Publisher Description
“This is the face of war as only those who have fought it can describe it.”—Senator John McCain Fallujah: Iraq’s most dangerous city unexpectedly emerged as the major battleground of the Iraqi insurgency. For twenty months, one American battalion after another tried to quell the violence, culminating in a bloody, full-scale assault. Victory came at a terrible price: 151 Americans and thousands of Iraqis were left dead. The epic battle for Fallujah reveals the startling connections between policy and combat that are a part of the new reality of war. The Marines had planned to slip into Fallujah “as soft as fog.” But after four American contractors were brutally murdered, President Bush ordered an attack on the city—against the advice of the Marines. The assault sparked a political firestorm, and the Marines were forced to withdraw amid controversy and confusion—only to be ordered a second time to take a city that had become an inferno of hate and the lair of the archterrorist al-Zarqawi. Based on months spent with the battalions in Fallujah and hundreds of interviews at every level—senior policy makers, negotiators, generals, and soldiers and Marines on the front lines—No True Glory is a testament to the bravery of the American soldier and a cautionary tale about the complex—and often costly—interconnected roles of policy, politics, and battle in the twenty-first century.
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“Another book I was inspired to read after FIASCO. This book outlines the consequences of policy screw ups on the average frontline grunt, and how a war changed because warriors were not allowed to fight as they were meant to because of other policy concerns. The takeaway of this book for me is that the heroism of many of the marines has been overshadowed by the american media which chose to focus on the family tragedies of the deaths of the marines, instead of their heroism in the field. As with the vietnam war, once again, the overall war, which should be characterised by the heroism and guts of the average american trooper is lost, because the americans may have won the battles, but they lost the media war. This, I feel, is the greatest tragedy.”
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Tin (4 out of 5 stars)
