Featuring the testimony of close to seventy Iraqis from all walks of life, "Voices from Iraq" builds a riveting chronological history unmatched for its insight and revelations. Here is a history of the war in Iraq as told entirely by Iraqis living through the U.S. invasion and occupation.

Beginning in 2003, this intimate narrative includes the experiential accounts of civilians, politicians, former dissidents, insurgents, and militiamen. Iraqis offering firsthand stories range from onetime Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to resistance fighters speaking on the condition of anonymity. Divided into five parts, these interviews recount the 2003 invasion; Iraq's gradual slide into chaos from 2004 to 2005; the start of a new order in 2006; the rise of open sectarian violence over the next two years; and the effort since 2008 to reconstruct a society from relative calm. Each section includes interviews grouped into themes, with brief epilogues for the participants. Not since Studs Terkel's "The Good War" has a book captured so acutely the human consequences of a conflict we are still struggling to understand. "Voices from Iraq" makes utterly vivid the meaning and legacy of America's campaign in Iraq.

When the tyrannical Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003, the war in Iraq was in a precarious position. A provisional government had been assembled, but the Iraqi government was not yet recognized as sovereign. They were now expected to put their most infamous citizen on trial for war crimes. Called into duty at this moment was Rear Admiral Greg Slavonic, who was tasked with facilitating U.S. media presence at the arraignment which would establish the judicial framework for future tribunals. Admiral Slavonic was party to the historic US-Iraqi Transfer of Sovereignty and then as the senior military officer in the Iraqi courtroom where he was one of fifteen individuals to witness the historic event. As the senior military officer in the room with fifteen other observers, he managed a challenging pool of media jockeying for access for this once in a career story and plus served as advisor to the Iraqi judge on various media issues. Slavonic's first-hand narrative of a unique moment in military history features never-before-seen transcripts of Saddam Hussein's trial. For the first time, readers can read how Saddam responded to his charges, along with eleven of Hussein's closest advisors and cabinet members who were arraigned that day, and several charged with war "crimes against humanity". This would be the last time all twelve men would be together again who were responsible for the deaths of over several million fellow Iraqi citizens. This book expands our examination of difficult wars and chronicles the legal reckoning and downfall of a tyrant.

In King of Spies, prize-winning journalist and bestselling author of Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden, reveals one of the most astonishing - and previously untold - spy stories of the twentieth century. Donald Nichols was 'a one man war', according to his US Air Force commanding general. He won the Distinguished Service Cross, along with a chest full of medals for valor and initiative in the Korean War. His commanders described Nichols as the bravest, most resourceful and effective spymaster of that forgotten war. But there is far more to Donald Nichols' story than first meets the eye . . . Based on long-classified government records, unsealed court records, and interviews in Korea and the U.S., King of Spies tells the story of the reign of an intelligence commander who lost touch with morality, legality, and even sanity, if military psychiatrists are to be believed. Donald Nichols was America's Kurtz. A seventh-grade dropout, he created his own black-ops empire, commanding a small army of hand-selected spies, deploying his own makeshift navy, and ruling over it as a clandestine king, with absolute power over life and death. He claimed a - 'legal license to murder' - and inhabited a world of mass executions and beheadings, as previously unpublished photographs in the book document. Finally, after eleven years, the U.S. military decided to end Nichols's reign. He was secretly sacked and forced to endure months of electroshock in a military hospital in Florida. Nichols told relatives the American government was trying to destroy his memory. King of Spies looks to answer the question of how an uneducated, non-trained, non-experienced man could end up as the number-one US spymaster in South Korea and why his US commanders let him get away with it for so long . . .

'Afghanistan is just like Iraq hot, dusty and full of people who want to kill you', SSgt Simon Fuller, Royal Engineer Search Advisor

Bomb Hunters tells the story of the British army's elite bomb disposal experts, men who face death every day in the most dangerous region of the most lethal country on earth Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Bomb Hunters are up against the Improvised Explosive Device the IED the deadly homemade bombs planted by the Taliban. Hard to detect and easy to trigger, an estimated 10 bombs for every one of the 10,000 British troops have been planted in the region. IEDs are now the main killer of British troops in Afghanistan and the ultimate psychological weapon.

