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There is, at least, a good belly laugh on every page! Easily the funniest book I've read in years, and one which I began to savor the experience by purposely slowing down so as not to end the ride too soon. This one has found a permanent spot in my bookcase, and one which I plan to periodically re-read.

Reading "Growing Up In Khaki" was a delightful, but fraught experience. Delightful because Allingham's comedic reportage hits the spot from the first pages. His tales have the same rare ability as Bill Bryson's to invoke paroxysms of laughter from this stern Brit. countenance. The military life merely provides the author with a powerful opportunity to express his wit, and Allingham seizes the chance and provides an account with universal appeal. Fraught, because living in a household of six, and being unable to hide my obvious amusement after reading a few pages, I found, the book kept mysteriously disappearing only to be tracked down later by listening for the self-incriminating culprit.

This book is essential for anyone who thoroughly enjoys a deep, hearty belly-laugh. This is truly enjoyable - even if you have no military experience or background. The author takes you on an amusing, eventful journey through his life and gives plenty of ideas for mischievous souls.

The secret behind authentic German Dorfenburgs, eaten in mass quantities by American troops, is revealed, along with why coconut-milk toasts in your underwear is a wonderful way to pass the time on a train ride. The adventures of owning a DKW car and the never-ending excitement in Thule, Greenland is wittingly uncovered - and makes you glad you didn't have the experience! Of course, this is only a portion of the journeys you encounter, and plenty more await, with laughter guaranteed.

The military culture Hatheway reveals in "Guilty As Charged: The True Story of a Gay Beret," isn't the idealistic world of the posters. There are a lot of things the military isn't telling Pres. Bush (but what would he know about military life, anyway?) This is a place where soldiers routinely get drunk, many smoke hash or even shoot drugs, and heterosexual promiscuity is rampant. And may you find mercy if you're even suspected of being gay.

Even so, Hatheway felt relatively safe for a time as he met other gay men discreetly for sex at his unit in Bod Tolz, Germany, and elsewhere. Homosexual activity, he found, was more common than he first thought. Gays still had to be careful: there were several really gung-ho men who got wacked out about them. But if you didn't get caught, it wasn't all that bad.
Unfortunately, that's what happened to Hatheway. Just days before he was due to be discharged, an enlisted man invited him to his room for a drink. A bottle of scotch later, they found themselves in a sexual situation. Nothing unusual, until one of the man's roommates barged in. Hatheway's entire future blew up before his eyes.

His careful recounting of the subsequent ordeal is fascinating, particularly his allegations of military misconduct in the prosecution of the trial. If true (and we have no reason to believe they aren't), they're deeply disturbing. Hatheway was lucky he didn't end up at Leavenworth. Instead, he became a successful professor of German history at a college in Wisconsin.
Someday America's gays and lesbians will be able to serve their country without having to sneak around. Look for it to happen in about 2025. But it may take a couple of generations after that before the American military stops treating them like it did Hatheway. The monster of homophobia isn't going to die an easy death in that super-macho atmosphere. I know.

Jay Hatheway served with distinction for four years in the Army as a Green Beret -- the army's elite combat force. Jay was indistinguishable from his fellow Green Beret's in training, ability, dedication, and service. But there was one difference that the military establishment could not abide and which overrode all other aspects of Jay Hatheway's military career and performance -- he was a homosexual. In Guilty As Charged: The True Story Of A Gay Beret, Jay has candidly recorded his experiences while in service, including his court-martial, and his dedicated work in behalf of lesbians and gays concerned about their civil rights as men and women serving their country through military service. Guilty As Charged clearly and persuasively details the first constitutional challenge to the prohibition against homosexuality in the armed forces. Enhanced for the reader with footnotes and index, Guilty As Charged is a welcome, articulate, and much needed contribution to the on-going national dialogue on gays in the military and the constitutional issues involved with respect to one of the last bastions of state supported, federally sponsored discrimination. Highly recommended reading, Guilty As Charged puts a human face to a hot-button social issue, and in doing so well serves the entire military community, gay or straight.

