Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective by Paul Rieckhoff

Synopsis: Recounting his service on the front lines in Baghdad as the insurgency emerged in 2003, Rieckhoff provides a fascinating account of the danger and frustrations troops face every day. Chasing Ghosts challenges the Iraq policies of Republicans and Democrats alike, while chronicling the creation of IAVA and outlining the key issues facing a new generation of returning veterans, including an unprepared VA system, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury, suicide and homelessness.

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One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel C. Fick

Synopsis: "If the Marines are "the few, the proud," Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Fick's career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11, and advances to the pinnacle -- Recon -- two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he'll need more than his top-flight education."

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My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell

Synopsis: "This is the startlingly honest story of a young man and a war. Trapped amid "guerilla warfare, urban-style" in Mosul, Iraq, Buzzell was struck by the bizarre, absurd, often frightening world surrounding him. He began writing an online web log describing the war-not as it was being reported by CNN or in briefings on Capitol Hill, but as he experienced it. The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the fierce firefight in which the resistance came from "men in black"; chain-smoking in the guard tower, counting the tracer rounds fired over the city; the raid on an Iraqi home during which a woman couldn't stop screaming as her husband was being taken away; and the hesitation of a young soldier who had been passed around from platoon to platoon because he was too afraid to fight."

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Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops by Ilona Meagher

Synopsis: "Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops is a grassroots call to action designed to break the shameful silence and put the issue of PTSD in our returning troops front and center before the American public. In addition to presenting interviews with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering with PTSD, this book will be the most comprehensive resource to date for concerned citizens who want to understand the complex political, social, and health-related issues of PTSD, with an eye toward "moving our nation to care" to do what is necessary to help our fighting men and women who suffer from PTSD."

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Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq by Jason Christopher Hartley

Synopsis: "From K-rations to dead civilians to extreme boredom punctuated by moments of extreme fear, Just Another Soldier takes the reader into the day-to-day experience of the Iraqi war. In addition to putting a human face on the Iraqi soldier, Just Another Soldier puts a human face on the country of Iraq; its culture and its people."

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The Last True Story I'll Every Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford

Synopsis: "Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began writing nonfiction stories about what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced...Those stories became this book, a haunting and powerful, brutal but compellingly honest book-punctuated with both humor and heartbreak-that represents an important document revealing the actual experience of waging the War in Iraq, as well as the introduction of a literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances."

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On Call In Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story by Cdr. Richard Jadick and Thomas Hayden

Synopsis: "At thirty-eight, the last place [Cdr. Richard Jadick] expected to be was on the front lines. He was too old to be called up, but not too old to volunteer. In November 2004, with the military reeling from an acute doctor shortage, Jadick chose to accompany the First Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment (the "1/8") to Iraq...This is the inspiring story of his decision to enter into the fray, a fascinating glimpse into wartime triage, and a compelling account of courage under fire."

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My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story by Nathaniel R. Helms

Synopsis: "Follow legendary First Sergeant Brad Kasal on a courageous mission to rescue fallen comrades under intense enemy fire in the notorious Battle for Fallujah. In a riveting first-hand account, Kasal takes readers into the deadly din of war...Readers of this compelling story will gain insights into modern warfare, an appreciation for the courage and sacrifice of Americans in uniform, and an awesome respect for the depth of their commitment to leave no one behind...It is a book that is hard to put down and a story that's impossible to forget."

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Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy by Ilario Pantano and Malcolm McConnell

Synopsis: "This is the powerful true story of the Marine lieutenant who, having fought for his country in the first Gulf War, went on to professional success in finance, only to be compelled to reenlist in the wake of 9/11. Leaving behind an ex-model wife and two children, he served once again in Iraq - and was charged by the U.S. military with murder."

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A Soldier's Portfolio This is Our War: Servicemen's Photographs of Life in Iraq by Devin Friedman

This Is Our War presents 256 photos, culled from tens of thousands that GQ collected from American servicemen and women, in order to tell the story of America's Iraq experience with their pictures and in their own voices. From photographs of the strange everyday life in desert barracks to extraordinary images of combat, from glimpses of private moments to panoramas of incredible scenery, from brief interludes of joy to devastating moments of grief, here is a candid soldier's-eye view of war- of their war. It's the conflict the way they see it: apolitically, intimately, with honesty and humor and courage.

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War by Ashley Gilbertson

Arriving in Iraq on the eve of the U.S. invasion, unaffiliated with any newspaper and hoping to pick up assignments along the way, Ashley Gilbertson was one of the first photojournalists to cover the disintegration of America’s military triumph as looting and score settling convulsed Iraqi cities. Just twenty-five years old at the time, Gilbertson soon landed a contract with the New York Times, and his extraordinary images of life in occupied Iraq and of American troops in action began appearing in the paper regularly. Throughout his work, Gilbertson took great risks to document the risks taken by others, whether dodging sniper fire with American infantry, photographing an Iraqi bomb squad as they diffused IEDs, or following marines into the cauldron of urban combat. A searing account of the American experience in Iraq, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is sure to become one of the classic war photography books of our time.

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