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Whether you agree with the invasion of Panama or not, you should read Six Minutes to Freedom. It is fitting that within this book, the heroic soldiers of American Special Forces are shown in victory. This is an honest, well written story by a man who lived through an extraordinary time and an earthshaking event. Politics aside, one cannot help but stand in awe of the men who risked their lives to recue Muse and arrest Noriega.
After Panama, he involved himself in other adventures, his latest being a guerrilla in Burma with the KNLA. You just can't get away from it.Bleming appears to have handled his captivity much better than Muse, and walked out under his own power. I know that he's gone to great lengths to deny it, but it's still there, like a bad odor in an elevator.
Seeing him on television, watching a documentary about him, and reading this book, I felt that he was being disingenuous in his telling of it.If you see what the American government spent and risked to get him back, it's pretty obvious that he was a much bigger player than how he portrays himself.Compare the treatment of Kurt Muse against that of Tom Bleming, another American captured by Noriega (and told in his book, "Panama: Echoes from a revolution"). A. Almost from the first time I heard about Kurt Muse I felt that there was something missing in this story.
agent, or at the very least, a contract employee. He even wrote a book about that, "War in Karen Country".If I were to go off somewhere and involve myself in other peoples problems, i have to say that Bleming would be my first choice of companions, and Kurt Muse a distant second. Beaten, starved, tortured, threatened daily with death, Bleming's incarceration contrasts so sharply with the treatment of Muse that you have to wonder if the fix was in.Bleming was captured by the very same people who grabbed up Muse, yet Bleming receives no mention by Muse, even though their times in captivity overlap.
I've always felt that Kurt Muse was a C.I.
F Team fought him with bullets and grenades.A measure of the man Muse is that on the anniversary of his rescue he calls each of his 23 rescuers on the anniversary of his liberation, to thank them and to update them on the life and family of the man they saved. I have had the privilege to meet one of the Delta operators that participated in the raid on Modelo Prison; no finer friend can you have, no fiercer enemy if you're an enemy of our Nation.Read this book for insight into real people at the center of one of the geopolitical events of our time. This is a true story of true heroes. A measure of the Delta operators is that even those gravely wounded returned to the service of our Nation.This is a political thriller with a difference: the story is true; only the names have been changed to protect the victorious from the revenge of the defeated. It's not just history, it's humanity. Not only is Kurt Muse, the author and subject an authentic hero, the F Team of Delta Force Assaulters that rescued him from certain death at the hands of the dictator Noriega are authentic as well. Muse fought the dictator with creativity, wit and humor.
Hugo Spadafora, who was horribly tortured and beheaded by Noriega's orders, had not previously been an anti-Sandinista guerrilla, as indicated in the book, but an anti-Somoza guerrilla.Another detail that I interpret differently is that I think that the permanent guard soldier who was ordered to kill Kurt Muse if an American invasion took place had just gone to the restroom when the rescue mission started, which I think was an answer to all the prayers for Kurt's life. This book made me relive the fear and the anxiety most Panamanians experienced under Manuel Noriega's dictatorship.I believe that the book exagerates somewhat on the overall role that Kurt Muse played in the huge movement to get rid of the military regime, but the only clear error I found (very small if one considers the length of the book) is that Dr.
Although somewhat limited or shrouded I especially enjoyed th details of the rescue and the rescuers. I knew of the incident, Operation Urgent Fury and the rescue of Muse, but knew very few details. My attention was held until the very end. I had seen this book once in a book store and passed it up. This is one of those books that just make you proud to be an American. I decided to buy it. From reading the description and review on [.]. The book was well written and very informative.
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