(Part 2) Best iraq war biographies according to redditors

I was never a big fan of Obama until I served in the military. In my opinion, he did a great job of utilizing special operations forces and other assets in order to combat terrorist organizations. I am no longer in the military, but from what I read in the news, I believe that his military strategy for fighting terrorist organizations, namely ISIS, is great.

You cannot and should not fight a terrorist organization by using conventional troops. In fact, many Delta Force operators opposed the decision that brought conventional troops into the fight during the early stages of the Afghanistan War. They still oppose the role that conventional troops have there. Source

In my opinion, leaving all political biases aside, I think that Obama is doing exactly what is necessary. Bringing conventional troops into this fight would be a huge mistake. Utilizing tier one SOF units and air power is the best strategy, and it is exactly what Obama is doing.

Source: Myself. I served in a special operations unit for a few years.

Holy shit, Matt's gonna be psyched to find out he's on the front page of reddit.

[runs to his door, knocks]

Me: "Dude, you're on the front page of reddit! Isn't that fucking awesome?"

Matt: "What the fuck is red-dit?"

Also, make sure to check out his new Graphic Novel by David Axe, illustrated by Matt Bors, "War is Boring". Buy It! Buy It!

Mark Hunt: Born to fight

Forrest Griffin: Got Fight?, Be Ready When the Sh*t Goes Down

John McCarthy: Let's Get It On!

Stich Duran: From the Fields to the Garden

Chuck Liddell: Iceman

John Kavanagh: Win or Learn

Brian Stann: Heart for the Fight

Chael Sonnen: The Voice of Reason

Bruce Buffer: It's Time!: My 360-Degree View of the UFC

GSP: The Way of the Fight

Jeremy Stephens: Who the fook is that guy?!

https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/B07L39R513/ref=sr_1_1?crid=KM7O8X7M2D2J&keywords=murphys+law&qid=1565626812&s=gateway&sprefix=murphys+law%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-1

Book written by a friend of mine on the topic. He is a former Ranger and Green Beret.

You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you? You just trolling or are you for real?
Ever heard of this BOOK

Or how about this ONE?

Take a hike

> Blue Spaders

There is a great book about that deployment.

They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq

Bristol's Bastards. I kind of love it because it's an angry Specialist writing about how stupid the Army is and I can identify with that, but it's also, well, written by an angry Specialist who probably learned to type when he wrote the damn thing. It's actually nearly 1/3 pictures, so that should tell you something about the quality of the writing.

That unit did get fucked pretty hard though, so the spite and anger are authentic. It's a love-hate relationship.

[Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin] (https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs/dp/1250067057/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1501607776&sr=8-3&keywords=Jocko+willink)

[Heart for the Fight: A Marine Hero's Journey from the Battlefields of Iraq to Mixed Martial Arts Champion by Brian Stann] ( https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Fight-Journey-Battlefields-Champion/dp/076033899X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1501607842&sr=1-1&keywords=brian+stann+book)

I would also highly recommend subscribing to [Jocko Willink's youtube channel] (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkqcY4CAuBFNFho6JgygCnA)

He has amazing podcasts with combat veterans and it's really interesting to hear the tactics/mindset. On a side note there's not many people that can motivate me like Jocko can. You could send me those pictures of a landscape with inspirational words on them and it wouldn't do shit for me...However there's been many days where I was being lazy/feeling sorry for myself and not wanting to work out...
thats when I watch this video

I shit you not there have been many days where that video alone has gotten me to nut up and grab my bag to go train jiu-jitsu when I didn't feel like it...or go to the range and get some practice in when I would rather stay home get cozy and watch netflix.

Yeah, I read the entire article and seen that interview, along with multiple books on the topic, which go into far more depth than a couple of agenda driven articles/reporters.

And yes, I've read Scahill's Blackwater and Dirty Wars.

http://www.amazon.com/Blackwater-Rise-Worlds-Powerful-Mercenary-ebook/dp/B0097CYTYA

http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Wars-The-World-Battlefield-ebook/dp/B00B3M3TS4/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51dkyNcRAWL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_OU01_AC_UL160_SR105%2C160_&refRID=1H586DVK9BET6N9HYRN7

Seen the documentary too, it doesn't cover everything...

I've also read Prince's book Civilian Warriors.

http://www.amazon.com/Civilian-Warriors-Inside-Blackwater-Unsung-ebook/dp/B00E5UJAG6/ref=pd_sim_351_2?ie=UTF8&dpID=517qP%2BPVBeL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_OU01_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&refRID=1H586DVK9BET6N9HYRN7

He's surprisingly open about the companies short comings.

