The Iraqi Triangle of Death, south of Baghdad, was a raging inferno of insurgent activity in August of 2006; by November 2007, attacks had been suppressed to such an extent as to return the area to near obscurity. In the intervening months, the U.S. Army 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry ("Polar Bears") employed a counterinsurgency approach that set the conditions for a landmark peace agreement that has held to the present. With a focus on counterinsurgency, this book is the first to look at the breadth of military operations in Yusifiyah, Iraq, and to analyze the methods the Polar Bears employed. It is a story not of those who fought in the Triangle of Death, but of how they fought.
“Riveting. . . a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters.”—New York Times Book Review This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality. Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives. Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.
A devastating ambush in Iraq, kidnapped soldiers, and the men who wouldn't leave their comrades behind The 10th Mountain Division is known as the most deployed unit in the U.S. Army. Today, the War on Terror has drawn it to Afghanistan and Iraq. To Lieutenant Colonel Mike Infanti's unit fell the pacification of a hellish hotbed of terrorism south of Baghdad dubbed "The Triangle of Death." Of the more than three thousand Americans killed since the start of the war, more than one thousand were in this region. Colonel Infanti assigned Delta Company to the most dangerous sector of the Triangle. Delta knew they were virtually assured of getting hit on a daily basis. Each day and night became something to be dreaded and feared. In the predawn of May 12, 2007, two humvees occupied by seven soldiers and an Iraqi translator were ambushed by insurgents. When the smoke cleared, four soldiers and the translator were dead and three were missing, presumably seized by the enemy. For more than a year, Delta searched for their missing comrades, never giving up hope. Their creed of battle: None Left Behind.
Formed in 1916, the U.S. Army 31st Infantry Regiment--known as the Polar Bears--has fought in virtually every war in modern American history. This richly illustrated chronicle of the regiment's century of combat service covers their exploits on battlefields from Manila to Siberia--including Pork Chop Hill, Nui Chom Mountain and Iraq's Triangle of Death--along with their survival during the Bataan Death March and the years of brutal captivity that followed.
Profiles the 10th Mountain Division and their efforts to pacify "The Triangle of Death," a region of particular terrorist violence south of Baghdad, while sharing the daring 2007 attempt to rescue three kidnapped soldiers.
Charlie 1-26 confronted one of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad and lost more men than any battalion since Vietnam Based on "Blood Brothers", the Michael Kelly Awardnominated series that ran in Army Times, this is the remarkable story of a courageous military unit that sacrificed their lives to change Adhamiya, Iraq, from a lawless town where insurgents roamed freely, to a secure neighborhood with open storefronts and a safe populace. Army Times writer Kelly Kennedy was embedded with Charlie Company in 2007, went on patrol with the soldiers and spent hours in combat support hospitals. During that period, one soldier threw himself on a grenade to save his friends, a well-liked first sergeant shot himself to death in front of his troops, and a platoon staged a mutiny. The men of Charlie 1- 26 would earn at least 95 combat awards, including one soldier who would go home with three Purple Hearts and a lost dream. This is a timeless story of men at war and a heartbreaking account of American sacrifice in Iraq.
From the Foreword: This volume focuses on that second and longer campaign. But rather than a narrative of the overall course of the conflict, it provides a soldier's-eye view of the war by focusing on detailed accounts of selected engagements. Each illustrates the everyday challenges that America's soldiers faced in a difficult struggle against an inventive and often elusive enemy. Weapons, doctrine, and procedures developed to fight a conventional campaign against a similar opposing force had to be adapted to fit a different type of conflict. The U.S. Army's combat and support forces brought both resourcefulness and resilience to this task while continuing to demonstrate the same courage shown by previous generations fighting the nation's battles. These stories not only symbolize the tip of the spear formed by units in contact, but they also represent the contributions of all American men and women who have served their country in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Taken together, these accounts will provide our deploying leaders and soldiers a better understanding of the environment that they will encounter and prepare them for the work that must be done.
A book written by an Iraqi about Iraq and Iraqis to make them comprehensible. It explains the diversity and the lingering antiquity that shape the country in simple terms and through facts and anecdotes. It looks at the occupation, the chaos and lawlessness that followed and their effect on the lives of people and individuals. It also provides a look into the "Triangle of Death" - one of the most volatile regions in the country - from the inside, showing some of the intricacies of tribal relations. But, above all, this book is about people. It aims to illustrate how ordinary people dealt with the traumatic situation, why civil war was so hard to ignite and why there is still hope. It may help the reader understand the failure to understand that led to failure.
This is a study of the Second Battle of Fallujah, also known as Operation Al-Fajr and Operation Phantom Fury. Over the course of November and December 2004, the I Marine Expeditionary Force conducted a grueling campaign to clear the city of Fallujah of insurgents and end its use as a base for the anticoalition insurgency in western Iraq. The battle involved units from the Marine Corps, Army, and Iraqi military and constituted one of the largest engagements of the Iraq War. The study is based on interviews conducted by Marine Corps History Division field historians of battle participants and archival material. The book will be of primary interest to Marines, other service members, policy makers, and the faculty and students at the service schools and academies. Historians, veterans, high school through univeristy history departments and students as well as libraries may be interested in this book as well. With full color maps and photographs.
Here is a dramatic, first-person account of how the United States won the war in Iraq, only to see the peace lost by an unengaged administration, with Iraqis terrorized and the new "caliph" of ISIS promising , "I’ll see you in New York." Military contractor Carter Andress was the ultimate boots-on-the-ground "civilian" in Iraq. While reporters, aid workers, diplomats, and even U.S. soldiers were often cut off from the "ground truth" in Iraq by the blast walls protecting the Green Zone and our bases, Andress was in the thick of things: driving through insurgent-infested territory, negotiating with hostile tribes, and witnessing the transformation of Iraq from chaos and violence to a stable multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy that needed only minimal American support to defend itself - support, however, that thanks to the Obama administration was not forthcoming. A page-turner of a story, but also an incredibly important account of what actually happened in the Iraq War and afterwards, Victory Undone is a book every American needs to read.