Bomb Hunters work in 50-degree heat as they take the 'long walk' into the kill zone, defusing as many as 15 bombs a day. In the past year the casualty rate has soared as the troops have become locked into a deadly game of cat and mouse to locate and deactivate the deadly bombs before they maim and kill soldiers, police and civilians. Skill, cold courage and inevitably pure luck play a huge part in the survival of these men and as the British public have already seen a single lapse of concentration can result in instant death.

Ex-paratrooper, now defence journalist, Sean Rayment, takes the reader on a journey into the heat and dust of Helmand Province as he meets these courageous soldiers while they put their lives at risk to prevent other British troops falling victim to the IED. He interviews the Bomb Hunters as they perform their duties on the frontline and paints a breathtaking picture of what life is like for the men who play poker with their own lives every day, who live knowing the enemy watches their every move, waiting for a weakness to show itself, a pattern in technique to be exploited, or an error to be made that triggers the device itself.

This is as vivid and dramatic as war reporting gets, mixing 'close to the bone' narrative and dead-pan black humour from the Bomb Hunters themselves, some of whom were subsequently killed in action. No punches will be pulled on what these men feel about the war, their place in it, the politicians and generals who send them there, and how they deal with the relentless pressure of the job itself in the heart of the world's most hostile combat environment."

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History Winner of the 2018 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Greene Award for a distinguished work of nonfiction. The first battle book from Mark Bowden since his #1 New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down, Hue 1968, "an instantly recognizable classic of military history" (Christian Science Monitor), was published to massive critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched over one hundred attacks across South Vietnam in what would become known as the Tet Offensive. The lynchpin of Tet was the capture of Hue, Vietnam's intellectual and cultural capital, by 10,000 National Liberation Front troops who descended from hidden camps and surged across the city of 140,000. Within hours the entire city was in their hands save for two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the Front's presence, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the U.S. and Vietnam and inter-views with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over twenty-four days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. Hue 1968 is a gripping and moving account of this pivotal moment.

Why has the Taliban been so much more effective in presenting messages that resonate with the Afghan population than the United States, the Afghan Government and their allies? This book, based on years of field research and the assessment of hundreds of original source materials, examines the information operations and related narratives of Afghan insurgents, especially the Afghan Taliban, and investigates how the Taliban has won the information war. Taliban messaging, wrapped in the narrative of jihad, is both to the point and in tune with the target audiences it wishes to influence. On the other hand, the United States and its Kabul allies committed a basic messaging blunder, failing to present narratives that spoke to or, often, were even understood by their target audiences. Thomas Johnson systematically explains why the United States lost this "battle of the story" in Afghanistan, and argues that this defeat may have lost the U.S. the entire war, despite its conventional and technological superiority.

The slang, the unique vocabulary of the soldiers and Marines serving in Vietnam was a mishmash of words and phrases reaching back to the Korean War, World War II, and even earlier. At the same time it used words and phrases reflecting the country's changing protest culture at home, ideological and poetical doctrine, ethical and cultural conflicts, and racialism and the drug culture. The slanguage in Vietnam was made even more complex by the Pidgin Vietnamese-English used by Americans and Vietnamese alike. American culture and society were changing rapidly and drastically at home and this bled into Vietnam. In the jungles, swamps, and hills of Vietnam soldier and marine slang also followed the traditional path of what was important to their daily lives: their leaders, the harsh environment, food, uniforms, weapons, equipment, and how they fought and lived in the country.

