Ratings15
Average rating3.7
In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the U.S. Army. Defying all known accepted military practice -- and indeed, the laws of physics -- they believed that a soldier could adopt a cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls, and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them.
Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror.
With firsthand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades and shows how they are alive today within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in postwar Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners of war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 debleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces Command Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the U.S. military associated with the mysterious mass suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? The Men Who Stare at Goats answers these and many more questions.
Ronson's Them: Adventures with Extremists, a highly acclaimed international bestseller, examined the paranoia at the fringes of hate-filled extremist movements around the globe. The Men Who Stare at Goats reveals extraordinary and very nutty military secrets at the core of George W. Bush's War on Terror.
Reviews with the most likes.
It's not as good as Them, but there are parts of this book that are just as funny and just as chilling. It just doesn't hold the same quality throughout.
This has been on my “someday I will get around to it” to-read list for almost 20 years, and I'm really not sure why. It was strange and disturbing, and I am now even more worried about the world we live in than I was before I read it. Also, the audiobook was read by the author himself and he just seemed gleeful about all this weird shit. I think I'll go back to books about plagues and mosquitoes killing mankind instead.