A detailed, compelling account of a little-known chapter in the Iraq War.
In this modern war memoir, a retired Army colonel recounts his experiences working to suppress terrorism in a strategic Iraqi city.
Deane recounts his deployment to Ramadi in 2006, when it was known as the “most dangerous city in the world,” and how he and his men helped to turn it into what he calls “the safest city in Iraq” by the time U.S. troops pulled out of the country. Already a Desert Storm veteran with more than a decade of Army experience, he and the other soldiers faced numerous obstacles at the beginning of their deployment, from frequent suicide bombings to the distrust of the local leaders, whose help they needed to find al-Qaida operatives. Deane describes the slow, painstaking work of convincing local sheiks to support the new democratic government and of helping them to create an all-Iraqi city police force. He also highlights the complicated nature of securing allies across cultural barriers in a war that weaponized propaganda as much as grenades. But apart from vivid descriptions of combat and of the many casualties suffered by the U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies, the book keeps a mostly optimistic tone as it focuses on the successful joint efforts of American and local forces to make the city a safer place. It’s also illustrated with color photos of many of the people and places described. For the most part, Deane’s prose is clear, simple, and free of political soapboxing or unwarranted boasting. He acknowledges his mistakes and those of other U.S. troops while also holding to his book’s thesis, which claims that their operations had a positive impact on Ramadi and Iraq as a whole, despite their negative portrayal in the American news media. Small grammatical errors, such as the redundant “$500 bucks,” litter the narrative, and readers without military experience may get bogged down in the often untranslated Army terminology. However, the war’s historical background is well-researched, as are the back stories of many prominent players.
A detailed, compelling account of a little-known chapter in the Iraq War.Pub Date: May 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-943052-07-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Cleveland Writers Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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