For members of U.S. Army's ""Task Force Faith"" and the First Marine Division, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir is an epic story of survival, courage, and ingenuity. Their exploits are well known - woven into the storied histories of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. Now, for the first time, Attack at Chosin recounts this battle from the Chinese perspective, describing the advance that forced General MacArthur to reorient his strategy, which not only marked a turning point in the Korean War but impacted events in Asia in ways that still resonate today. The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, as the Chinese commanders foretold, determined the fate and length of the Korean War. Author Xiaobing Li describes the fighting that began on November 27, 1950, when 150,000 soldiers from the Chinese Ninth Army Group attacked the First Marines and elements of the 7th Infantry Division in the remote mountains of North Korea. It was a calculated attempt to repel MacArthur's ""home-by-Christmas"" offensive and to deter UN forces from further advances toward the Chinese border. The fierce fighting that followed, combined with the bitter cold, made Chosin one of the deadliest battles of the war. By December 17, after suffering more than 40,000 casualties and failing to achieve their campaign objectives to destroy the American divisions, the Ninth Army Group was forced to withdraw. One day later, on December 18, 1950, the remaining survivors were recalled to China. As the first book to explore the role of command and control, technology, and combat effectiveness from the point of view of the Chinese, and to examine cooperation and friction between Beijing and Pyongyang, Attack at Chosin sheds new light on the ultimate military success of the UN forces during the Korean conflict. Li also provides invaluable insights into Chinese military doctrine, strategy, and tactics that continue to influence foreign policy and American military institutions today.

'Gripping ... A terrific action narrative' Max Hastings 'Reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, yet every word is true ... This is modern warfare close-up and raw' Andrew Roberts Bestselling and Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden tells the gripping and incredible story of the six-day battle that began the War in Afghanistan and how it set the scene for twenty years of conflict. The West is in shock. Al-Qaeda has struck the US on 9/11 and thousands are dead. Within weeks, UK Special Forces enter the fray in Afghanistan alongside the CIA's Team Alpha and US troops. Victory is swift, but fragile. Hundreds of jihadists surrender and two operatives from Team Alpha enter Qala-i Jangi - the 'Fort of War' - to interrogate them. The prisoners revolt, one CIA man falls, and the other is trapped inside the fort. Seven members of the SBS - elite British Special Forces - volunteer for the rescue force and race into danger and the unknown. The six-day battle that follows proves to be one of the bloodiest of the Afghanistan war as the SBS and their American comrades face an enemy determined to die in the mud citadel. Superbly researched, First Casualty is based on unprecedented access to the CIA, SBS, and US Special Forces. Orwell Prize-winning author Toby Harnden recounts the gripping story of that first battle in Afghanistan and how the haunting foretelling it contained - unreliable allies, ethnic rivalries, suicide attacks, and errant bombs - was ignored, fueling the twenty-year conflict to come.

An incredible tale of one man's adversity and defiance, for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Horace Greasley escaped over 200 times from a notorious German prison camp to see the girl he loved. This is his incredible true story. A Sunday Times Bestseller - over 60,000 copies sold. Even in the most horrifying places on earth, hope still lingers in the darkness, waiting for the opportunity to take flight. When war was declared Horace Greasley was just twenty-years old. After seven weeks' training with the 2/5th Battalion, the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, Horace found himself facing the might of the German Army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in northern France, with just thirty rounds in his ammunition pouch. Horace's war didn't last long. . . On 25 May 1940 he was taken prisoner and so began the harrowing journey to a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. Those who survived the gruelling ten-week march to the camp were left broken and exhausted, all chance of escape seemingly extinguished. But when Horace met Rosa, the daughter of one of his captors, his story changed; fate, it seemed, had thrown him a lifeline. Horace risked everything in order to steal out of the camp to see his love, bringing back supplies for his fellow prisoners. In doing so he offered hope to his comrades, and defiance to one of the most brutal regimes in history.

A groundbreaking look at how the interrogation rooms of the Korean War set the stage for a new kind of battle-not over land but over human subjects Traditional histories of the Korean War have long focused on violations of the thirty-eighth parallel, the line drawn by American and Soviet officials in 1945 dividing the Korean peninsula. But The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War presents an entirely new narrative, shifting the perspective from the boundaries of the battlefield to inside the interrogation room. Upending conventional notions of what we think of as geographies of military conflict, Monica Kim demonstrates how the Korean War evolved from a fight over territory to one over human interiority and the individual human subject, forging the template for the US wars of intervention that would predominate during the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond. Kim looks at how, during the armistice negotiations, the United States and their allies proposed a new kind of interrogation room: one in which POWs could exercise their "free will" and choose which country they would go to after the ceasefire. The global controversy that erupted exposed how interrogation rooms had become a flashpoint for the struggles between the ambitions of empire and the demands for decolonization, as the aim of interrogation was to produce subjects who attested to a nation's right to govern. The complex web of interrogators and prisoners-Japanese-American interrogators, Indian military personnel, Korean POWs and interrogators, and American POWs-that Kim uncovers contradicts the simple story in US popular memory of "brainwashing" during the Korean War. Bringing together a vast range of sources that track two generations of people moving between three continents, The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War delves into an essential yet overlooked aspect of modern warfare in the twentieth century.

