War on Two Fronts
An Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon
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- 12,99 €
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- 12,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A vivid memoir of the conflict’s early years combined with “an insightful review of our problems in Iraq” (Publishers Weekly).
Winner of The Army Historical Foundation’s Distinguished Writing Award.
Shortly after the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the war in Iraq became the most confusing in US history, the high command not knowing who to fight, who was attacking coalition troops, and who among the different Iraqi groups were fighting each other. Yet there were a few astute officers like Lt. Col. Christopher Hughes, commanding the 2nd Battalion of the 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, who sensed the complexity of the task from the beginning.
In War on Two Fronts, Lt. Col. Hughes writes movingly of his “no-slack” battalion at war in Iraq. The war got off to a bang for Hughes when his brigade command tent was fragged, leaving him briefly in charge of the brigade. Amid the nighttime confusion of fourteen casualties, a nearby Patriot missile blasted off, panicking nearly everyone while mistakenly bringing down a British Tornado fighter-bomber.
As Hughes’ battalion forged into Iraq, they successfully liberated the city of Najaf, securing the safety of Grand Ayatollah Sistani and the Mosque of Ali while showing an acute cultural awareness that caught the world’s attention. It was a feat that landed Hughes within the pages of Time, Newsweek, and other publications. The Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne then implemented creative programs in the initial postwar occupation, including harvesting the national wheat and barley crops while combating nearly invisible insurgents. Conscious that an army battalion is a community of some seven-hundred-plus households, and that when a unit goes off to war, the families are intimately connected in our internet age, Hughes makes clear the strength of those connections and how morale is best supported at both ends.
Transferred to Washington after his tour, Hughes also writes an illuminating account of the herculean efforts of many in the Pentagon to work around the corporatist elements of its bureaucracy in order to better understand counterinsurgency and national reconstruction, which Lawrence of Arabia described as “like learning to eat soup with a knife.” This book helps explain the sources of mistakes made—and the process needed to chart a successful strategy. Written with candor and no shortage of humor, mixed with brutal scenes of combat and frank analysis, it is a must-read for all who seek insight into our current situation in the Mideast.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although his battle memoir is conventional, Hughes also offers an insightful review of our problems in Iraq as a loyal supporter of President Bush who does not conceal his opinion that the war is a disaster. The first half of his book adds little to the flood of patriotic battle accounts pouring off the presses. Readers are introduced to Hughes's men in the 101st Airborne as they pack their gear, bid good-bye to their wives and travel to a freezing desert encampment to await the invasion. Plunging enthusiastically into battle, they fight with courage and skill against an enemy Hughes describes as having no skill whatsoever. His unit apparently took its objectives with no casualties. After Hughes rotates home to serve in the Pentagon and attend the National War College, his book becomes genuinely thoughtful as he concludes that, while America was absolutely right to invade Iraq to depose an evil dictator, our ignorance of that nation's history and religion has led to chaos. He concludes with a familiar-sounding program for stabilizing the nation that includes specific benchmarks and a timetable for withdrawal which he suspects may take years.