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| Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope | 
 enlarge | Author: Michael Yon
Publisher: Richard Vigilante Books
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.99
You Save: $10.96 (37%)
New (34) Used (10) Collectible (2) from $15.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  116 reviews
Sales Rank: 4978
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0980076323
Dewey Decimal Number: 956
EAN: 9780980076325
ASIN: 0980076323
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Raw, Uncut, The Real Deal April 22, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
While the politicians and Fat cats at Fox News and CNN sit on their Butts in their air conditioned offices, Michael is in full Battle Rattle out on missions with American and British Troops. His eye witness accounts of those missions tell the real side of what is happening in Iraq. He has no political agenda and reports on the good and the bad. Once you've read this book, you will want to begin reading all his dispatches to stay current.
Buy it! Read it! May 24, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
In his words, pg 96:
"If you are going on a combat mission and soldiers have not cleaned all their windows to a sparkle, do not go with them. Soldiers with dirty windows are not watching for tiny wires in the road, nor are they scanning rooftops. They are talking about women, football, and the cars they will buy when they get home. I will not go into combat with soldiers with dirty windows."
Or, from pg 178:
"In September 2007, I went back to the United States for a few weeks and found a nation not at all inclined to believe in miracles. I was struck by the bizarre contrast between what most Americans seemed to think was happening in Iraq versus what I had just seen. My countrymen seemed to be living under a glass dome that allowed few hard facts to filter in unless attached to a string of false assumptions or skewed by a convenient ideology."
Michael Yon's book is the story of how the American soldier and marine and their field commanders day-by-day turned around a mess made in Washington. It shows that the Iraqi people are not compliant or complicit with evil if other choices are at hand. It shows that the media focus on a few American villains in Iraq slandered most of the troops and their commanders over there. Most importantly, it shows that the authentic experiences of the Iraqi people with Al Qaeda in Iraq led them to know who were the real villains.
It is a fitting tribute to those we knew who died over there.
My 91 year old mother says it is great. April 28, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
My 91 year old mother just finished Yon's book and says every one in Washington needs to read this book and find out what is "really going on over there." The American soldier is portrayed as a hero, but not with the whitewashing of uncritical nationalism. The US has made mistakes, but we fix them. Most of our service men and women are heroes. The Iraqi interpreters are heroes. The people of Iraq are finding out that Americans are truly good people. And the Iraqi "street" is full of good people. (Wake up you bad mouthers!)
She was particularly touched by Yon's description of the injured Iraqi who told Yon if he died to please cut his heart out and take it to America to bury.
This book should make us proud. Thank you Michael Yon.
The title says it all April 19, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Everyone's reviews are spot on. It is apolitical to a fault and just reports what he sees and has seen over his many trips to and from the sandbox. It should be on everyone's bookshelf, right next to the Army's COIN Manual FM 3-24. In fact, you could reasonably rename Mike's book to be "Practical applications of COIN doctrine."
Gripping Eyewitness Testimony April 25, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Michael Yon is this generation's Ernie Pyle. Self-funded, reader-supported, he is beholden to no news agency with an agenda, and that gives his testimony a raw, gripping character that is published virtually nowhere else. Fans of his blog have been eagerly awaiting this volume and it doesn't disappoint.
Yon is no cheerleader; indeed, his criticism of our early efforts in Iraq is scathing and detailed. He is also no "kill-them-all" keyboard commando of whose like we have had altogether too much in the commentary on this war. He's the real deal - an onsite, sweaty, bullet-dodging eyewitness whose connection with the troops is direct and whose admiration for them is returned in full measure.
Full marks for guts, effort, and an ability to communicate the gritty realities of combat that borders on the lyrical. Yon is a treasure.
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