I've also read the The Bremer Detail: Protecting the Most Threatened Man in the World

http://www.amazon.com/The-Bremer-Detail-Protecting-Threatened-ebook/dp/B00LUA02OI/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51xoGU9WypL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_OU01_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&refRID=05HMC7F4FAZ3NG51NHDJ

I've also read what the military community says, those who actually served alongside Blackwater in the field, including articles and dialogue with the authors at SOFREP, and an interview with Eric Prince himself with the guys at SOFREP on their podcast, which is worth a listen.

https://sofrep.com/31444/founder-of-blackwater-erik-prince-civilian-warriors/

https://sofrep.com/sofrep-radio/episode-80-exclusive-erik-prince-former-seal-founder-blackwater/

https://sofrep.com/14189/the-next-mercenary-gold-rush-sub-saharan-africa-erik-prince/

You can read the 3 part series on the Rise of Private Military Security Companies here:

https://sofrep.com/44960/the-rise-of-private-military-security-companies/

https://sofrep.com/44961/rise-private-military-security-companies-pt-2/

https://sofrep.com/44963/rise-private-military-security-companies-pt-3/

I've also read Big Boy Rules by Steve Fainaru which is good starter book if are looking for more information. It's pretty even handed about the good and the bad regarding PMC's in Iraq.

http://www.amazon.com/Big-Boy-Rules-Americas-Mercenaries-ebook/dp/B001M5JV98/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1458860678&sr=1-1&keywords=big+boy+rules

Like everything, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'm not defending everything the BW has done, and there are more reputable companies like Triple Canopy, but this idea that ALL Blackwater employees are blood thirsty lions devouring sheep everywhere they go is just laughable.

Unbelievably, Nicholas Slatten was convicted of first-degree murder, implying that the killing was both willful and premeditated. In order to believe this, one must believe that this was somehow all planned by Slatten, which is ridiculous.

Look, I’m not going to pretend that I know all of the details about this case, because I wasn’t there. But to throw these guys in the middle of a combat zone, and then expect perfection, is absurd. Because that’s what this is: Our government is asking them to be perfect, which is impossible in war.

So the U.S. State Department abandoned their contractors to be prosecuted. What about their supervisors at the state department? What about the Regional Security Officers? What about the people responsible for putting them in that situation to begin with? Where are the consequences for them? As usual, the shit sandwich rolls downhill and the guys at the bottom are the only ones who get to take a big bite.

Ironically, the same people, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included, who were so critical of Blackwater, continued to push contracts to the company under a different name. This proves how much we’ve come to rely on the private and flexible services offered by modern-day PMCs and how effective they were at keeping US HVT's safe (including ambassadors, CIA agents, heads of state, etc).

One mistake in Baghdad in 2007 meant that you, your client, and everyone else in the car was dead. Say what you will about Blackwater: Under their watch, they never lost an American diplomat, which is more than we can say for the rest of the State Department.

Edit: You'll notice nothing ever came from this 2009 report by Scahill, or the Times or the Post. 7 years later and nothing. All were grasping at some very thin straws. Furthermore, the CIA has designated authorized teams that do this type of work, that receive complete top cover, including the Ground Branch teams in the Special Activities Division and the guys at JSOC. They have no need for Blackwater to do this kind of work. Or they can "rent" Delta or ST6, so the entire idea that they needed Blackwater to run kill missions is kind of ridiculous.

Oh im with you 100%, it really doesnt take much in the heat of those moments to have some massively collateral shit go down, especially the fighting nature of jihadis, women and children are just tools to them to be utilized.


Shamless plug but check out this dudes book or even just some of his instagram posts @peshmerganor, some of the most firsthand fucked up aspects of war and these ISIS/jihad fuckers

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Makes-Grass-Grow-Volunteers-ebook/dp/B07G7H598F

	

	

	

