Download or read book Taking Baghdad Victory in Iraq with the US Marines written by Aaron Michael Grant and published by Koehler Books. This book was released on 2019-03-20 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TAKING BAGHDAD is one of the few histories of Operation Iraqi Freedom written by a Marine who actually served in the war. It covers the twenty-two-day push to Baghdad in 2003, which was was one of the most efficient conflicts in the annals of warfare.
Download or read book The March Up written by Bing West and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BONUS: This edition contains excerpts from Bing West's No True Glory and The Strongest Tribe. With unprecedented access and previously unreported detail, here is a first hand account of the 22-day march to Baghdad that takes you behind the scenes and to the front line... No one reporting on the war in Iraq had the unique battlefield clearance afforded the authors of this dramatic eyewitness account. Unlike embedded journalists confined to a single unit, West and Smith acquired a captured yellow SUV and joined with whatever unit was leading the assault every day of the fight. The result is a report of what really happened from the heart of the action unlike anything you’ ll read anywhere else. “While we will move swiftly and aggressively against those who resist, we will treat all others with decency, demonstrating chivalry and soldierly compassion for people who have endured a lifetime under Saddam’s oppression.”—Major General J.N. Mattis, 1st Marine Division, Commanding Here is the story that can be told only by those who actually witnessed the action of the famed 1st Marine Division’ s march on Baghdad, from the shaky beginning of U.S. operations in southern Iraq to the capture of U.S. prisoners, the misreported “fierce Iraqi resistance,” and the aggressive assaults that led to a quick and decisive victory. With over a half century of military and combat experience between them, bestselling author F. J. “Bing” West and Major General Ray L. Smith, USMC (Ret.), combine expert military analysis with dramatic battlefield reporting. They bring the reader on a march that ended in victory—but was shadowed by second-guessing, unexpected reversals, and the threat of catastrophe. With access to three-star generals in the command centers and to privates in the field, the authors reveal how the strategic plan played out in battle, showing what went well and what failed, and detailing power struggles for military and political control never reported. The result is destined to become the definitive account of ground warfare in Iraq.
Download or read book Ambush Alley written by Tim Pritchard and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: March 23, 2003: U.S. Marines from the Task Force Tarawa are caught up in one of the most unexpected battles of the Iraq War. What started off as a routine maneuver to secure two key bridges in the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq degenerated into a nightmarish twenty-four-hour urban clash in which eighteen young Marines lost their lives and more than thirty-five others were wounded. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S. military during the initial combat phase of the war. On that fateful day, Marines came across the burned-out remains of a U.S. Army convoy that had been ambushed by Saddam Hussein’s forces outside Nasiriyah. In an attempt to rescue the missing soldiers and seize the bridges before the Iraqis could destroy them, the Marines decided to advance their attack on the city by twenty-four hours. What happened next is a gripping and gruesome tale of military blunders, tragedy, and heroism. Huge M1 tanks leading the attack were rendered ineffective when they became mired in an open sewer. Then a company of Marines took a wrong turn and ended up on a deadly stretch of road where their armored personal carriers were hit by devastating rocket-propelled grenade fire. USAF planes called in for fire support play their own part in the unfolding cataclysm when they accidentally strafed the vehicles. The attempt to rescue the dead and dying stranded in “ambush alley” only drew more Marines into the slaughter. This was not a battle of modern technology, but a brutal close-quarter urban knife fight that tested the Marines’ resolve and training to the limit. At the heart of the drama were the fifty or so young Marines, most of whom had never been to war, who were embroiled in a battle of epic proportions from which neither their commanders nor the technological might of the U.S. military could save them. With a novelist’s gift for pace and tension, Tim Pritchard brilliantly captures the chaos, panic, and courage of the fight for Nasiriyah, bringing back in full force the day that a perfunctory task turned into a battle for survival. "Ambush Alley" is a gut-wrenching account of unadulterated terror that's hard to read yet impossible to put down. London-based journalist and filmmaker Tim Pritchard, who was embedded with US troops during the initial stages of the American-led invasion of Iraq, paints a compelling picture of one of the costliest battles of the Iraq war that will at turns anger, horrify, and sadden, regardless of one's political views." --The Boston Globe
Download or read book A Table in the Presence written by Carey H. Cash and published by HarperChristian + ORM. This book was released on 2005-02-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On April 10th, 2003, the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, faced with the task of seizing the presidential palace in downtown Baghdad, ran headlong into what Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North called, "the worst day of fighting for U.S. Marines." Hiding in buildings and mosques, wearing civilian clothes, and spread out for over a mile, Saddam Hussein's militants rained down bullets and rocket propelled grenades on the 1st Battalion. But when the smoke of the eight-hour battle cleared, only one Marine had lost his life. Some said the 1st Battalion was incredibly lucky. But in the hearts and minds of the Marines who were there, there was no question. God had brought them miraculously through that battle. As the 1st Battalion's chaplain, Lieutenant Carey Cash had the unique privilege of seeing firsthand, from the beginning of the war to the end, how God miraculously delivered, and even transformed, the lives of the men of the 1st Battalion. Their regiment, the most highly decorated regiment in the history of the Marines, was the first ground force to cross the border into Iraq, the first to see one of their own killed in battle, and they were the unit to fight what most believe to have been the decisive battle of the war-April 10th in downtown Baghdad. Through it all, Carey Cash says, the presence of God was undeniable. Cash even had the privilege of baptizing fifty-seven new Christians-Marines and Sailors-during the war in Iraq. The men of the 1st Battalion came to discover what King David had discovered long ago--that God's presence could be richly experienced even in the presence of enemies. Here is the amazing story of their experience.