Riveting. This is author Jay Hatheway's story of the nation's first gay Green Beret court martial. Compelling. It happens to be a first person account, as defendent Hatheway, who survived those dark days, remembers the events surrounding the tragic injustice. Transcripts from the actual trial add immediacy to the "you are there" narration.
     There is an inclination to think of Jack Nicholson's despicable character in A Few Good Men, but Guilty As Charged is especially vile in that it lays bare the military's bent for public degradation and humiliation of a gay man -- by innuendo and inference. Hatheway's chiling story just quite possibly could have been our own. The telling is painfully detailed.
     Hatheway never denies to the reader that he has engaged in homosexual activities; the focus here is on the trumped up charges brought against him two decades before the Clinton compromise of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." In the military, fraternizing with subordinates is one matter of concern; sex between men -- actual or presumed -- is tantamount to treason.
     Now it's Hatheway's turn, and he takes us from the cool marble of boyhood infatuation to the companionship of flesh without fatigues that also defines "Special" Forces. Except for names and places, his story could be mine -- or yours.
-- Stonewall News Northwest

It is too bad that this book has been out of print, it is one of the most entertaining children's book I've ever read. My children think so too. Just a great original story with a wonderful message. Also it introduces your child to the not often thought of tapir. Do you know what a tapir is? Read this story then head to the zoo; you'll be looking for them!

HELLO, AND THANKYOU FOR YOUR BOOK. BEING HAPPY AS A TAPIR , SOMETIMES SIMPLY MEANS THAT THE SUN SHINES WHEREVER WE PLAY. I HAVE FOUR LITTLE CHILDREN AT HOME - L.J.,HETTIE,ANNA AND JONATHON. SOON ABBIE AND I WILL HAVE ANOTHER BABY BORN TO US AND WE ARE ALL PRETTY EXCITED. I'VE ALREADY NAMED HER : SUSANNA GEORGIA TOBY CHARLES MORTLOCK. ABBIE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO SUSANNA SOON, AND WE'RE BOTH VERY HAPPY THAT THE CHILDRENAND OURSELVES WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER, AND THAT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE OUR CHILDREN GROWING UP. YOU MAY ALWAYS ASK THE QUEEN MOTHER (QUEEN MARY)- MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, AND MY GRANDMOTHER QUEEN ELIZABETH THE SECOND , OR MY UNCLES AND AUNTS ANYTHING AT ALL. LOVE, TOBY.

This is a very entertaining children's book. It is about little creatures who wear animal suits in a zoo so that visitors can look at them. The newest member is not happy being stuck with the tapir suit at first, he wants to be anything else. The book is well-written and holds the attention of even very young listeners. This is a book that parents won't mind reading a 100 times, and believe me, this will happen. It is fully illustrated with beautiful color pictures that children will enjoy. Every child should have a copy of this book!

Mary C. Boys' book is desperately needed, especially in a culture where Mel Gibson's movie about the Passion is the only source many people will go to for their history (or lack of). After reading this book, if you are a thinking person, your spiritual foundations will grow and your previously mistaken understandings about Jews and Judaism (not to mention God's "irrevocable" gifts and call to Israel - Rom 11:25-36) will change for the better.

It is time to let theologians like Mary C. Boys pave a new path for the ongoing Christian culture and its relation to "the root that supports" it. Buy this book for your Pastor!

In our contemporary era, it is not usually considered acceptable to explicitly embrace bigotry and religious intolerance. Yet, as Christians we often do it in implicit ways which have shaped us since childhood. In this powerful book, Mary Boys offers a review of the history whereby Jews and Christians moved from being siblings, to being rivals and finally, enemies. This is a situation that can be reversed as Christians learn more about Judaism and, in turn, understand their own religion with more depth.

