"This is the face of war as only those who have fought it can describe it."--Senator John McCainFallujah: Iraq's most dangerous city unexpectedly emerged as the major battleground of the Iraqi insurgency. For twenty months, one American battalion after another tried to quell the violence, culminating in a bloody, full-scale assault. Victory came at a terrible price: 151 Americans and thousands of Iraqis were left dead.The epic battle for Fallujah revealed the startling connections between policy and combat that are a part of the new reality of war.The Marines had planned to slip into Fallujah "as soft as fog." But after four American contractors were brutally murdered, President Bush ordered an attack on the city--against the advice of the Marines. The assault sparked a political firestorm, and the Marines were forced to withdraw amid controversy and confusion--only to be ordered a second time to take a city that had become an inferno of hate and the lair of the archterrorist al-Zarqawi.Based on months spent with the battalions in Fallujah and hundreds of interviews at every level--senior policymakers, negotiators, generals, and soldiers and Marines on the front lines--No True Glory is a testament to the bravery of the American soldier and a cautionary tale about the complex--and often costly--interconnected roles of policy, politics, and battle in the twenty-first century.From the Hardcover edition.
Book Details
Format
hardcover
ISBN-10
0553804022
ISBN-13
9780553804027
Publication Date
Sep 2005
Item Weight
1.55 pounds
Length
6.30 inch
Width
1.34 inch
Height
9.33 inch
First Sentence
THE WEDNESDAY-MORNING TRAFFIC IN FALLUJAH was its usual blue-smoke and horn-blaring self.
A graduate of Georgetown and Princeton Universities, he fought as a Marine grunt in Vietnam. He later served as Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. His ten books include The Village, that has been on the Marine Commandant’s Reading List for 40 years; The Strongest Tribe, a history of the Iraq war that was a New York Times Bestseller; and The Wrong War, a history of the Afghanistan war.
He is the recipient (twice) of Marine Corps Heritage, the Colby Military History Award, the General Goodpaster Prize for Military Scholarship, the Free Press Award, the Father Clyde Leonard Award, the Marine Corps Russell Award for Leadership and the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Media Award. His articles appear in The Wall St. Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The National Review and The Washington Post.
He is a member of the Hoover Military Historians Working Group at Stanford University, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Infantry Order of St. Crispin. He and his wife Betsy live in Newport RI and Hilton Head, SC. Bing has four children and eight grandchildren.
([source](https://westauthors.com/marine-corps-authors-bing-west-and-owen-west/))