Book excerpt: Now in paperback! Military Book Club® Main Selection History Book Club® Featured Alternate * The battle that transformed a group of common soldiers into the modern-day Marine Corps Miracle at Belleau Wood begins in June 1918 at Les Mare Farm in France with just 200 U.S. marines, who spilled their blood to prevail against impossible odds, resisting an overwhelming German force of thousands and turned the battle back against the enemy, saved Paris, saved France, and saved the Allied hope of victory. Called “the Gettysburg of the Great War” by many at the time, it rescued America and its allies from almost certain defeat. This book tells the riveting story of the modern marines as America’s fiercest and most effective warriors, the world’s preeminent fighting elite. Miracle at Belleau Wood is the story of an epoch-making battle--a battle that elevated the Corps to legendary status and forever burned them into the American imagination. Praise for Miracle at Belleau Wood “Axelrod brings us back vividly to the shocking casualties of ‘the war to end all wars.’” —Bing West, author of No True Glory, former Assistant Secretary of Defense “Alan Axelrod has perfectly captured the embodiment of U.S. Marines and their unparalleled Esprit de Corps. . . . A must read!” —Jay Kopelman, author of the best-selling From Baghdad with Love “Axelrod is one of America’s great military historians. He’s done it this time with riveting non-stop action that reads like the best of Hemingway’s frontline reports plus the Marine Corps novels of W.E.B. Griffin. Axelrod pushes you right into the action, onto the battlefield, and never lets up.” —Paul B. Farrell, JD, PhD, syndicated columnist for Dow Jones’s MarketWatch, former Staff Sergeant in the US Marine Corps Praise for Patton: A Biography “Like Patton at his best: polished, precise, and persuasive.” —Kirkus Reviews