The March Up
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- £6.99
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- £6.99
Publisher Description
Taking us straight to the front lines, The March Up follows the famed 1st Marine Division on their decisive 1,184 kilometre trek to Baghdad, from first assault to the taking of the city. The 1st Marine Division, which had fought in Guadalcanal, Khe San, and Kuwait City, provided the critical force in Operation Iraqi Freedom. With unprecedented access to everyone from three-star generals to privates, authors West and Smith, men with 60 years of military and combat experience between them, trace the strategic war plans as they unfolded in battle, providing unflinching portrayals of what went well and what went poorly, and detailing power struggles and failures which have never before been reported. No other journalist had the mobility, battlefield knowledge or personal contacts as West or Smith. They were able to observe eighteen separate combat units in the division. What emerges is a dramatic, personal and human account of how the corporals fought and the generals plotted, revealing the men behind the guns and the brave and sometimes unorthodox actions that resulted in astonishing triumphs. Complete with a 16- page, four-colour photo insert and endpaper maps, The March Up is the behind-the-scenes story of how the men on the frontlines and the strategists in the backroom turned the march to Baghdad into a road to victory.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This very readable eyewitness history of the 1st Marine Division in the recent Iraq War was penned by two very qualified observers: both West and Smith served in Vietnam as Marines; Smith also served in Granada and Beruit, while West (The Village; The Pepperdogs) is a former Assistant Secretary of Defense. Unsurprisingly, their account of Marines advancing from Kuwait to Baghdad--and thereby ending up farther from the sea than any Marines in history--is far from anti-military. Perhaps more unexpectedly, though, they present their campaign history warts and all. The portrait of the division owes its breadth to interviews from several hundred sources, not all of whom survived. Two stand out: Shane Ferkovich, whose squad prevented sabotage of an oil-pumping station in the beginning of the march and helped take down Saddam's statue at the end; and General Mattis, the division commander and chief juggler of conflicting demands. An exceptional selection of photographs and better maps than most books to date on the war add to this account's appeal.