Nikolai Vasil'evich Sutiagin, the top-scoring Soviet air ace of the Korean War, flew his MiG-15 in lethal dogfights against American Sabres and Australian Meteors throughout the conflict. He is credited with at 22 'kills'. Yet the full story of his extraordinary achievements - and the story of the Red Air Force in Korea - has never been told. Only now, with the opening of Russian archives, can an authoritative account of his wartime exploits be written. The authors use official records, the reminiscences of Sutiagin's comrades and his wife's diary to reconstruct in vivid detail the career of one of the great fighter pilots. Nikolai Vasilevich Sutiagin was born in central Russia in 1923 and joined the Red Air Force in 1941\. He fought with the 17th IAP (Fighter Aviation Regiment) throughout the Korean War and is credited with destroying at least 22 enemy aircraft. Sutiagin won the Order of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, and he became a Hero of the Soviet Union in 1952\. He retired from the Red Air Force as a major general in 1978 and died in 1986.

The men of the U.S. Navy's brown-water force played a vital but often overlooked role in the Vietnam War. Known for their black berets and limitless courage, they maneuvered their aging, makeshift craft along shallow coastal waters and twisting inland waterways to search out the enemy. In this moving tribute to their contributions and sacrifices, Tom Cutler records their dramatic story as only a participant could. His own Vietnam experience enables him to add a striking human dimension to the account. The terror of firefights along the jungle-lined rivers, the rigors of camp life, and the sudden perils of guerrilla warfare are conveyed with authenticity. At the same time, the author's training as a historian allows him to objectively describe the scope of the navy's operations and evaluate their effectiveness.
Winner of the Navy League's Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement in 1988 when the book was first published, Cutler is credited with having written the definitive history of the brown-water sailors, an effort that has helped readers better understand the nature of U.S. involvement in the war.

Journalists began to call the Korean War "the Forgotten War" even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already-neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on oral histories of Black Korean War veterans to recover the story of their contributions to the fight, the reality that the military& desegregated in fits and starts, and how veterans' service fits into the long history of the Black freedom struggle. This collection of seventy oral histories, drawn from across the country, features interviews conducted by the author and his colleagues for their 2003 American Radio Works documentary, Korea: The Unfinished War, which examines the conflict as experienced by the approximately 600,000 Black men and women who served. It also includes narratives from other sources, including the Library of Congress's visionary Veterans History Project. In their own voices, soldiers and sailors and flyers tell the story of what it meant, how it felt, and what it cost them to fight for the freedom abroad that was too often denied them at home.

The combatants in the three Vietnam wars from 1945 to 1975 employed widely contrasting supply methods. This fascinating book reveals that basic traditional techniques proved superior to expensive state of the art systems. During the Indochina or French' war, France's initial use of wheeled transport and finally air supply proved vulnerable given the terrain, climate and communist adaptability . The colonial power gave up the unequal struggle after the catastrophic defeat at Dien Bien Phu. To stem the advance of Communism throughout the region, the Americans stepped in to support the pro-Western South Vietnam regime and threw vast quantities of manpower and money at the problem. The cost became increasingly unpopular at home. General Giap's and Ho Chi Minh's ruthless use of coolies most famously on the Ho Chi Minh Trail proved resistant to carpet-bombing and Agent Orange defoliation. The outcome of the final war between the Communist North Vietnam and the corrupt Southern leadership, now with minimal US support, was almost a forgone conclusion. The Author is superbly qualified to examine these three wars from the logistic perspective. His conclusions make for compelling reading and will be instructive to acting practitioners and enquiring minds.