> # America Would Need More Than 100,000 Troops to Invade Venezuela
>
>
>
> The U.S. Defense Department’s regional command for South America is the smallest of the department’s 10 unified commands. It permanently oversees just 1,200 personnel plus a few thousand troops and a handful of ships on temporary deployments.
>
> But that doesn’t mean the U.S. military couldn’t invade Venezuela in the event Pres. Donald Trump makes good on his threats and orders the Pentagon to intervene in the slowly-collapsing South American country.
>
> Not, of course, that invading Venezuela is a good idea. Experts agree it’s not.
>
> Image
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> Most major U.S. military forces are by nature expeditionary, as they typically must travel long distances to participate in major operations.
>
> Ships can sail from sea to sea and even cross between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Planes can deploy to air bases close to the action. Ground forces, transported by road, rail, air and sea, can concentrate on nearby U.S. or allied soil.
>
> It helps that the United States, uniquely among major powers, devotes a huge proportion of its military spending to logistics, including maintenance of the world’s largest sealift and airlift fleets.
>
> It’s for those reasons that the Pentagon in the past has been able to muster tens of thousands of troops plus scores of warships and planes for major operations in South America.
>
> Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops in 1983 invaded Grenada in response to a Marxist coup in the Caribbean country. Six years later 27,000 Americans invaded Panama after that country’s leader Gen. Manuel Noriega made overtures to Soviet-aligned Cuba. The Pentagon in 2010 mobilized dozens of ships and aircraft and nearly 20,000 personnel to help Haiti in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake.
>
> On command, the U.S. Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard quickly could concentrate potentially tens of thousands of people, dozens of ships and hundreds of aircraft in the vicinity of Venezuela. Forces and logistics aren’t the problem.
>
> The problem is that an invasion could further destabilize Venezuela, hurt, kill or displace countless innocent Venezuelans, alienate the U.S. government in a region that is hostile to American meddling and also get a lot of Americans killed.
>
> Retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis, SOUTHCOM commander from 2006 to 2009, said he opposes intervention. “I would not advise it,” Stavridis said of a potential U.S. invasion. “I commanded U.S. Southern Command for three years in Miami, so I can picture pretty much what is happening there,” he added in comments to Foreign Policy.
>
> An invasion of Venezuela would require more forces than the invasions of Grenada and Panama did, and also could be riskier, Shannon O’Neil noted at Bloomberg. Venezuela “is twice the size of Iraq with only a slightly smaller population, and teeters on the verge of chaos. Any invasion requires preparations on a similar scale, meaning a 100,000-plus force.”
>
> “U.S. troops are unlikely to be welcomed,” O’Neil wrote. “A February [2018] poll shows a majority of Venezuelans, including a plurality of those in Venezuela’s opposition, oppose an invasion. A U.S. military presence would play into, and would at least in part validate, [Venezuelan president Nicolas] Maduro’s loudly proclaimed imperialist conspiracies.”
>
> Navy admiral Craig Faller, SOUTHCOM commander, on May 2, 2019 told a Congressional committee the most likely scenario is a military-led mission to help U.S. citizens evacuate Venezuela. Around 200 U.S. troops are in Colombia and immediately could assist with an evacuation.
>
> Stavridis agreed. “The most aggressive contingency plan they are looking at would be one that would protect American citizens if for some reason there were a backlash against them. That would be the only circumstance in which I could see U.S. troop presence.”
>
> “There are probably close to 100,000 American citizens in Venezuela, so Maduro would be very well advised to avoid any kind of program that harassed or arrested American citizens,” Stavridis added. “I think that would be a red line. I don’t think the Maduro administration, as befuddled as it is, would be willing to cross that kind of a line because I think that would invite a military response.”
>
> “In the end, this, I think, will play out politically and diplomatically, not militarily,” Stavridis said.
>
> David Axe serves as Defense Editor of the National Interest. He is the author of the graphic novels _War Fix, War Is Boring and Machete Squad._

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His mistress, Paula Broadwell, graduated from West Point and was in the United States Army Reserve as a military intelligence officer (and held a Top Secret clearance). She was also Patreaus' biographer; the resulting book was All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. Petraeus shared eight personal notebooks with her. No classified information was in his biography.

Another good book on Petraeus is In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat, by Rick Atkinson. This covers Petraeus' generalship during the 2003 Iraq war.

Has anybody ever read Shooter

In the book, he talks about how being mobile as a sniper unit is much more effective in modern combat.


In war games, his mobile snipers destroyed everyone else, and in Iraq, were pretty effective as well.

If you want the American view of what started the violence. You can read the beginning of Nights in the Pink Motel by Robert Earle. He was Amb Negroponte's strategist and his first task was writing a paper on who the enemy was in Iraq and why they were fighting.

https://www.amazon.com/Nights-Pink-Motel-American-Strategists-ebook/dp/B00O0FY46M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522350118&sr=8-1&keywords=nights+in+the+pink+motel&dpID=51brOxo6rOL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

Here's a book review I did of it:

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2018/03/review-earle-robert-nights-in-pink.html

Many point to failed nation building as the root cause of the ethnosectarian divisions within Iraq. 2 best books on the subject

Sectarianism in Iraq by Fanar Haddad

https://www.amazon.com/Sectarianism-Iraq-Antagonistic-Visions-Unity-ebook/dp/B00N2WMBLE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1522350165&sr=1-1&keywords=fanar+haddad

