No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf By Bradley Peniston. Naval Institute Press, 2006. $29.95. ISBN 1-59114-661-5.

In April 1988, during the Persian Gulf's "tanker war" between Iran and Iraq, a U.S. Navy warship struck an Iranian sea mine and nearly sank. Journalist Bradley Peniston offers a well-crafted and exciting story of a high-seas adventure as the captain and crew of the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) struggle to save their ship, which was on fire, sinking, and adrift in a floating minefield.

In one of the most inspiring books about modern naval history, Peniston details the story of how Cmdr. Paul Rinn and his crew prepared, trained, and executed dangerous Persian Gulf missions and describes their harrowing ordeal as the Roberts is crippled by a sea mine. This is a marvelous true tale of leadership, training, discipline, damage control, and crisis decision-making - fight fires or control flooding? - amid the threat of attack.

The General & the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa By Eileen Welsome. Little, Brown and Co., 2006. $25.95. ISBN 0-316-71599-9.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eileen Welsome describes the American military intervention into Mexican politics in 1916 as Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing pursues Pancho Villa in Mexico. After Villa's attack on Columbus, N.M., Pershing led an Army "punitive expedition" into Mexico, intending to kill, capture, or disperse Villa and his bandits.

Welsome covers the high-handed and geopolitical considerations for all-out war, as well as the difficult counterinsurgency operations in rugged terrain in the middle of a hostile population. Welsome explores military intervention as an extension of diplomacy. Loaded with vivid descriptions of battles, tactics, and political threats and manipulation, this is an excellent portrayal of an obscure chapter in U.S. military history.

- William D. Bushnell