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A Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to Washington
NAL
May 2006
336 pages ISBN: 0451218418 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
As a First Lieutenant and Infantry Platoon Leader for the
U.S. Army National Guard charged with leading thirty-eight
men in Iraq, Paul Rieckhoff followed in the footsteps of his
father and grandfather. After Rieckhoff volunteered to take
part in the invasion of Iraq, he and his soldiers spent
almost a year in one of the most dangerous and volatile
areas of Baghdad, where they struggled to maintain order,
protect Iraqi civilians, track down insurgents, and defend
themselves against sniper and roadside bomb attacks. But it was clear to Rieckhoff almost from the get-go that
America's mission in Iraq was deeply flawed - and that his
platoon was overchallenged and underequipped. If there was a
plan to stabilize Baghdad after the invasion, no one had let
them in on it. And with so many obstacles to overcome, they
faced enemies that included thousands of armed, angry, and
unemployed men who had been unleashed into the streets when
the U.S. government disbanded the Iraqi army. The way that Rieckhoff responded to these and other
challenges over the next ten months set him on a course that
would forever change his life. And when Rieckhoff finally
came home, he vowed to tell Americans the truth, however
controversial, about what was going on in Iraq. He publicly
demanded accountability from elected officials, created the
first organization specifically for veterans of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and took the new fight to the airwaves
and the halls of power in Washington. For anyone who wonders what alternatives there are in Iraq
to either "staying the course" or "cutting-and-running,"
Chasing Ghosts is an uncensored and unrehearsed statement
from a war veteran, providing a candid grunt's-eye view of
the harrowing, bloody battles on the streets of Baghdad-and
a patriot's vision of where America has gone wrong and how
it can reset its path.
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