Imagining the Nation by Harith Qarawee

https://www.amazon.com/Imagining-Nation-Nationalism-Sectarianism-Socio-Political/dp/1326482602/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1522350228&sr=8-1&keywords=harith+qarawee

Interviews I did with Haddad and Qarawee discussing their ideas:

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-look-at-iraqi-nationalism.html

http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-changing-face-of-sectarianism-in.html

For anybody who (like me) is intrigued by reading this thread and hearing these stories, I strongly recommend you check out the This American Life episode How Will They Know Me Back Home?, which includes stories from soldiers returning home from Iraq, as well as the story of an Iraqi woman who became a translator for the army. You might also be interested in The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, who followed a group of US Rangers in Iraq during the surge (the stories in the This American Life episode come from this book).

I grew up in the area as well. Though I didn't know him personally I remember reading about it in the paper. They wrote a book about him http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920384

Yeah there was a book written about us. Most of those parts werent in it.

Heres the book

1. Angel from Hell
   
2. Just Another Soldier
   
3. My War
   
   

You don't have to worry about how to write it, just get it down and out of your brain onto paper. The technical stuff is what editors get paid for.

Also, try reading books about other interesting stories. They don't necessarily have to be on the same topic. Creative Non-Fiction is a huge genre right now, and it sounds like you have tons of material to work with. Don't worry about being super strict with the details, unless you decide you want to be. It's the story that's interesting.

Suggested reading...

• Jack Kerouac: On The Road - I'm not going to give you a link because you should have this on your shelf already, damn it! :P
  
• Colby Buzzell: My War (side note, I followed this guys blog as he was living this story and it was mind blowing. The only blog I have ever followed.)
  
• Gregory David Roberts: Shantaram - I'm reading this right now and it's spectacular. I think you might appreciate the themes, as well.
  
  I'm sure other redditors can flood you with even more suggestions.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

I literally just finished reading a book about the unit this guy was in. Although I don't remember reading about him in the book, he was in 2nd platoon, C Co. 1-26 Infantry. The book is They Fought For Each Other and is one of the most heart wrenching books I've ever read. I would definitely recommend it

Finally! It made no sense that US troops couldn't intervene to save the lives of their allies. Although it's about Iraq, The Good Soldiers, is eye-opening as to the limits imposed on US soldiers.

Throughout the book, US-allied tribal leaders or translators will come under attack from al-Qaeda, while the US cannot intervene. Hoping to minimize US casualties, the RoE prevented Americans from fighting to save key players in the battle for "hearts and minds."

This incremental change to the RoE (now Americans can strike when Afghan soldiers are in danger, even if American lives aren't directly threatened) is a welcome change, but over a decade too late.

I read this book back in early 2007 right before I joined the Corps and the writer's CO had the call sign "Dark-Side Six" and I've always like it. So I kind of stole it. Not sure if there's any connection to your FOB

Assuming you're asking about life in the military, and not specifically West Point, it varies greatly with rank, duty station, and military occupational specialty. I suppose the short version is expect a more desk-like environment if you have a Combat Support or Combat Service Support job, versus a lot more time "in the field" for a Combat Arms job, and an overall better or worse quality of life depending on where you are stationed (both because of the mentality of units there and what the area is like).

There are a lot of autobiographical books by soldiers that have come out over the past decade that you can check out. Most of them will of course focus on their deployment, but it's common to see a bit of the training. I haven't looked into that category of books in years, but as an example, one that I read when I was younger was My War: Killing Time in Iraq, by Colby Buzzell. Just remember that with any autobiographical work, the author is limited by what their point of view was. In Mr Buzzell's case, as a lower enlisted soldier he was right where "the rubber meets the road", but didn't have much of the bigger picture (also, I have never heard of a unit that did training quite the way his did).

I wouldn't worry about fitting in because of where you come from - no one really cares where you're from, plus I know quite a few people who grew up in the liberal bastions of America and did alright in the Army.

The book about him is worth the read: http://www.amazon.com/The-Gift-Valor-War-Story/dp/0767920384

It's in his book and the case against Jesse Ventura is in the courts so I'm not sure why you are disputing that. Here's a book on the life of Kyle http://www.amazon.com/The-Life-Legend-Chris-Kyle-ebook/dp/B00C4W7GCW that has more info about Kyle's tall tales

Bringing Out the Dead, the book that inspired the cult classic movie by the same name.

A Paramedic's Story: Life, Death, and Everything in Between, which was written by a guy who writes a popular EMS blog.

Paradise General is a great book about the doctors and surgeons who served in Iraq during The Surge.