Ranger College Home Page

Angel of Bataan: The Life of A World War II Army Nurse in the War Zone and at Home by Walter MacDougall

Alice Zwicker was the only service woman from Maine to be a prisoner of the enemy in either of the two World Wars.  But there is more to the story than that.  Across the nation, wherever one of the seventy-seven Angels of Bataan returned home, there was a hero’s welcome.  Those Army and Navy nurses had shown what American women could do and be, even in times of defeat.  This is Alice’s story: her growing up in a small Maine town, her commitment to the profession of nursing, and her immersion in World War II.  There was Manila, Bataan, Corregidor, and then three long, hungry years when she was held prisoner by the Japanese.  For Alice, the terrible legacy of war did not end with her liberation from internment camp, or even with her coming home.  When victory finally arrived for Alice, it was achieved in her own soul.

Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II by Adam Makos

A riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel—and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.  When Clarence Smoyer is assigned to the gunner’s seat of his Sherman tank, his crewmates discover that the gentle giant from Pennsylvania has a hidden talent:  He’s a natural-born shooter.  At first, Clarence and his fellow crews in the legendary 3rd Armored Division—“Spearhead”—thought their tanks were invincible.  Then they met the German Panther, with a gun so murderous it could shoot through one Sherman and into the next.  Soon a pattern emerged:  The lead tank always gets hit.

Gender Inequality in Sports: From Title IX to World Titles by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Fifty years ago, US president Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law, making it illegal for federally funded education programs to discriminate based on sex.  The law set into motion a massive boom in girls and women’s sports teams, from kindergarten to the collegiate level. Professional women’s sports grew in turn. Title IX became a massive touchstone in the fight for gender equality.  So why do girls and women―including trans and intersex women―continue to face sexist attitudes and unfair rules and regulations in sports?  The truth is that the road to equality in sports has been anything but straightforward, and there is still a long way to go.  Schools, universities, and professional organizations continue to struggle with addressing unequal pay, discrimination, and sexism in their sports programming.  Delve into the history and impact of Title IX, learn more about the athletes at the forefront of the struggle, and explore how additional changes could lead to equality in sports.

Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao

After spending her early years in Wuhan, China, riding water buffalos and devouring stinky tofu, Laura immigrates to Texas, where her hometown is as foreign as Mars—at least until 2020, when COVID-19 makes Wuhan a household name.  In Messy Roots, Laura illustrates her coming-of-age as the girl who simply wants to make the basketball team, escape Chinese school, and figure out why girls make her heart flutter.  Insightful, original, and hilarious, toggling seamlessly between past and present, China and America, Gao’s debut is a tour de force of graphic storytelling.

Tin Man by Justin Madsen

Fiction.  In Justin Madson’s debut graphic novel, Tin Man, a girl and her brother befriend the titular Tin Man with unexpected results. Solar is in her last year of high school and is reeling from the recent death of her grandmother. She has abandoned her plans for the future and fallen in with a bad crowd. Her little brother, Fenn, doesn't understand why she's changed—she doesn't even want to help him build their rocket in the garage anymore. Campbell is a tin woodsman—a clunky metal man whose sole purpose in life is to chop down trees. He longs for more, however, and decides to seek out a heart, believing that, with one, he will be able to feel things he has never felt before and, therefore, change his life.

Equal parts The Iron Giant, The Wizard of Oz, Edward Scissorhands, and Freaks and Geeks, Tin Man is a story about finding friendship in the unlikeliest of places.

The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of U.S. Marines in Combat by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin

November 1950, the Korean Peninsula:  After General MacArthur ignores Mao’s warnings and pushes his UN forces deep into North Korea, his 10,000 First Division Marines find themselves surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by 100,000 Chinese soldiers near the Chosin Reservoir.  Their only chance for survival is to fight their way south through the Toktong Pass, a narrow gorge that will need to be held open at all costs.  The mission is handed to Captain William Barber and the 234 Marines of Fox Company, a courageous but undermanned unit of the First Marines.  Barber and his men climb seven miles of frozen terrain to a rocky promontory overlooking the pass, where they will endure four days and five nights of nearly continuous Chinese attempts to take Fox Hill.  Amid the relentless violence, three-quarters of Fox’s Marines are killed, wounded, or captured.  Just when it looks like they will be overrun, Lt. Colonel Raymond Davis, a fearless Marine officer who is fighting south from Chosin, volunteers to lead a daring mission that will seek to cut a hole in the Chinese lines and relieve the men of Fox.  This is a fast-paced and gripping account of heroism in the face of impossible odds.

