Iraq History

They marched under the heat with 40-pound rucksacks on their backs. They fired weapons out of the windows of military vehicles, defending their units in deadly battles. And they did things their male counterparts could never do—gather intelligence on the Taliban from the women of Afghanistan. Beyond the Call follows the groundbreaking journeys of three women as they first fight military brass and culture and then enemy fire and tradition. And like the men with whom they served, their battles were not over when they returned home.

This book says outright what many have merely hinted at: that President George W. Bush knowingly misused the findings of the erroneous and incompetent U.S. intelligence community to provide a pretext for war with Iraq. The author hones in on the systematic weaknesses of the intelligence agencies that caused them to ignore the crucial signs leading up to the attacks of 9/11.

In Dr. Robert Elliott’s Citizen Soldier: From the Land of Lincoln to Iraq and Back, listeners learn what it is like to say goodbye to a wife and three children and then travel across Iraq by convoy and helicopters. You’ll learn about the stressors, the dangers, and the risks taken and retaken.

Experience the sights, smells, and sounds of the Cobra, hanging on tight as you’re hurled into the chaos of night combat operations. Step through an otherwise closed door and explore the emotions, physical danger, and successes that would shape a generation of aviators.

The study of origins may undoubtedly be regarded as the most striking characteristic of recent archaeological research. There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source and watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. Furthermore, we can now explain the ancient history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world because of recent excavations.

The city of Fallujah is located in Iraq's western Anbar Province, approximately 65 kilometers west of Baghdad, the country's capital. Its history, along with the history of Iraq (whose modern borders are part of what was once known as Mesopotamia), goes back thousands of years, and the country's modern history played a strong role in shaping the fighting in and around Fallujah in 2004.

The resignation of Scott Ritter as chief weapons inspector for UNSCOM in August 1998 made front-page news around the world. Now Scott Ritter draws on his seven years' experience hunting Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to take readers inside Iraq and show that country as it has never been seen by outsiders before. In Endgame, he dissects the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq and reveals a bold new approach to ending the ongoing Iraq crisis.

After serving in a scout-sniper platoon in Mosul, Tom Voss came home carrying invisible wounds of war - the memory of doing or witnessing things that went against his fundamental beliefs. This was not a physical injury that could heal with medication and time but a "moral injury" - a wound to the soul that eventually urged him toward suicide. Desperate for relief from the pain and guilt, Voss embarked on a 2,700-mile journey across America with a fellow veteran. Listeners walk with these men as they meet other veterans, Native American healers, and spiritual teachers.

Imagine being at work, or lying in your bed, or even sitting wherever you are right now and knowing that at any moment the world could literally explode around you. Without warning. In her stirring memoir, Bronco Strong, Angela M. Odom, a personnel services battalion commander, recounts daily life as a soldier in an active war zone during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Vets and Pets tells fifteen emotional and entertaining stories of the incredible bonds between wounded warriors, veterans, and other service members and their service and companion animals. Whether these special relationships are with dogs, cats, horses, pigs, or even birds of prey, readers will discover how these remarkable animals help veterans return to civilian life and live independently while simultaneously bringing joy and confidence into their lives.

In 2004, after several months as an interrogator, Eric Fair’s call to serve his country has led him to a dark and frightening place. By the time he leaves Iraq after that first deployment, Fair will have participated in or witnessed a variety of aggressive interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, diet manipulation, exposure, and isolation. Years later, with his health and marriage crumbling, haunted by the role he played in what we now know as “enhanced interrogation,” it is Fair’s desire to speak out that becomes a key to his survival.

Every day ordinary young Americans are fighting and dying in Iraq, with the same bravery, honor, and sense of duty that have distinguished American troops throughout history. One of these is Jason Dunham, a 22-year-old Marine corporal from the one-stoplight town of Scio, New York, whose stunning story reporter Michael M. Phillips discovered while he was embedded with a Marine infantry battalion in the Iraqi desert.

At age 25, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a 21st-century reporter: cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, and translators.

On the eve of September 11, 2001, New York City's famous National Guard regiment, the fighting 69th Infantry, was not fit for duty. Most of its soldiers were immigrant kids with no prior military experience, and their equipment was derelict. The thought of deploying such a unit was laughable. Sean Flynn, himself a member of the 69th, memorably chronicles the transformation of this motley band of amateur soldiers into a battle-hardened troop at work in one of the most lethal quarters of Baghdad.

A few weeks after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, journalist Megan K. Stack, a 25-year-old national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, was thrust into Afghanistan and Pakistan, dodging gunmen and prodding warlords for information. From there, she traveled to war-ravaged Iraq and Lebanon and other countries scarred by violence, witnessing the changes that swept the Muslim world and laboring to tell its stories.

In January 2005 Kirk Johnson, then twenty-four, arrived in Baghdad as USAID's only American employee who spoke Arabic. Despite his opposition to the war, Johnson felt called to civic duty and wanted to help rebuild Iraq. Appointed as USAID's first reconstruction coordinator in Fallujah, he traversed the city's IED-strewn streets, working alongside idealistic Iraqi translators - young men and women sick of Saddam, filled with Hollywood slang, and enchanted by the idea of a peaceful, democratic Iraq. It was not to be.

Mike and Kate Blaise fell in love during high school in small-town Macon, Missouri. Sharing a deep sense of patriotism, they both entered the US Army, she as a commissioned officer and he as an enlisted infantry soldier who later became a helicopter pilot with the Air Cavalry. Forced to accept the realities of a military marriage yet determined to stay with her husband, Kate passed up her dream assignment in the United States to be with Mike, who was deployed to Korea. But they never imagined a day like 9/11 or the military aftermath that sent them to Iraq.

Oliver North offers an inspiring, first-hand account of the extraordinary young American volunteers defending us against radical Islamic terror.

Since 9-11-01, North and his War Stories documentary team have made a dozen extended trips to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines, covering U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen, and Marines. American Heroes offers a close-up of this generation's "citizen-soldiers" who have chosen the path of the patriot and gone into harm's way for their countrymen.

In April 2004, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, Iraq, when they came under surprise attack. Eight Americans would be killed and more than 70 wounded. Back home, as news of the attack began filtering in, the families of these same men feared the worst. This intimate portrait of the close-knit community of families Stateside, the unsung heroes of the military, distinguishes The Long Road Home from other stories of modern warfare.

Buster, an English springer spaniel who has served his comrades and his country with unstinting devotion, has saved thousands of lives. This is the story of his partnership with RAF Police Sergeant Will Barrow, told by Will himself, describing how each came to save the other's life. It is a relationship that produced some heroic feats - including sniffing out explosive vests that led to the arrests of two suicide bombers - in the dust and desert heat of Afghanistan and beyond.