Iraq Memoir

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.

They were four exceptional soldiers, a new generation asked to save an army that had been hollowed out after Vietnam. They survived the military's brutal winnowing to reach its top echelon. They became the Army's most influential generals in the crucible of Iraq. Collectively, their lives tell the story of the Army over the last four decades and illuminate the path it must travel to protect the nation over the next century.

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.

Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war - the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq.

CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier battled back from critical injuries sustained in a Baghdad bombing, a prominent incident that claimed the lives of her two crew members, an Army officer, and his interpreter. In Breathing the Fire, Dozier offers a personal memoir of tenacity as well as dedication and drama.

The story of the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq is here told by its musical director, from its inception to its eventual end. The NYOI came through the most difficult and dangerous of times to produce fine music not only in Iraq but also in Britain, Germany and France. A beacon of hope and achievement, the young musicians and their tutors made bridges across their own ethnic divisions. They made great music in the most trying and tragic of circumstances and became their country's best ambassadors in 5,000 years.

Surge is an insider's view of the most decisive phase of the Iraq War. Using newly declassified documents, unpublished manuscripts, interviews, author notes, and published sources, Surge explains how President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, and other U.S. and Iraqi political and military leaders shaped the surge from the center of the maelstrom in Baghdad and Washington.

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.

The General’s dysfunctional home life drove him to apply to the Air Force Academy almost 40 years ago, where he was provided with a new family and sense of worth he had never gotten from his own father. This purpose has driven the General throughout his remarkable career, taking him to Alaska, the Pentagon, and Germany; to Florida during Hurricane Opal, and has also allowed him to work alongside Presidents Bush and Obama and Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Ashton Carter. Journey is a book about leadership. It is packed with the General’s lessons from life in the military.

From the trials of basic training on the home front to the ranks of the legendary 82nd Airborne Division to taking fire in the hot zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, MacLeod chronicles the soldier's evolution as only one who's been in those boots can. Candid, wise, and powerful, his memoir takes listeners on an unforgettable journey through war and allows them to witness bravery firsthand.

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.

Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous.

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.

Wiser in Battle is the first book about the war in Iraq by an on-site commander. Former Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez served as Commander of Coalition Ground Forces from June 2003 to June 2004. Wiser in Battle offers the full story of his tenure, providing a first-hand account of Saddam Hussein's capture, the battle of Fallujah, and the never-ending quest to take out Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

An award-winning military journalist tells the amazing stories of 22 soldiers who've won the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.

Snipers work in pairs so relationship and trust are all important. Snipers are elite soldiers and clearly the author is among the best of the best. A Sniper's Conflict is a superb account of professional soldiering at the sharp end....

With the help of Dan Morgan, an Infantry officer who deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan as a commander and operations officer, Eads takes listeners on a rollercoaster of combat experiences during the hunt for the most violent terrorist in Iraq, bringing to life the painstaking and horrid details of combat in a sectarian war. He tells the story of the soldiers’ camaraderie, built through adversity, and the love of family that sustained them.

Russell Vineyard joined the United States Marine Corps as an M1A1 Tank crewman. After USMC Boot Camp and Marine Armor School, Vineyard found himself at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Training and Education Facility Twentynine Palms with 1st Tank Battalion. In November of 2004, he learned he'd be joining the Marine Corps' 1st Tank Battalion, Delta Company as a tank gunner and headed out on the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The United States Military would send the tank platoon across the ocean to participate in a global military exercise in Egypt and to fight the War on Terror in Iraq.

Codenamed Operation Telic, the British component of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the largest gathering of British troops since the Second World War. While the British public prepared for the worst as its soldiers were facing weapons of mass destruction, most servicemen and women were under no illusion that they were invading Iraq to rid the people of Saddam Hussein.

They put a price on his head. They did everything they could to disrupt his mission. Finally, when an antitank mine tore off his right foot, the warriors of jihad in Iraq thought they had neutralized one of their most resourceful, determined foes.