The Warriors of Anbar

August 26, 2019
To create this somewhat technical account, journalist Darack embedded with the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment, known as the 2/3, during its hellish 2006 stint in the Haditha Triad region of western Iraq. As he explains, by 2006, al-Qaeda in Iraq had been defeated in Fallujah and Ramadi and had fallen back to a long-held sanctuary in the Triad. At the beginning of each chapter, Darack introduces an individual Marine as he heads out on patrol. It soon becomes clear that many of these soldiers are destined to die: by the time the 2/3 departed Iraq, it had lost 28 members, the most deaths suffered by a Marine Corps battalion since the 1983 Beirut bombings. The commanders on the scene not only clashed with the enemy but also had to overcome complications and restrictions from higher command. Darack succeeds in putting together a coherent military history of a crucial conflict with al-Qaeda, passing along important lessons learned by commanders on the ground and describing the horrors faced by the individual soldiers. Students of military history and military servicemembers looking for lessons in asymmetrical warfare will find this account illuminating and informative, but general readers may be less enthralled.

October 1, 2019
One of the U.S. Marine Corps' finest--yet largely untold--stories. By the fall of 2006, al-Qaida in Iraq had been largely cornered in the western province known as Al Anbar. However, as veteran military writer Darack (War Moments: Images & Stories of Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond, 2019, etc.) writes, they were battle-hardened, well-equipped, vicious, and desperate, and they decided to dig in and throw everything they had at the "invading" Americans. They embedded themselves among the narrow, twisting streets of Haditha (population 25,000) and intimidated the locals into cooperating by murdering anyone they thought supported America. They would place their decapitated victims' heads on stakes that they planted around the city for the public to see. As one lance corporal recalled, "it wasn't hell...it was worse than hell. I know it sounds cliché, but nothing could be that bad. It was beyond my worst, most horrific nightmares." Striking and withdrawing over and over, they also set mines on the roads on which Marine convoys traveled. It was against this background that the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment arrived with orders to drive out the terrorists, a monumental, highly dangerous task. The author, who has embedded with American troops multiple times in both Afghanistan and Iraq, tells the story battle by battle, often in gripping, brutal, and sometimes-gruesome detail. However, this book is more than a typical war story. To defeat al-Qaida in Iraq, the Marines realized they would have to win the locals' trust, which they did in imaginative ways. For example, on Halloween, soldiers went trick-or-treating through Haditha neighborhoods and gave candy to children. The only real weakness of the text is Darack's excessive use of Marine acronyms (TTP, AO, COC, BATS, SVBIED, etc.), which will become tiresome for civilian readers without a military background. A very human story of "bravery, sacrifice, incredible hardship, horror, and ultimate victory."

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October 15, 2019
The 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment deployed to an area of Al Anbar province called the Haditha Triad in September 2006 amid a surge in violence by the terrorist group Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Their mission was to defeat the terrorists and rebuild civil government with a functioning native police force capable of defending the population so normal life and commerce could resume. Darack (The Final Mission of Extortion 17, 2017) is a longtime embedded journalist with firsthand knowledge of the counterinsurgency campaign (COIN) in Haditha at this time, who also interviewed dozens of the battalion's officers and enlisted members. He has nothing but the highest praise for these Marines and their professionalism, humanity, empathy, efficiency, and willingness to sacrifice for the civilians of Haditha to achieve what he describes as a decisive victory over AQI. His account is a well-written, keenly detailed success story and a significant tribute to the Marines who risked their lives, including the 23 fallen and the hundreds who were wounded in action, to bring peace and stability to the Haditha Triad.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)