Six Minutes to Freedom | 
| Authors: Kurt Muse, John Gilstrap
Publisher: Citadel
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $7.97
You Save: $7.98 (50%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 46178
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 0806528044
Dewey Decimal Number: 972
EAN: 9780806528045
ASIN: 0806528044
Publication Date: June 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: K20081115112313G
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Product Description
Kurt Muse handed over his passport at Torrijos International Airport, just as hed done countless times. Instantly, he sensed that something was wrong. Rather than the cursory glance followed by the whack of the entry stamp, the bureaucrat held the little book in both hands. He seemed to be studying it. And then he smiled. Kurt followed the clerks gaze to a piece of paper taped to his partition. The sign was handwritten in Spanish: Kurt Muse American Citizen Arrest Him His life was over. Born in the United States, raised in Panama, Kurt Muse grew up with a deep love for his adopted country. But by the late 1980s, Panama was suffering under the regime of Manuel Noriega. Innocent people disappeared. Beatings and murders became commonplace. For Kurt Muse, accepting such a dictator was not an option. For two years, Kurt and a few friends operated clandestine radio stations on low-tech equipment smuggled into Panama. At first, they broadcast on a small scale. But in late 1987, the group realized that they could override any transmission from a government-run radio network, and Radio Constitucional was born. Muse and his compatriots chose Noriegas Loyalty Day address, simulcast on every radio station in the country, for its first transmission. Just as Noriega began his self-serving message, Radio Constitucional seized the airwaves, urging the people to rise up in defense of their freedom. Kurt knew that if his identity was revealed, he and his family would be in grave peril. But he had no idea what kind of terror, confusion, and betrayal lay in store for all of them. Six Minutes to Freedom spins the remarkable tale of Kurts arrest by Noriegas henchmen and his months of imprisonment; the squalid conditions he faced in Panamas infamous Modelo Prison; his eyewitness accounts of his fellow inmates torture; and the plight of Kurts family as they fled for their lives. And it reveals, for the first time, the astonishing details of the long-awaited day when helicopters arrived in a firestorm of bullets to whisk Kurt Muse from under the noses of thugs who had been ordered to kill him. This is Kurts thrilling and highly personal storythe story of an American hero on foreign soil, who risked his life for his beliefs and for freedomand became the only American civilian ever rescued by the elite Delta Force.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Kurt Muse gets schooled by General Noriega January 29, 2008
3 out of 9 found this review helpful
Almost from the first time I heard about Kurt Muse I felt that there was something missing in this story. Seeing him on television, watching a documentary about him, and reading this book, I felt that he was being disingenuous in his telling of it.
If you see what the American government spent and risked to get him back, it's pretty obvious that he was a much bigger player than how he portrays himself.
Compare the treatment of Kurt Muse against that of Tom Bleming, another American captured by Noriega (and told in his book, "Panama: Echoes from a revolution"). Beaten, starved, tortured, threatened daily with death, Bleming's incarceration contrasts so sharply with the treatment of Muse that you have to wonder if the fix was in.
Bleming was captured by the very same people who grabbed up Muse, yet Bleming receives no mention by Muse, even though their times in captivity overlap.
I've always felt that Kurt Muse was a C.I. A. agent, or at the very least, a contract employee. I know that he's gone to great lengths to deny it, but it's still there, like a bad odor in an elevator. You just can't get away from it.
Bleming appears to have handled his captivity much better than Muse, and walked out under his own power. After Panama, he involved himself in other adventures, his latest being a guerrilla in Burma with the KNLA. He even wrote a book about that, "War in Karen Country".
If I were to go off somewhere and involve myself in other peoples problems, i have to say that Bleming would be my first choice of companions, and Kurt Muse a distant second.
 True heroes are hard to find December 13, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is a true story of true heroes. Not only is Kurt Muse, the author and subject an authentic hero, the F Team of Delta Force Assaulters that rescued him from certain death at the hands of the dictator Noriega are authentic as well. Muse fought the dictator with creativity, wit and humor. F Team fought him with bullets and grenades.
A measure of the man Muse is that on the anniversary of his rescue he calls each of his 23 rescuers on the anniversary of his liberation, to thank them and to update them on the life and family of the man they saved. A measure of the Delta operators is that even those gravely wounded returned to the service of our Nation.
This is a political thriller with a difference: the story is true; only the names have been changed to protect the victorious from the revenge of the defeated. I have had the privilege to meet one of the Delta operators that participated in the raid on Modelo Prison; no finer friend can you have, no fiercer enemy if you're an enemy of our Nation.
Read this book for insight into real people at the center of one of the geopolitical events of our time. It's not just history, it's humanity.
A truly captivating and well written real-life suspense story. October 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book made me relive the fear and the anxiety most Panamanians experienced under Manuel Noriega's dictatorship.
I believe that the book exagerates somewhat on the overall role that Kurt Muse played in the huge movement to get rid of the military regime, but the only clear error I found (very small if one considers the length of the book) is that Dr. Hugo Spadafora, who was horribly tortured and beheaded by Noriega's orders, had not previously been an anti-Sandinista guerrilla, as indicated in the book, but an anti-Somoza guerrilla.
Another detail that I interpret differently is that I think that the permanent guard soldier who was ordered to kill Kurt Muse if an American invasion took place had just gone to the restroom when the rescue mission started, which I think was an answer to all the prayers for Kurt's life.
Ron, Redding CA August 24, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I had seen this book once in a book store and passed it up. From reading the description and review on [...] I decided to buy it. The book was well written and very informative. I knew of the incident, Operation Urgent Fury and the rescue of Muse, but knew very few details. My attention was held until the very end. Although somewhat limited or shrouded I especially enjoyed th details of the rescue and the rescuers. This is one of those books that just make you proud to be an American.
Riviting May 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I rate this book right up there with my favorites "Endurance", "Touching The Void" and "Blackhawlk Down". I had a tough time putting this book down. Kurt Muse is one strong willed indivdual.
Edmund Burke said it best with "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
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