And if I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee

In World War II, 59,000 women voluntarily risked their lives for their country as U.S. Army nurses.  When the war began, some of them had so little idea of what to expect that they packed party dresses; but the reality of service quickly caught up with them, whether they waded through the water in the historic landings on North African and Normandy beaches, or worked around the clock in hospital tents on the Italian front as bombs fell all around them.  For more than half a century these women’s experiences remained untold, almost without reference in books, historical societies, or military archives.  After years of research and hundreds of hours of interviews, Evelyn M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee have created a dramatic narrative that at last brings to light the critical role that women played throughout the war.  From the North African and Italian Campaigns to the Liberation of France and the Conquest of Germany, U.S. Army nurses rose to the demands of war on the frontlines with grit, humor, and great heroism.  A long overdue work of history, And If I Perish is also a powerful tribute to these women and their inspiring legacy.

On Desperate Ground: The Epic Story of Chosin Reservoir – the Greatest Battle of the Korean War by Hampton Sides

On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving.  The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war.  As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border.  Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir.  What followed was one of the most heroic--and harrowing--operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time.  Faced with probable annihilation, and temperatures plunging to 20 degrees below zero, the surrounded, and hugely outnumbered, Marines fought through the enemy forces with ferocity, ingenuity, and nearly unimaginable courage as they marched their way to the sea.

Peoples and Empires: A Short History of European Migration, Exploration, and Conquest from Greece to the Present by Anthony Pagden

Written by one of the world’s foremost historians of human migration, Peoples and Empires is the story of the great European empires—the Roman, the Spanish, the French, the British—and their colonies, and the back-and-forth between “us” and “them,” culture and nature, civilization and barbarism, the center and the periphery.  It’s the history of how conquerors justified conquest, and how colonists and the colonized changed each other beyond all recognition.

John F. Kennedy and a New Generation by David Burner

In this biography, David Burner explores the controversies, successes, and failures in the life and presidency of John F. Kennedy--and how he shaped the modern American consciousness.  Burner discusses John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) as both an individual and a leader, allowing the reader to examine the changes that took place in the American political and social systems as reflected in the hopeful days of Kennedy's “Camelot.”

Volunteers: Growing Up in the Forever War by Jerad W. Alexander

As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed listening to the fighter jets take off outside his window and was desperate to be airborne.  As a teenager at an American base in Japan, he immersed himself in war games, war movies, and pulpy novels about Vietnam.  Obsessed with all things military, he grew up playing with guns, joined the Civil Air Patrol for the uniform, and reveled in the closed and safe life “inside the castle,” within the embrace of the armed forces, the only world he knew or could imagine.  Most of all, he dreamed of enlisting—like his mother, father, stepfather, and grandfather before him—and playing his part in the Great American War Story.  He joined the US Marines straight out of high school, eager for action.  Once in Iraq, however, he came to realize he was fighting a lost cause, enmeshed in the ongoing War on Terror that was really just a fruitless display of American might.  The myths of war, the stories of violence and masculinity and heroism, the legacy of his family—everything Alexander had planned his life around—was a mirage.

The Great War in Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism – From Al Qa’ida to ISIS by Michael Morell and Bill Harlow

The Great War of Our Time offers an unprecedented assessment of the CIA while at the forefront of our nation's war against al-Qa'ida and during the most remarkable period in the history of the agency.  Called the "Bob Gates of his generation," Michael Morell is a top CIA officer who saw it all - the only person with President Bush on 9/11/01 and with President Obama on 5/1/11, when Usama Bin Laden was brought to justice.  Like Ghost Wars, See No Evil, and At the Center of the Storm, The Great War of Our Time is a vivid, newsmaking account of the CIA, a life of secrets, and a war in the shadows.