Download or read book U S Marines in Iraq 2003 written by Nicholas E. Reynolds and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The March Up written by Bing West and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2004 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the actions and efforts of the 1st Marine Division on their twenty-two-day march into Baghdad, interweaving firsthand accounts of strategic plans, failures, and ultimately, victory. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.
Download or read book Basrah Baghdad and Beyond written by Nicholas E. Reynolds and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of the Marine Corps in the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). It tells how the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) planned and prepared for war in 2002 and deployed to theater in early 2003, and then how it crossed the line of departure and fought its way to Baghdad--and beyond. Written by Marine Corps historian Col. Nicholas Reynolds, this first overview of the history of OIF is solidly grounded in oral history interviews and buttressed by official reports and firsthand journals. It describes not only the execution of the original plan but some of the unusual additions carried out by the Marines, including a small mission sent to Kurdistan to work with local fighters and a task force sent to seize Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The book draws to a close with the commanders analyzing the lessons learned in this "transformational" war as the last Marine left the theater in the fall of 2003. While not intended as finished history, this authoritative analysis of what happened will prove useful to students of Marine Corps history and operations and easily accessible to the general reader who wants to understand what the Marines did in a historical context. It is certain to stimulate further research and healthy debate. Comprehensive notes are included for the reader who wants to learn more about a particular part of the war.
Download or read book The Battle of An Nasiriyah written by Rod Andrew (Jr.) and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Three Block War written by Matt Zeigler and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2004 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: U.S. Marine Corps General Charles C. Krulak predicted in the 1990s that 21st Century Warfare would be a multi-faceted endeavor, fought primarily on urban terrain. He defined it as Three Block War. The former Commandant's foresight was proven correct in the spring of 2003 during Gulf War II against Iraq. Block I: Humanitarian Aid. After three decades of Saddam/Baath Party rule and three wars, the Iraqi people would need everything from food, water and medical aid to a new justice system...Block II: Peacekeeping Operations. Once Saddam was defeated, Marines would contend with infighting amongst various religious and ethnic groups...Block III: Combat. In small towns and big cities throughout Iraq, Marines engaged Iraqi Army/Republican Guard forces in full-scale battles, including tank and artillery duels, with F-18, Harrier and Super Cobra gunship close air support. They'd also confront asymmetrical guerilla forces. Iraq was also a Mecca for terrorists, foreign and domestic. Battles at Baghdad, Nasiriyah, Umm Qasr, Diwaniyah and elsewhere made Gulf War II a grunt's war.
Download or read book U S Marines In Iraq 2003 Basrah Baghdad And Beyond written by Colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds USMCR and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes more than 75 photos, maps and plans This particular book is about Marines during the first stage of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). It spans the period from 11 September 2001 to March and April 2003, when the Coalition removed Saddam Hussein from power, and concludes in November 2003 when the Marines left Kuwait to return to their home bases in the U.S.. While many then believed that the “kinetic” phase of the fighting in Iraq was largely over, as we now know, it was only a prelude to a longer but just as deadly phase of operations where Marines would be redeployed to Iraq in 2004 to combat insurgents (both foreign and domestic) who had filtered back into the country. However, this phase of the fighting would be very different from the one the Marines and U.S. Army had fought in the spring of 2003 in the march up to take Baghdad. The primary focus of the book is I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF)-the run-up to the war in 2002 and early 2003, especially the development of “the plan,” with its many changes, the exhaustive rehearsals, and other preparations, and then the conduct of decisive combat operations and the immediate postwar period, mostly under the control of the U.S. Central Command’s Coalition Forces Land Component Command. The book also touches upon other Marine activities in the Military Coordination and Liaison Command in northern Iraq and with the British in the south. Nonetheless, the primary focus remains on I Marine Expeditionary Force and the interactions of its constituent elements. Other forthcoming History Division publications will soon offer detailed narratives on Marines in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and II MEF operations inside Iraq.
Download or read book The Marines Take Anbar written by Robert Shultz and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-03-15 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Marine Corps’ four-year campaign against al Qaeda in Anbar is a fight certain to take its place next to such legendary clashes as Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Chosin, and Khe Sanh. Its success, the author contends, constituted a major turning point in the Iraq War and helped alter the course of events and set the stage for the Surge in Baghdad a year later. This book brings to light all the decisive details of how the Marines, between 2004 and 2008, adapted and improvised as they applied the hard lessons of past mistakes. In March 2004, when part of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) was deployed to Anbar Province in the heart of the Sunni triangle, the Marines quickly found themselves locked in a bloody test of wills with al Qaeda, and a burgeoning violent insurgency. By the spring of 2006, according to all accounts, enemy violence was skyrocketing, while predictions for any U.S. success were plummeting. But at that same time new counterinsurgency initiatives were put in place when I MEF returned for its second tour in Anbar, and the Marines began to gain control. By September 2008 the fight was over. Richard Shultz, a well-known author and international security studies expert, has thoroughly researched this subject. His book effectively argues the case for the Marines changing the course of the war at Anbar, which is contrary to the conventional wisdom that the Surge was the turning point."
