Vintage

I listened to this on Books on CD while I was working on buildings in my gaming area. The story is about the American Army brigade that made an initial run through Baghdad as a raid, and then followed it up with a hasty attack into the heart of Saddam's palaces the next day. The title comes from an old Vietnam technique where Armored or Armored Cavalry units would make rapid movements down main supply routes (MSRs) in periods of limited visibility to run Viet Cong or North Vietnamese regulars off and keep them from developing ambushes or mining the MSRs. When I was a lieutenant in the 11th ACR in Germany in the late 70s we still used the term and the technique. It's interesting to see things come back into "vogue", so to speak.

The book goes into great detail on the fights into and out of Baghdad. I think that there is a tendency to view the Iraq war as one that was won pretty handily. There is some justification to this but the book does a superb job of showing that it was filled with extended periods of brutal fighting.This is a first person account of this part of the battle for Baghdad so you will not get much in the way of strategic insight. What you will learn a great deal about is how men operate under the stress of battle.

People who have had military service will find themselves shaking their heads a lot with the "I can't believe that..." nod *and* the "yep, been there, done that" nod. There are instances where all is chaos and pandemonium and then quiet descends on the battlefield. There are times when the battalions are moving down a road (as in similar to an interstate) and make a wrong turn at a cloverleaf with all of the task forces' vehicles following behind. There are stories about how people get hit, knocked down, scared spitless, and come back to continue the fight. I think the author does a good job in pointing out those whose bravery and sacrifice contributed to winning the battle. The book does not glorify the combat but it does point out that there are moments when man's most noble traits can appear (such as times when American soldiers brought Iraqi casualties in for medical treatment, and an instance when a father and son pointed out jihadists moving towards exposed American positions).

One of the things that I want to point out is the superb nature of American protective equipment. There were limitations on some of the vehicles, such as HMMWVs and tankers, but the personal body armor, Bradley armor, and M1 Abrams armor all kept American casualty rates to historic lows.

The author also delves into the accidental shooting of journalists at a hotel in Baghdad when photographers located a mile or more away were suspected of being enemy forward observors.

Zucchino also has a lot of material on the Iraqi side of the conflict, with personal vignettes of Iraqis before, during, and after the raid.

In short, if you like books like Company Commander, or This Kind of War, you will find this book to be of interest.