Iraq Memoir

When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.

From enduring an abusive childhood to fighting as a Special Forces Green Beret in the war in Afghanistan, Sean Rogers has come away from his hardships with the tools necessary to not only survive but thrive. He knows firsthand what it means to face your trauma and use it as a source for incredible strength.

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

From steamy bedrooms to scorched battlefields, stifling suburbia to lush Irish landscapes, Tara invites her listeners in close. Join this California girl on her journey through the unruly waters of Family, Combat, Mental Health, and Love. One intimate essay at a time, Tara contemplates the true cost of survival, as she redefines Together.

A historic, sweeping memoir from United States Senator Patrick Leahy, currently the chamber’s longest-serving senator and President Pro Tempore. In his landmark memoir The Road Taken, Patrick Leahy looks back on a life lived on the front lines of American politics. As the senior-most member...

In 2006, the shock and awe campaign of securing the major cities had ended, and the Iraq War had moved into an alien phase for the operators of Black Flag One. With their motto “swift, silent, deadly,” the Marine operators of 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion were trained for unconventional warfare but they were tasked with holding and securing swathes of the country, facing Insurgents who were adapting their tactics to kill as many Coalition soldiers as possible using IEDs.

"What happens when goofballs go to war? Most Soldiers aren't the Infantry Boys, "running and gunning". People have seen a one sided, violent representation of the war in Iraq. Some Americans leave for war straight from their neighborhoods and families. Many of these citizen patriots have wicked skills and low impulse control. Men shooting guns in dramatic fashion is a tiny fraction of wartime activity.

Shant Kendarian's visit to Baghdad in 1980 at age 17 was supposed to be short, just long enough to make peace with his estranged father before returning home to the United States. But Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and sealed off Iraq's borders to every man of military age - including Kendarian. Suddenly forced onto the front lines, he saw his two-week visit turn into a 10-year nightmare.

The young Welshmen selected grew to become the closest of friends as they navigated their way through the difficult sniper cadre. After losing one of their own to the Taliban shortly after the course, Ted and the rest of the lads deployed to Helmand Province and the raging war for the second time. As the tour in Afghanistan came to an end, Ted began to feel the effects of what will later be diagnosed as post-traumatic stress disorder, and it quickly took over his life, sending him on a downward spiral.

Like many post-9/11 combat veterans, JT Blatty struggled to regain her sense of purpose in the first years returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2018, a chance encounter brought her to Ukraine, drawn in by the familiarity of war and those who serve in wars. Over five years, JT captured the oral history and portraits of a tribe of revolutionaries, the Donbas volunteer soldiers. As she embedded with them on the front line in bunkers and forests, and in Kyiv flats, JT's story began to blend with theirs in a universal bond of combat veterans, compelling her to stay as a new war began.

Before 9/11, the rugby team at West Point learned to bond on a sports field. This is what happened when those fifteen young men became leaders in war. Filled with drama, tragedy, and personal transformations, this is the story of a unique brotherhood. It is a story of American rugby and a story of the U.S. Army created through intimate portraits of men shaped by West Point's motto: "Duty, Honor, Country."

Thousands of miles away from where her son was deployed, a powerful premonition is devastatingly confirmed by a knock on the door from two faceless strangers bearing the news that her son had stepped on an improvised explosive device in the poppy fields of Afghanistan. He had lost both of his legs and suffered multiple other injuries, including partial amputation of all the fingers of his left hand. For forty-eight days she stood at his bedside.

A military memoir by a biracial child of refugees and survivors, Roadside is about life and death, about family lost and gained, and about America, as a dream and a reality. It’s about the roads one takes to leave home and find it again.

In March 2008, the public learned the news that Prince Harry had been fighting with British troops in Afghanistan. This amazing book gives the definitive inside story of Prince Harry's brave service and reveals, amongst other breathtaking stories, how the third in line to the throne was operating only 500 yards from enemy positions, calling in air strikes and carrying out surveillance of Taliban fighters in Helmand province.

May 6, 1986: Nick Popaditch arrives at the Receiving Barracks, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. April 9, 2003: An AP photographer captures a striking image seen around the world of the Gunny Sergeant smoking a victory cigar in his tank, the haunting statue of Saddam Hussein hovering in the background. Popaditch is immortalized forever as "The Cigar Marine."

A year after his dramatic release by a multinational military raid, Norman Kember revealed his story behind the controversy of his captivity in Baghdad. Written with honesty and emotion, Norman Kember describes in detail his four month ordeal, during which he was imprisoned in a small room and chained to the two Canadian peace activists, James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, and the American Tom Fox, who was later killed by his captors.

“Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider’s account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors.” —Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed...

At just seventeen, Jason Gibney enlisted in the Australian Defence Force, full of vigour and a thirst for adventure. Over the next decade, he served in Iraq, Afghanistan’s deadly Chora Valley, and during the heartbreaking fall of Kabul in 2021. His missions included fierce firefights with the Taliban and a devastating role as an interpreter during the chaotic civilian evacuations. His final role in the evacuation of Kabul was to drag screaming, visa-denied Afghans to their fate, men he could understand, whose death sentences he could hear in their own words.

What is the definition of assassination? Robert B. Baer’s boss at the CIA once told him, “It’s a bullet with a man’s name on it.” Sometimes assassination is the senseless act of a psychotic, a bloodletting without social value. Other times, it can be the sanest and most humane way to...

These stories from the life and medical career of a Navy SEAL turned doctor are surprising, riveting, and inspiring. A family physician delivering babies, managing disease and trauma, and dealing with death, discovers new dimensions when he goes to war in Iraq. Treating the military, civilians, and their families, "Dr. Bob" experienced tremendous joy, unbearable heartache, and deep gratitude. He shares those emotional experiences in this deeply personal memoir.