio version is not a complete representation of the paper published autobiography. The audio book listener is left with wholes in a life and pondering the authors writing style to leave out years of his life, when in actuality, it was the narrator that took liberty to deviate from the pages of the book. The narrators singing of the Army Ranger theme song was done incorrectly. The narrator should have consulted with the author (who to this day can sing that song with accuracy, fine tone and pride) or at very minimum, listened to "US ARMY Rangers Lead the Way" prior to singing his rendition. Col Robert Black walked the path of an extremely memorable life and found the courage to write about it with honesty, candor, humor, respect and pride. I was very disappointed to listen and find random chapters from the original book just gone; left out by the narrator. Col. Bob, as we call him in our family, is a loving father, grandfather and great-grandfather that grew up to be a respected and legendary historian and storyteller. Not just about himself, but of military history abound. His life experiences joined with his witty, descriptive and fierce memory, make for an emotional and educational autobiographical writing and one of the best memoirs ever be told. Hopefully Audible will find out why the narrated version was not all inclusive to what is inside the cover. I requested a refund of my 1 point, not because of what I heard, but because of what I didn't hear. Buy and read the entire autobiography and wait for the movie!
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