Military History Iraq

By official accounts, the Navy SEALs of Alpha platoon returned as heroes after their 2017 deployment to Mosul, following a vicious, bloody, and successful campaign to drive ISIS from the city. But within the platoon a different war raged. Even as Alpha’s chief, Eddie Gallagher, was being honored by the Navy for his leadership, several of his men were preparing to report him for war crimes, alleging that he’d stabbed a prisoner in cold blood and taken lethal sniper shots at unarmed civilians.

John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle. During that combat tour he learned how important unit cohesion was to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of combat as a group. In Connected Soldiers, Spencer delivers lessons learned about effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the benefits gained from connections to family.

Georges Sada was one of Saddam's top generals and foremost military advisors. A truth-teller in a government that made the truth dangerous. A devout Christian in a Muslim country. And a man who would stand up for what was right—even at the risk of his own life. In this eye-opening exposé, General Sada shares his bizarre yet amazing journey as an insider to one of history's most sinister regimes.

From the former secretary of defense, a strikingly candid, vivid account of serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Robert M. Gates received a call from the White House, he thought he'd long left Washington politics behind: After working for six presidents in both the CIA and the National Security Council, he was happily serving as president of Texas A&M University. But when he was asked to help a nation mired in two wars and to aid the troops doing the fighting, he answered what he felt was the call of duty.

The explosive narrative of the life, captivity, and trial of Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who was abducted by the Taliban and whose story has served as a symbol for America's foundering war in Afghanistan.

They landed in a dust storm so thick the pilot used dead reckoning and a guess to find the ground. Welcomed by a band of heavily armed militiamen, they climbed a mountain on horseback to meet the most ferocious warlord in Asia. They plotted a war of nineteenth-century maneuvers against a twenty-first-century foe. They trekked through minefields, sometimes past the mangled bodies of local tribesmen who'd shared food with them hours before. The men they helped called them brothers. Hollywood called them the Horse Soldiers. They called themselves Green Berets—Special Forces ODA 595.

In a remote enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them. The team was caught in a deadly ambush that threatened not only their lives but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them.

The Last Card offers an unprecedented look into the process by which President Bush overruled much of the military leadership and many of his trusted advisors, and authorized the deployment of roughly 30,000 additional troops to the warzone in a bid to save Iraq from collapse in 2007.

This groundbreaking book provides the first systematic comparison of America's modern wars and why they were won or lost. John D. Caldwell uses the World War II victory as the historical benchmark for evaluating the success and failure of later conflicts. Unlike WWII, the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraqi wars were limited, but they required enormous national commitments, produced no lasting victories, and generated bitter political controversies.

In Top Dog, Maria Goodavage takes listeners into the life of Lucca K458, a decorated and highly skilled military working dog. An extraordinary bond developed between Lucca and Marine Corps handler Chris Willingham, launching what became a legendary 400-mission career. A Specialized Search Dog, Lucca belongs to an elite group trained to work off-leash at long distances from her handler.

John McCain’s evocative history of Americans at war, told through the personal accounts of 13 remarkable soldiers who fought in major military conflicts, from the Revolutionary War of 1776 to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American soldiers serve willingly. They risk their lives so the rest of us can be safe. The one small thing they ask is that they not be sent into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary.

Terry McGowan had been a beat cop, a marine captain, and a special agent for the FBI before retiring at the age of 50. But when tragedy struck the United States on September 11, 2001, Terry felt an undiminished sense of duty to protect and serve his country. Six years later he was in Iraq as a member of a team of high-ranking retired and active-duty military working for the highest level of marine military intelligence. His success in Iraq led to a position as a law enforcement professional with the marines in Afghanistan.

In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance - all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations.

In 1975, fresh out of law school and working a numbing job at the Treasury Department, John Rizzo took "a total shot in the dark" and sent his résumé to the CIA. In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA's evolution from shadowy entity to an organization exposed to new laws, rules, and a seemingly never-ending string of public controversies. Rizzo offers a direct window into the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks, when he served as the agency's top lawyer, with oversight of actions that remain the subject of intense debate today.

Relive six decades of flying helicopters, including an extended tour in Vietnam and the mountains of Afghanistan, with a little Iraq, Kuwait, and National Guard thrown in. This is Minuteman: Two, Three…Go! recounts Wayne Chasson’s times, from the early, young, and dumb days to becoming a more seasoned pilot of Huey and other helicopters in three American wars and the National Guard here at home. Chasson relives it all for us in this gritty and honest memoir — with humility, humor, and gratitude — as he himself is still trying to figure out how he made it through alive.

This book is for heroes. Dustoff 7-3 tells the true story of four unlikely heroes in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, where medics are forced to descend on wires to reach the wounded and helicopter pilots must fight wind, weather, and enemy fire to pluck casualties from some of the world's most difficult combat arenas. Complete opposites thrown together, cut off, and outnumbered, Chief Warrant Officer Erik Sabiston and his flight crew answered the call in a race against time, not to take lives - but to save them.

Pat Tillman left his career with the Arizona Cardinals and enlisted in the United States Army in June 2002 in response to the September 11 attacks. His service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and subsequent death, were the subject of much controversy. Tillman joined the Army Rangers and served several tours in combat before he died in the mountains of Afghanistan. Initially, the Army reported that Tillman had gunned down by enemy forces. But the truth would be revealed later.

John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition; it had seemed a small sacrifice to give up one weekend a month and two weeks a year in exchange for a free education. But one semester short of graduating, and newly married, he was called to active duty, to serve in Kuwait, then on the front lines of the invasion of Iraq, and ultimately in Baghdad. While serving in Iraq, Crawford began writing short nonfiction stories, his account of what he and his fellow soldiers experienced.

Retired Marine sniper Jack Coughlin and John Bruning pull back the curtain of secrecy to take an insider's look at the dark and misunderstood world of America's sniper force. Long considered the redheaded stepchildren of the infantry, snipers have been loathed by their fellow warriors, called "ten cent killers" by our media, and portrayed as unbalanced psychopaths by Hollywood.