Taliban. - Dog Company: a true story of American soldiers abandoned by their high command

What you hold in your hands is a book the government does not want you to read.

We know this because the Department of Defense spent a year throwing spike strips in our path to publication.

The Pentagon does not want you to read about its catch-and-release detention system that allows the same enemy fighters to ambush, bomb, and shoot at Americas sons and daughters over and over again.

The Pentagon does not want you to read about unworkable rules of engagement that tie our troops hands behind their backs while sending them to fight against an enemy that has no such rules.

The Pentagon does not want you to read about a system in which young soldiers are court-martialed, kicked out of the service, or even imprisoned, while enemy spies who kill Americans are set free.

Dog Company tells the story of one Army units tragic experience with all those evils. But Dog Company, a unit of the famed 101st Airborne, is not alone. Her story is being replayed again and again in a lawyered-up war in which, the enemy leverages our rules of engagement by blending into the local population while our warriors, operating in a combat environment, are held not just to the laws of armed conflict but to unprecedented standards of criminal law. Senior civilian and uniformed leaders allow our soldiers and Marines to be tried and convicted for war crimes when, in bygone eras, their actions, motivated by the desire to protect their mates, would have been viewed as collateral damage in the fog of war.

The military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is the next assignment for these young Americans, whose battlefield judgment is second-guessed by lawyers who have never been under fire, and a military-diplomatic mindset that elevates enemy lives over American lives.

As you read this, one young officer is serving a nineteen-year sentence at Leavenworth. His crime? He ordered his soldiers to fire on three riders who were speeding toward his platoon on a single motorcycle. The officer was convicted of murder and attempted murder, though it later came to light that the assailants were registered in U.S. databases as known enemy fightersa fact the prosecution failed to disclose. The case is now on appeal.

Dog Company exposes such systematic persecution of Americas soldiers and Marines, nearly powerless against a system bent on labeling them for the rest of their lives, all in the name of placating enemy actors who have sworn to eradicate the United States in the name of tribe and jihad.

Thats the story the military doesnt want you to read.

We, the authors, used to work for the Department of Defense (DoD). Roger Hill served more than ten years in the Army. Lynn Vincent served eight years in the Navy. Lynn held a Secret security clearance while on active duty; Roger held a Top Secret clearance.