Download or read book Backseat To Baghdad written by Ross W. Simpson and published by Page Publishing, Inc. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was "Shake and Bake Time" when I rode into battle in Iraq with the First Marine Division's lead assault battalion. I saw Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003 from the backseat of a Humvee in Counter Mech Platoon, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. The first night was frightening as we crossed through "No Man's Land" between two sand berms that separate Kuwait from Iraq, its warring neighbor to the north. Three weeks later we arrived in the Iraqi capitol of Baghdad, bloodied, but not broken. "No better Friend, no worse Enemy" is the motto of the First Marine Division. And the author had no better friend in the military than Mattis who signed the American flag Simpson carried in his helmet liner before he left 1MarDiv's headquarters in Baghdad and headed home to Northern Virginia. Their enduring friendship over three decades is why Mattis, the best-selling author of "Call Sign Chaos," a book about learning to lead, graciously agreed to write a few words about Backseat To Baghdad. "Today's unsung heroes are those young men and women who look past today's political rhetoric and volunteer their lives to defend America. In Backseat To Baghdad, Ross shows those troops in combat with all their humanity and humor and the tragedies and triumphs of young men coming of age when "they were soldiers once, and young." Keenly portrayed thanks to his man deployments alongside them. In this book, Ross reveals the extraordinary character of our citizens serving as soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines." Jim Mattis.
Download or read book The Iraq War written by Thomas R. Mockaitis and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking full account of the factors beyond the control of the U.S. military and avoiding glib comparisons with Vietnam, the author examines how the American approach to the war in Iraq has affected operations there. He also draws on the experience of other nations, particularly the United Kingdom, to identify broad lessons that might inform the conduct of this and future campaigns. He documents the process by which soldiers and Marines in Iraq have adapted to the challenging situation and incorporated both historic and contemporary lessons into the new counterinsurgency doctrine contained in Field Manual 3-24.
Download or read book U S Marines in Iraq 2004 2005 written by Kenneth W. Estes and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost as soon as Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed in 2003, it became apparent to U.S. commanders that a second deployment of Marines to Iraq would be necessary to conduct security and stability operations. This monograph recounts the first two years of this second deployment during which Marines were responsible for Iraq's cast al-Anbar Province. It focuses on I Marine's Expeditionary Force's deployment in 2004 and II Marine Expeditionary Force's deployment in 2005, and focuses on planning, counterinsurgency operations, and efforts to build civil-military relations with the Iraqi population. The first and second battles of Fallujah and the battle of an-Najaf are also highlighted.
Download or read book The Ragged Edge written by Michael Zacchea and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deployed to Iraq in March 2004 after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, US Marine Michael Zacchea thought he had landed a plum assignment. His team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi Army battalion trained by the US military. Quickly, he realized he was faced with a nearly impossible task. With just two weeks' training based on outdated and irrelevant materials, no language instruction, and few cultural tips for interacting with his battalion of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Yazidis, and others, Zacchea arrived at his base in Kirkush to learn his recruits would need beds, boots, uniforms, and equipment. His Iraqi officer counterparts spoke little English. He had little time to transform his troops—mostly poor, uneducated farmers—into a cohesive rifle battalion that would fight a new insurgency erupting across Iraq. In order to stand up a fighting battalion, Zacchea knew, he would have to understand his men. Unlike other combat Marines in Iraq at the time, he immersed himself in Iraq's culture: learning its languages, eating its foods, observing its traditions—even being inducted into one of its Sunni tribes. A constant source of both pride and frustration, the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion went on to fight bravely at the Battle of Fallujah against the forces that would eventually form ISIS. The Ragged Edge is Zacchea's deeply personal and powerful account of hopeful determination, of brotherhood and betrayal, and of cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. It sheds light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents and terrorists, precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any other time in US history.
Download or read book Why We Lost written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.
Download or read book The Iraq War written by Anthony H. Cordesman and published by CSIS. This book was released on 2003 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In April of 2003, a stunned world looked on as the armed forces of the United States and Britain conducted a lightning-fast military campaign against Iraq. Confounding predictions of failure, the Anglo-American victory brought down not just the Iraqi regime, but also much of the conventional wisdom about modern war. But even as U.S. and British forces occupied Basra, Tikrit, and Mosul, the Iraqi nation slipped into anarchy - and new military and security challenges emerged." "In this book, respected military analyst Anthony Cordesman provides the first in-depth examination of the key issues swirling around the most significant U.S. war since Vietnam. Finding answers is essential if we are to understand the United States' awesome power and its place in a new age of international terror and regional conflict. Finding answers is also essential if we are to draw the proper lessons and understand the new challenges of conflict termination, peacemaking, and nation building."--BOOK JACKET.
