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"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home" - An early experience of the author's grandfather in the Great War. His unit was dispatched to a forest south of the Belgian village of Neufchâteau to assess casualties after the 1914 Battle of the Ardennes:

"Scattered among hundreds of corpses, Kurt’s unit discovered eighteen survivors, fifteen Frenchmen and three Germans, who had passed days and nights since the battle without dressing or water or food amidst the horrific stench of decaying bodies, through the heat of the days and the damp cold of the nights. . . . It goes without saying that only in very rare, exceptional cases could some living thing, weakened by the heavy exertions and deprivations of the past days and weeks, without any food and especially with fevers from their untreated wounds, cling to life as long as these eighteen did. Most of these wounded, to the extent that they were able to utter a few words or communicate in any way, explained that they had had no sustenance. In every case their wounds were so severe that they had been unable to move at all. Only one, a German, in despair at slowly dying of starvation yet nursing hopes of being found if he could only hang on a little longer, had resorted to a desperate measure: he took the only thing left of his meager rations, a cube of condensed pea soup, dissolved it in his own urine, and drank it."

"Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home" - The German Olympics in 1936 when a German weightlifter opened the ceremony brandishing a swastika flag:

"In his seat next to Hitler in the Fuhrer's box, the International Olympic Committee president, Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, looked on disapprovingly.

Moments later the Polish ambassador to Germany tapped Baillet-Latour on the shoulder. 'We have to be on our guard against a people with such a talent for organization,' he said, whispering to Hitler wouldn't hear. 'They could mobilize their entire nation just as smoothly for war'."

Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home by Alexander Wolff

I'm about half-way through this 1985 book; "The Root: The Marines in Beirut".

The Root: The Marines in Beirut, August 1982-February 1984 by Eric Hammel

I've had a copy of this book sitting in my library since 2003, figured it was about time to read it; "Defeat In Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913" by Edward J. Erickson.

Defeat In Detail: The Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912-1913 by Edward J. Erickson

I've started two military history books covering different conflicts:

Saipan: The Battle That Doomed Japan in World War II by James H. Hallas

The Secret Expedition: The Anglo-Russian Invasion of Holland 1799 by Geert van Uythoven

Managed to get a draft copy of "A Campaign of Giants—The Battle for Petersburg, Vol. 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill" for my Kindle from NetGallery.

A Campaign of Giants—The Battle for Petersburg, Vol. 2: From the Crater's Aftermath to the Battle of Burgess Mill by A. Wilson Greene