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2018-12-09 -Short Attention Span Theater-
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This Week in Books, December 9, 2018
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The Lion's Gate
On The Front Lines Of The Six Day War
Steven Pressfield
Sentinel, 2014
If you, dear reader, are familiar with Pressfield's previous works, the cover boasts him as the author of Gates of Fire. I have read that book, it is a good book.
This book is nothing like it. The Lion's Gate is a collection of the personal stories of various participants from the Israeli side of the Six Day War.
And I found it fantastic. Unfortunately, with personal narrative stories I will again keep book quotations at a minimum so as to not give away the narrative.
Page 115
My brother Shmulik is commander of the 7th Armored Brigade. He's a colonel, thirty-seven years old. He has been called "Young Rommel." He likes that. My friend Yannush Ben-Gal was the brigade's chief operations officer, but he and my brother got into a fight and my brother fired him.
I took Yannush's place. Not because I am a trained operations officer. I'm the only one who can get along with my brother.
Yoel Gorodish is senior operations officer of the 7th Armored Brigade.
The passage goes on to describe the situation and duties of Yoel. The italics are introductions to, and throughout the book reminders of, who the participants are, a very nice feature.
The story is fast paced, especially if the reader can suspend knowledge of the outcome. The participants are keenly aware of this fact as they recollect with rather astonishing detail.
Page 350
Cheetah Cohen:
Syrian radio is reporting that Kuneitra has fallen. This report will turn out to be premature. But our radio intelligence guys in Tel Aviv jump on the opportunity and rebroadcast the piece over and over.
Who knows? Maybe it will scare more of the enemy into packing up.
A good reader with a block of time will likely finish this book in an afternoon — not a slight on the book, just how well it reads. There are pictures and photographs to illustrate situations and how young the participants were. Except for one, the stories are all personal interviews conducted by Mr. Pressfield. All are outlined in the preface, which is required reading.
Link is to Amazon for the Hardback edition. For most people, a personal narrative story is read once and shelved, unless, like in my case, gifted to another reader. Something to consider if/when purchasing. 
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Posted by swksvolFF 2018-12-09 00:00||
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Posted by trailing wife 2018-12-09 13:29||
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Posted by Frank G 2018-12-09 13:44||
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Posted by magpie 2018-12-09 18:56||
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