House to House
A Tale of Modern War
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4.6 • 33 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
On 8 November 2004, the largest battle of the War on Terror began, with the US Army's assault on Fallujah and its network of tens of thousands of insurgents hiding in fortified bunkers, on rooftops, and inside booby-trapped houses. For Sgt. David Bellavia of 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, it quickly turned into a battle on foot, from street to street and house to house. On the second day, he and his men laid siege to a mosque, only to be driven to a rooftop and surrounded, before heavy artillery could smash through to rescue them. By the third day, Bellavia charges an insurgent-filled house and finds himself trapped with six enemy fighters. One by one, he shoots, wrestles, stabs, and kills five of them, until his men arrive to take care of the final target. It is one of the most hair-raising battle stories of any age -- yet it does not spell the end of Bellavia's service. It would take serveral more weeks before the Battle of Fallujah finally came to a close, with Bellavia, miraculously, alive.
In the words of the author: "HOUSE TO HOUSE holds nothing back. It is a raw, gritty look at killing and combat and how men react to it. It is gut-wrenching, shocking and brutal. It is honest. It is not a glorification of war. Yet it will not shy from acknowledging this: sometimes it takes something as terrible as war for the full beauty of the human spirit to emerge."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Staff sergeant Bellavia's account of the fierce 2004 fighting in Fallujah will satisfy readers who like their testosterone undiluted. Portraying himself as a hard-bitten, foul-mouthed, superbly trained warrior, deeply in love with America and the men in his unit, contemptuous of liberals and a U.S. media that fails to support soldiers fighting in the front lines of the global war on terror, Bellavia begins with a nasty urban shootout against Shiite insurgent militias. Six months later, his unit prepares to assault the massively fortified city of Fallujah in a ferocious battle that takes up the rest of the book. Anyone expecting an overview of strategy or political background to the war has picked the wrong book. Bellavia writes a precise, hour-by-hour account of the fighting, featuring repeated heroic feats and brave sacrifice from Americans but none from the enemy, contemptuously dismissed as drug-addled, suicidal maniacs. Readers will encounter a nuts-and-bolts description of weapons, house-to-house tactics, gallantry and tragic mistakes, culminating with a glorious victory that, in Bellavia's view, will go down in history with the invasion of Normandy. Like a pitch-by-pitch record of a baseball game, this detailed battle description will fascinate enthusiasts and bore everyone else.
Customer Reviews
Too much distraction
I’m glad that the author eventually found happiness with his family. War is a traumatic experience to have to cope with. I’ve listened to many audio books of accounts of allied soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as many other theatres of war. It seemed to me, that the author was not as controlled as most of the other soldiers that I’ve heard tell their stories, and those of the polished narration of historians relating battles that have taken place. Perhaps this story gives an insight into the example of someone who is not quite from the category of what might be called a true warrior. But he obviously he is part of the military from where they come from. Maybe he seemed a little harsh on his men at times, when he was under stress during the heat of battle, which of course came from his own inner demons. None the less, he pushed himself to carry out a remarkable feat of bravery in a mansion in Fallujah. But for a straight forward, and focused recount of a veterans experience during a battle, this story involves a little too much distraction.