Mary does not profess to be an expert of Judaica. But here grasp of catholic theology and history is superb. Carefully and objectively she lays out her case for why Christians should refuse the supersessionism which infects our tradition. As she explains, Christianity should be able to express the power which is inherent in its tradition without denegrating the faith of the Jewish people. It is not necessary to insist that Christians are the new People of God in a way which proposes that the Jews are no longer God's people. As the title suggests, Mary demonstrates that God has blessings enough for both.

As a doctoral student in a summer session at Boston College, I have had the privilege of studying with Mary Boys. Hers is a powerful and persuasive argument that seeks to recapture something authentic and true about the foundations of Christianity. It is too easy to misread the gospel accounts as if Jesus and the Jews were arrayed against one another. In reality, Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew himself and this fact is far too often forgotten by Christians.

Typical of other Pharisaic rabbis of his day, Jesus had a particular approach to Jewish Law and customs and he had his own group of disciples who referred to themselves as "followers of the Way." In this simple rabbi these disciples encountered the power of God, placing Christians in a position which should be one of gratitude toward the Jews, not condescension and condemnation.

As Christians, are we able to develop a new paradigm which is faithful to our tradition without demonization of the Jews? I believe we can. I believe we must, and Mary Boys points a way in which we can better understand ourselves in the process.

With "Has God Only One Blessing" Mary Boys has made a major contribution to Jewish Christian relations. It is a singular contribution and advances the conversation to what is for Christians the most challenging area, which is the way we worship.

Jews and Christians have made enormous progress in mutal respect and understanding over the last forty years. Religious text books have been reviewed for negative stereotypes. We are quick to rally support for victims of discrimination and hate crimes. Our leaderships have made thoughtful policy statements. There are high levels of cooperation in efforts for justice and peace. Scores of colleges and universities have centers for interreligious study and research.

How Jews and Judaism are presented in our worship is quite another matter. Our words and our structures are riven with supersessionism, the assumption that Christianity fulfills and replaces Judaism.

It is this enormous diffuculty Mary Boys analyses with the a clear vision and practical directives. Her work is most welcome and merits great attention.

On a late summer trip motoring across Europe, I found this petite pocket guide ooohhh soooo French. Although my thoughts were in English, I could pronounce the local wines, cheeses and restaurant dishes with some confidence. My only foe paw was ordering souffle' glace' expecting a gloriously mile high dessert and instead receiving a delightfully frozen demi cup of ice cream...the souffle' waits for no one, so why wait?

Order this little gem now!

What a great little book. It should be required reading for food lovers as well as food servers. For the stiff American tongues, it provides an easy way to correctly order in the best restaurants with confidence and style. Magnifique!

the definitive guide to avoiding pronounncing faux pas when ordering in french,german or italian restaurants.

What great story!... I was taken places no one dare go. As a young person, I never had to deal with war and the faces of war. Like me, the readers will find themselves right in the middle of it war with all it's force, fear and gallantry. Mr. Pinn also reveals an Infantry mans view of histroy and troubled times. For those of you who may be wanting to know more about war, ... you must read this book. Mr. Pinn represents your husbands, your sons and all those who may be called to serve. As fearful as it was it also contained a lot of lighter moments. Funny stories and amazing encounters. A must read!

Once in a while a great man walks into our lives; a man whose very persona is exemplified in his very stare. One such man was Lionel Pinn. Master Sergeant Pinn served in not one, not two, not three, but four different combat areanas. WWII, Korea, Laos and Vietnam saw Mr. Pinn, or Choo-Choo as he was known to many, fight and overcome the enemy. In three different combat theaters Pinny was taken prisoner, and escaped each time. He met and knew Jacki Kennedy, drank whiskey with Ira Hayes-the native American Indian who was one of the infantrymen immortalized in the depiction of the flag raising at Iwo Jima, and worked security for Frank Sinatra. Lionel was half Micmac and half Osage Indian, and more importantly an American.