Decision Points by George W. Bush

In this candid and gripping account, President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life.  George W. Bush served as president of the United States during eight of the most consequential years in American history.  The decisions that reached his desk impacted people around the world and defined the times in which we live.  Decision Points brings readers inside the Texas governor's mansion on the night of the 2000 election, aboard Air Force One during the harrowing hours after the attacks of September 11, 2001, into the Situation Room moments before the start of the war in Iraq, and behind the scenes at the White House for many other historic presidential decisions.

Clash of Eagles: The Clash of Eagles Trilogy Book I by Alan Smale

Fiction.  Ever hungry for land and gold, the Emperor has sent Praetor Gaius Marcellinus and the 33rd Roman Legion into the newly discovered lands of North America.  Marcellinus and his men expect easy victory over the native inhabitants, but on the shores of a vast river the Legion clashes with a unique civilization armed with weapons and strategies no Roman has ever imagined.  Forced to watch his vaunted force massacred by a surprisingly tenacious enemy, Marcellinus is spared by his captors and kept alive for his military knowledge.  As he recovers and learns more about these proud people, he can’t help but be drawn into their society, forming an uneasy friendship with the denizens of the city-state of Cahokia. But threats—both Roman and Native—promise to assail his newfound kin, and Marcellinus will struggle to keep the peace while the rest of the continent surges toward certain conflict.

Hometown Victory: A Coach’s Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home by Keanon Lowe and Justin Spizman

Returning to his home after a tragedy, Lowe takes a job coaching a losing high school team.  But still, there was that nagging sense that his calling wasn't meant to stop there.  He was at that school for a reason.  In May 2019, he got his answer when a 19-year-old student entered a Parkrose classroom with a trench coat and shotgun.  Keanon disarmed him and pulled the boy into a hug, telling him he cared.  In the boy, Keanon saw himself, and the young men he grew up with or mentored along the way––and weren't so many of them just looking for acceptance, for comfort, for love?

Mamo by Sas Milledge

Cartoonist Sas Milledge (The Lost Carnival: A Dick Grayson Graphic Novel) makes her astonishing debut in her first original graphic novel that answers the question of how we all reconcile our responsibilities with our dreams for our own future.  Orla O’Reilly, the youngest in a long line of hedge witches, is compelled to return home after the death of her grandmother, Mamo.  In the wake of her Mamo’s passing, seas are impossible to fish, crops have soured, even Jo Manalo’s attic is taken over by a poltergeist!  And to make matter worse it appears that the cause is Mamo, or her mislaid bones that is.  Can Orla shoulder the responsibility of quieting her Mamo’s spirit, saving her hometown, and will she have to step up as the new witch of Haresden like Mamo always wanted?

On the Line: A Story of Class, Solidarity, and Two Women’s Epic Fight to Build a Union by Daisy Pitkin

On the Line takes readers inside a bold five-year campaign to bring a union to the dangerous industrial laundry factories of Phoenix, Arizona.  Workers here wash hospital, hotel, and restaurant linens and face harsh conditions:  routine exposure to biohazardous waste, injuries from surgical tools left in hospital sheets, and burns from overheated machinery.  Broken U.S. labor law made it nearly impossible for them to fight back.

This is the story of the drive to unionize led by two women: author Daisy Pitkin, a young labor organizer, who addresses this exhilarating narrative to Alma Gomez García, a second-shift immigrant worker, who risks her livelihood to join the struggle and convinces her fellow workers to take a stand.

Deaf Utopia: A Memoir – and a Love Letter to a Way of Life by Nyle DiMarco and Robert Siebert

Before becoming the actor, producer, advocate, and model that people know today, Nyle DiMarco was half of a pair of Deaf twins born to a multi-generational Deaf family in Queens, New York.  At the hospital one day after he was born, Nyle “failed” his first test—a hearing test—to the joy and excitement of his parents.  In this engrossing memoir, Nyle shares stories, both heartbreaking and humorous, of what it means to navigate a world built for hearing people.  Deaf Utopia is more than a memoir, it is a cultural anthem—a proud and defiant song of Deaf culture and a love letter to American Sign Language, Nyle’s primary language.  Through his stories and those of his Deaf brothers, parents, and grandparents, Nyle opens many windows into the Deaf experience.