Iraq War History

After fourteen years apart, forty veterans of brutal close-quarters combat, lost souls to a man, were brought back together when one of them, the author, received the Medal of Honor. Their impromptu reunion in June 2019 helped heal them all—and saved more than a few of them too. This is their story.

Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell returned from his star-crossed mission in Afghanistan with his bones shattered and his heart broken. So many had given their lives to save him-and he would have readily done the same for them. As he recuperated, he wondered why he and others, from America's founding to today, had been willing to sacrifice everything-including themselves-for the sake of family, nation, and freedom.

Called “the best account of combat since Black Hawk Down” by Men’s Journal, Thunder Run is a no-holds-barred look at the sweep of Baghdad, Iraq in 2003 by U.S. armed forces. One of the boldest gambles in modern military history, the surprise attack on Baghdad by three battalions of tanks and APCs and less than 1,000 men total was the single stroke that is credited for ending the Iraqi war.

On September 11, 2001, Doug Laux was a freshman in college, on the path to becoming a doctor. But with the fall of the Twin Towers came a turning point in his life. After graduating, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, determined to get himself to Afghanistan and into the center of the action. Through persistence and hard work, he was fast-tracked to a clandestine operations position overseas. Dropped into a remote region of Afghanistan, he received his baptism by fire.

Lt. Michael Patrick Murphy, commander of Navy SEAL Team 10, posthumously received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic actions on 28 June 2005 during a fierce battle with Taliban fighters in the remote mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Michael was the first recipient of the nation’s highest military honor as a result of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. He was also the first naval officer to earn the medal since the Vietnam War, and the first SEAL to be honored posthumously.

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.

A fascinating account of an Army captain's unusual path through some of the most legendary seats of learning straight into a brutal fight with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, The Unforgiving Minute is, above all, an unforgettable portrait of a young soldier grappling with the weight of his hard-earned knowledge while coming to grips with becoming a man.

From the author of the New York Times best seller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana comes the poignant and gripping story of a groundbreaking team of female American warriors who served alongside Special Operations soldiers on the battlefield in Afghanistan - including Ashley White, a beloved soldier who died serving her country's cause.

As part of an elite special operations unit at the fighting edge of the Global War on Terrorism, Nicholas Moore spent over a decade with the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. In this compelling biography, a detailed narrative of grueling life on the ground combines with accounts of some of the most dramatic search and rescue operations of the period to tell the true story of life on the line in the War on Terror.

Blackwater is one of the most misunderstood companies of our time. As Erik Prince, its founder and former CEO, writes: "Hundreds of American citizens employed by private military contractors, or PMCs, would lose their lives helping our government wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, only to have their memory tarnished by the unfair and/or ignorant depiction of PMCs as profiteers, jackbooted thugs, or worse."

When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.

Violence of Action is much more than the true, first-person accounts of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Global War on Terror. Within this audio are the heartfelt, firsthand accounts from and about the men who lived, fought, and died for their country, their regiment, and each other. Objective Rhino, Haditha Dam, recovering Jessica Lynch, the hunt for Zarqawi, the recovery of Extortion 17, and everything in between...

From award-winning journalist and combat veteran Michael Hirsh comes the thrilling inside story of the Air Force's pararescue operations in Afghanistan. The first journalist to be embedded with an Air Force combat unit in the war on terrorism, Hirsh flew from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia, with the 71st Rescue Squadron to their expeditionary headquarters at a secret location in Central Asia. Unparalleled access to the pararescue jumpers - or PJs - as well as to the courageous men and women who fly them where they have to go, often under enemy fire, allowed Michael Hirsh to uncover incredible stories of courage.

A former captain in the Marines' First Recon Battalion, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveals how the Corps trains its elite and offers a point-blank account of twenty-first-century battle. Fick's training begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth, and advances to the pinnacle, Recon, four years later, on the eve of war with Iraq.

Unimpeachably sourced, Cobra II describes how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. The brutal aftermath in Iraq was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides; Cobra II provides the first authoritative account as to why. It is a book of enduring importance and incisive analysis, a comprehensive account of the most reported yet least understood war in American history.

The second book by former Navy SEAL Mark Owen, following his multimillion-copy classic about the bin Laden mission No Easy Day, in which he tells the stories from his career that were most personal to him and that made him the operator and the person he is today.

In April 2021, an urgent call was placed from a Special Forces operator serving overseas. The message was clear: Get Nezam out of Afghanistan now. Nezam was part of the Afghan National Army’s first group of American-trained commandos; he passed through Fort Bragg’s legendary Q course and served alongside the US Special Forces for over a decade. But Afghanistan’s government and army were on the edge of collapse, and Nezam was receiving threatening texts from the Taliban.

The prison at Abu Ghraib was still a relatively unknown part of America's War on Terror when - with no special training and their gear lost somewhere between the United States and Baghdad - the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion of the Maine National Guard was sent there to serve as guards in February 2004. Just before their arrival, the now infamous photos of the abuses suffered by the prisoners hit the world stage. Abu Ghraib became the focal point not only for global condemnation, but for the insurgents' outrage.

The army does not want you to listen to this book. It does not want to advertise its detention system that coddles enemy fighters while putting American soldiers at risk. It does not want to reveal the new lawyered-up Pentagon war ethic that prosecutes US soldiers and marines while setting free spies who kill Americans. This very system ambushed Captain Roger Hill and his men.

On April 6, 2003, 26 Green Berets, including those of Sergeant First Class Frank Antenori's Special Forces A-Team (call sign Roughneck Nine One), fought a vastly superior force at a remote crossroads near the village of Debecka, Iraq. The enemy unit had battle tanks and 150 well-trained, well-equipped, and well-commanded soldiers. The Green Berets stopped the enemy advance, then fought them until only a handful of Iraqi survivors finally fled the battlefield.