I was fortunate enough to know Lionel, and sat with him at his home on occassion listening to him talk about the weather and the "three old maids" building a house next to his. Never did he discuss his combat missions or time served in the military with me; never did I ask questions. I have known several war veterans, and knew better than to broach the subject--besides, I just enjoyed Lionel's company, and as he remarked in his book, "I don't discuss war with those that never fought. They don't understand."

Oftentimes, I remarked to my wife that I regretted not asking Lionel if I could take a tape recorder with me to interview him. Fortunately for us all a reporter had enough foresight to do that very thing. I recently finished the book published about this little known American icon, Hear the Bugles Calling (My Three Wars as a Combat Infantryman). Lionel was the recipient of three combat infantryman badges, and two silver stars abrazoned the metals on the blue ribbon. Lionel recently died of Leukemia in 1999, the result of being present in Nevada for the witnessing of four atomic bomb detonations.

His is a story for anyone interested in courage. I'm lucky to have called him friend.........

The story will take the readers on a journey they will not soon forget. Into the battles of three different wars and conflicts as told by a special kind of warrior. Lionel's experiences are breath taking, edge of your seat, and thrilling. Along with an insightful story the reader will be laughing out loud at some of the antics and events the First Sargent gets himself into. Seeing the real war through the eyes of a real soldier is a rare threat. Triple Combat Infantry Badges grace the cover and for those who know, that is a story by itself. I can not recommend this book enough. Frank Sikora's contirbution is well done and in touch with the man and his story. Fantastic story, fantastic book, fantastic man! Little Eagle

Creating art work that passes on a political message, that is spawned in part from social awareness, is almost impossible to do well. Holly was always an artist first, and the paintings and drawings in this book testify that she broke the rules to become the exception--while rendering her rage over her breast cancer she transcended it to make a thoroughly beautiful body of work.

Hollis Sigler has created a visual language, easily learned and powerfully understood, using images of a woman's everyday life to portray wildly varying emotions of a woman diagnosed with re-occurring cancer. "Hollis Sigler's Breast Cancer Journal" show's Hollis' own incredible strength in living and painting life to the fullest while concurrently fighting serious illness. Her drawings and paintings reflect the experiences of women living with breast cancer and those who care for them, while providing a means of immediate, almost organic emotional understanding to their families, neighbors, and friends. Hollis is brave, powerful, and very much attached to life. Her struggles are all of ours: through her art we learn to better understand ourselves. From 1994-1997 The Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) sponsored with the National Museum of Women in the Arts a national tour to 24 hospitals of replicas, donated by Polaroid Corporation, of 14 Hollis Sigler drawings and painting about living with breast cancer, all of which now appear in "Hollis Sigler's Breast Cancer Journal." Hollis' powerful images provided a vehicle for patients and families, doctors and nurses, visitors, medical students and non-professional staff to consider breast cancer from a visually articulate patient's point of view. Kathy Miller of the Cancer Wellness Center in Northbrook, IL wrote at the time about the art and Hollis Sigler: "The art is thought-provoking for people of all ages and in all stages of health....Women have a lot in common -- her work says it all." Hollis Sigler's work is important, a series of visual statements with the same emotional validity as the writings of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross or the choreography of Bill T. Jones. I have shown some of Hollis' images which appear in this book during arts-in-healthcare talks to medical students in Ohio, patients in New York, and healthcare professionals in Japan. The images have always met with visual and emotional appreciation and immediate understanding from the audience. From the standpoint of this particular reader and member of the Arts in Healthcare movement, "Hollis Sigler's Breast Cancer Journal" is a Must Read!

This book is a success story, not in the sense of finding a tidy, happy resolution to a difficult biography, but of illuminating both the human capacity to act bravely and forcefully and the power of art to communicate about impossibly difficult things. "On the wall of deadly silence about the disease, I aimed to hang my Breast Cancer Journal. This work was an outcry." And it still is. Breast cancer is an immense epidemic, affecting more people than AIDS, yet it gets far less attention. It is just as complicated emotionally because of the way that death shadows it and the blows it deals to the literal form of femininity. Through her quirky, poignant, personal art, Sigler depicts a universal experience of how it feels to live with disfiguring disease, with loving others while ill oneself, with ignorance, with the trauma of treatments more drastic than the disease. She deals with the loneliness of illness and with the power of art to communicate, to create community, to produce social action. This is an instructive, inspiring and truly spiritual book.