Join Air Force veteran Dr. W. Lee Warren as he chronicles his fascinating, heartbreaking, and enlightening experience as a neurosurgeon in an Iraq War combat hospital. Warren's life as a neurosurgeon in a trauma center began to unravel long before he shipped off to serve the U.S. Air Force in Iraq in 2004. When he traded a comfortable, if demanding, practice in San Antonio, Texas, for a ride on a C-130 into the combat zone, he was already reeling from months of personal struggle. At the 332nd Air Force Theater Hospital at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, Warren realized his experience with trauma was just beginning. In his 120 days in a tent hospital, he was trained in a different specialty--surviving over a hundred mortar attacks and trying desperately to repair the damages of a war that raged around every detail of every day. No place was safe, and the constant barrage wore down every possible defense, physical or psychological. One day, clad only in a T-shirt, gym shorts, and running shoes, Warren was caught in the open while round after round of mortars shook the earth and shattered the air with their explosions, stripping him of everything he had been trying so desperately to hold on to. In No Place to Hide, Warren tells his story in a brand-new light, sharing how you can: Discover who you are under pressure Lean on faith in your darkest days Find the strength to carry on, no matter what you're facing Whether you are in the midst of your own struggles with faith, relationships, finances, or illness, No Place to Hide will teach you that how you respond in moments of crisis can determine your chances of survival. Praise for No Place to Hide: "No Place to Hide captures simply, eloquently, and passionately what it means to be a physician in time of war. Over ten years of war, we safely air evacuated more than ninety thousand injured and ill from Iraq and Afghanistan--five thousand were the sickest of the sick. This very personal story captures the essence of what it takes to be a military physician and the challenge for our nation to reintegrate all who deploy to war." --Lt. Gen. (ret.) C. Bruce Green, MD, 20th AF Surgeon General "Through Warren's eyes we observe not only the delicate mechanics of brain surgery but also its lifelong effects on real people and their families, both when the surgery succeeds and when it fails. Thank you, Lee Warren, for letting us see the world through your own unique vantage point. Thank you for the lives you saved, for the compassion you showed, for the faith you rediscovered, for reminding us of the precious gift of life." --Philip Yancey, bestselling author of The Jesus I Never Knew

In 1969, several young men met on a rainy night in Kabul to form an Islamist student group. Their aim was laid out in a simple typewritten statement: to halt the spread of Soviet and American influence in Afghanistan. They went on to change the world. 'Night Letters' tells the extraordinary story of the group's most notorious member, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the guerrilla organisation he came to lead, Hizb-e Islami. By the late 1980s, tens of thousands were drawn to Hekmatyar's vision of a radical Islamic state that would sow unrest from Kashmir to Jerusalem. His doctrine of violent global jihad culminated in 9/11 and the birth of ISIS, yet he never achieved his dream of ruling Afghanistan. The peace deal he signed with Kabul in 2016 was yet another controversial twist in an astonishing life. Sands and Qazizai delve into the secret history of Hekmatyar and Hizb-e Islami: their wars against Russian and American troops, and their bloody and bitter feuds with domestic enemies. Based on hundreds of exclusive interviews carried out across the region and beyond, this is the definitive account of the most important, yet poorly understood, international Islamist movement of the last fifty years.

The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, for the first time fully explores the most sustained, intensive use of psychological operations (PSYOP) in American history. In PSYOP, US military personnel use a variety of tactics-mostly audio and visual messages-to influence individuals and groups to behave in ways that favor US objectives. Informed by the author's firsthand experience of such operations elsewhere, this account of the battle for "hearts and minds" in Vietnam offers rare insight into the art and science of propaganda as a military tool in the twentieth century. The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, focuses on the creation, capabilities, and performance of the forces that conducted PSYOP in Vietnam, including the Joint US Public Affairs Office and the 4th PSYOP Group. In his comprehensive account, Mervyn Edwin Roberts III covers psychological operations across the entire theater, by all involved US agencies. His book reveals the complex interplay of these activities within the wider context of Vietnam and the Cold War propaganda battle being fought by the United States at the same time. Because PSYOP never occurs in a vacuum, Roberts considers the shifting influence of alternative sources of information-especially from the governments of North and South Vietnam, but also from Australia, Korea, and the Philippines. The Psychological War for Vietnam, 1960-1968, also addresses the development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965 and, finally, shows how the course of the war itself forced changes to this doctrine. The scope of the book allows for a unique measurement of the effectiveness of psychological operations over time.