Media:  Soft cover, portrait format, 200 photos - half in full color. 32 pgs of color, 64 pgs.  

Price:  USD12.96 from Squadron.com  

Advantages: 
Great text descriptions of photos, covers many different aspects of the Operation other than simply aviation. Diverse coverage of many units operating with all the branches of the US Military.  

Disadvantages: 
Many of the photos already seen on the Internet. Latest carrier deployments not included.  

I’ve been buying Squadron Signal books for quite some time and although they sometimes lack accurate text commentary (I paid for the F-16 airbrakes opening due to lack of hydraulic pressure goof on the ARC forums) they are very well produced and nicely compiled references. Their latest offering into the fray is Operation Enduring Freedom, covering much of the early days of the War on Terror up until about April/May of this year. It is unique book for Squadron/Signal as it covers many aspects of the war, from the various operational aircraft to the ground troops that provided early support to the war. 
It is this diversity that makes this book in the series so interesting. It opens with a nicely written background into the events surrounding 9/11 and the triggers that awakened the sleeping giant. Although not the most detailed account of events, it does an excellent job of summarizing the historical moment and adds to the “keepsake” value of the book for years to come. All this sets the scene for the pictures in the rest of the book which cover aircraft and equipment from all 4 services. The pictures and material in this book are quite good, really they are, but to the seasoned Internet researcher you will soon get a feeling of déjà vu. So let’s lay the cards on the table. Many of the photos in this book can be readily found and perhaps already have been collected from the Air Force, Navy and Army web sites. In fact some of the images I remember downloading from these sites are in B&W and therefore disappoint a little more (the beautiful picture of a Navy F-18 turning to show it's dirty underside and false canopy springs to mind. This was a waste of a good weathering reference). If you are looking for original images of Enduring Freedom (perhaps from unique sources as foreign media organizations, Time/Newsweek magazines or photo houses such as Getty Images) you will be not be rewarded with this book. There are some original photos that I have not seen from around the web but where this book really shines is by providing informative descriptions to match the photos. The Navy site for example, lists photo with a detailed caption that I almost never download. As a result I have many hi quality images but no frame of reference in time or space where to put them. OEF does a good job of matching these pictures to units and time frames as well as often describing extra information about the photo for novices. One example is a SEAL seen observing a munitions demolition. The book describes the M4 he is carrying, the scope attached and some characteristics of the scope. It is these little value added captions that bring so much to this book. 

For those who have collected the images of various war planes and soldiers from the Net, this is an excellent companion to those images, explaining aspects of the pics you may not have recorded or even noticed. 

The subject matter covered in this books includes:- 

• -Soldiers 

• -Naval aircraft (fighters, helos, Marine aviation) 

• -Air Force Heavy lifters (C17, etc.)

• -Air Force Bombers (B1, B2)

• -USAF Helo's (Pavelow, Pavehawk)

• -Predator

and many more...almost every unit that played a role in OEF is covered, if only briefly, in this book.

Conclusion:
I would definitely recommend this book as an addition to much of the material you may have collected on the Internet. For those who have little on OEF it provides an excellent start. It has ample colour photos to obtain weathering detail from and provides excellent background reading on every pic shown.