Never Mind, Well Do It Ourselves, Alec Bierbauer
Never Mind, Well Do It Ourselves, Alec Bierbauer
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves
The Inside Story of How a Team of Renegades Broke Rules, Shattered Barriers, and Launched a Drone Warfare Revolution

Author: Alec Bierbauer, Col. Mark Cooter, USAF (Ret.), Michael Marks

Narrator: David de Vries

Unabridged: 10 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/25/2022


Synopsis

The Inside Story of How a CIA Officer and an Air Force Officer Joined Forces to Develop America's Most Powerful Tool in the War on Terror.

Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves is the character-driven story behind the origins of the Predator drone program and the dawn of unmanned warfare. A firsthand account told by an Air Force team leader and a CIA team leader, Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves takes the listener into the back offices and secret government hangars where the robotic revolution went from a mad scientist idea to a pivotal part of global air power.

The story will reveal the often conflicting perspectives between the defense and intelligence communities and put you inside places like the CIA's counterterrorism center on the morning of 9/11. Through the eyes of the men and women who lived it, you will experience the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the evolution of a program from passive surveillance to the complex hunter-killers that hang above the battlespace like ghosts. Poised at the junction between The Right Stuff and The Bourne Identity, Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves will document the way a group of cowboys, rogues, and bandits broke rules and defied convention to change the shape of modern warfare.

About Alec Bierbauer

Alec Bierbauer has spent a lifetime conducting counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations in venues ranging from Bosnia to Yemen and Afghanistan. With an emphasis on integrating emerging technologies into high-risk special programs, he was the CIA's point man in the development of the Predator program. Bierbauer resides in Huntsville, Alabama.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Chad

It was the evening of October 7th, 2001 when the phrase, “Who the f*** did that?” was uttered in response—in anger and not praise—to the first Hellfire missile strike from a Predator drone. USAF Lt Gen Chuck Wald, who at the time was charged with coordinating all aspects of the nascent air war over......more

Goodreads review by Frank

Just finished Never Mind, We'll Do It Ourselves about turning the Predator drone from a platform limited to line-of-sight navigation into one capable of flying hundreds of miles to a target area directed by SATCOM controls, feeding its live feed directly to intelligence analysts 8,000 miles away in......more

Goodreads review by Elton

A gripping story behind the most consequential weapons system of the 21st century: The Armed Predator This is a solid read. If you're into aviation and military science, you may have also read Ben Rich's book Skunk Works. This is in many ways a spiritual successor to that work insofar it describes a......more

Goodreads review by Vic

This study of how the CIA killer drone program got started and was operationally proven during the first phase of Operation Enduring Freedom has exciting moments but most of it is a reminder that war is 99% boredom and 1% pure terror. Only the scary part is exciting. This book focuses on the logisti......more