I have read close to 50 books on relationships, marriage, etc... and this is by far the most valuable book I have read on the topic. It's short, to the point, written simply and clearly. No psycho-babble here ! Each chapter covers one point, an example to illustrate the point and a summary list of what action to take. He covers how to get rid of resentment, conflict, heal the hurt and find the issues that destroy love. Definitely a life-changing book !

Mr. Ferguson is truely a God-send. The information in this book should be mandatory reading for all married couples whether they are considering divorce or not. Even singles would benefit from the information in this book. Many people trapped in the cycle of conflict with there life are not even aware where the problem is. This book gives us insight and points us in the right direction. Thank you Mr. Ferguson.

This book is truly changing my life! We may not realize, until reading this book, how many painful relationships we have (work, family, significant other, etc.), how much of that pain we either create or return, how many expectations we have of others, and how much we try to change others to suit our "shoulds". More importantly, we also don't realize how much healing power we have within us to greatly improve these same relationships! Mr. Ferguson gives us big hope, and then makes that hope tangible by teaching very practical, logical, sensible ways that we can change ourselves to change our relationships. Thank you, Mr. Ferguson, for giving me the hope and the tools to allow my heart to love others as I've wanted to for so long.

I have been both teaching and studying English and have seen many books on idioms over the years. The most striking difference of this book is that it presents idioms in a very interesting context (fun talks, real ads, etc.). I also liked the choice of idioms, I feel this book would be appropriate for advanced students as well as for intermediate students.
The book has all the scripts and answers at the end so it can be well used for self-study.

I have lived in many Latin American countries, and now can speak Spanish on a level that I can reasonably be understood and understand. But I am still trying to learn the Spanish idioms that each country has----and I have wondered, after reading Ms. Watkins' book---why someone has not written a similar book for those with Spanish as their second language. Her book is so to the core of American culture, that it makes it so much easier for someone learning English to pick up phrases, sayings, different meanings to words that couldn't be translated literally, and thus land on their feet running without having people listen to stilted, foreign-like phrases. This book should be used in every Institute or class that teaches English as a second language. I have taught elementary and junior high classes, and if I were to go back to teaching, and could teach English as a second language, this would be one of the first books I would use.

Ms. Watkins' combination of engaging activities and intriguing visuals makes this text a real treat to use in the classroom. Students are too busy having fun to realize that they're learning idioms along the way.

What I especially like is the way The Idiom Advantage uses clever print advertisments to help expand the students' understanding of the idioms. The ads even provide a platform to discuss some broader, cultural issues which can be especially important for ESL students.

This is definitely one of the best idioms texts I've seen.

What attracted me first was the title of the book .. it gave me a feeling of hope and freshness!

Each portrait reaches to your heart and to your soul... it is like when you look deep into someone's eyes and find the truth.. about relationships, simple daily routines, and above all that lingering feeling of love that signifies one's decisions and actions!
So many lessons and more advice.. so poeticly described and softly accentuated for us to see.. and hopefully learn!

I enjoyed it extremely.. I went over and over several parts ... sometimes smiling and others tearing.. it is a book that surprises you every time you read it...

The women in this book could be my best friends. They face real issues and make the best decisions they can. Just like most of us, they sometimes wish that they could go back and do it all over. I especially liked the stories from women who were past their parenting years and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their life. I bought copies for both my sisters: we can't afford to be like Nadine Stair and find ourselves at the end of life regretting all the things we didn't do.

I love this book. The first time I read the title poem, I knew it was the truth. The last thing I want to do is wake up in 30yrs and realize I could've had more fun. This book reminds you to Live each day for all it's worth.