West - No true glory: a frontline account of the battle for fallujah

WINNER OF THE VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS NEWS MEDIA AWARD 2005

No True Glory is the gripping account of the valor of the Marines in the fiercest urban combat since Hue. Yet, the evenhanded description of the vacillation regarding policy will likely please neither some of our senior officers nor the White House.

James R. Schlesinger, former Secretary of Defense

This is the face of war as only those who have fought it can describe it.

Senator John McCain

The finest chronicle of the strategy behind battle and the fighting during battle that Ive ever read!

General Carl E. Mundy, former Commandant of the Marine Corps

A remarkably detailed, vivid firsthand account of the American military experience Wests focus is on the front line, putting the reader at the negotiating table with U.S. military commanders and Fallujan sheiks, imams, and rebel leaders; in the barracks; and on the street, fighting hand to hand, house to house, in some of the fiercest battles of the Fallujah campaign and the Iraq war.

Booklist

West describes the fury of the fighting in Fallujah and Ramadi in a style that makes him part historian, part novelistthe grunts Homer.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

West successfully brings the war back home in all its agonizing and illuminating detail. From the combat stories of those on the ground all the way up to the White House, West [is] uniquely placed to write a chronicle of the fight. The narrative truly shines.

Christian Science Monitor

The best writing that I have ever seen on actions at the individual, fire team and squad level a powerful controversial book.

Marine Corps Gazette

Exhaustively reported West paints a picture of highly capable Marines struggling to make the best of untenable political circumstances.

Washington Post Book World

RemarkableNo True Glory offers riveting descriptions of the fighting. West has told the story that these American fighters deserve.

National Review

A classic West has written an insightful account of how high strategy, low politics, and obstructive bureaucracy dictated the bloody fight for Fallujah.

Military.com

NoTrue Gloryis the most immediate, brutal, unsparing, and gripping account of a complex battle situation sinceBlackhawk Down.

Flint Journal

As cerebral as it is grittyNo True Gloryexcels in its vivid, heart-pounding narrative of the hard fighting of Fallujah; its descriptions of the underhanded, innovative and often gutsy combat tactics of an enemy with no uniforms but plenty of discipline; and its recounting of the equally innovative, gutsy, compassionate and brutal actions of the Marines fighting for their lives and fellow leathernecks. With the help of Wests book, Fallujah will likely be remembered as one of the most significant battles of the 21st centuryand as a touchstone battle in Marine Corps history.

Army Times

A gritty tale told by a master reporter.

Sunday Oklahoman

The undisputed power of this book is in the narrative history of the combat. West chronicles the stunning, humbling, and awe-inspiring courage that dominates this battle. [He] honors the soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen of Fallujah by recording their deeds of valor.

Armor Magazine

There is nothing more difficult or costly than house-to-house fighting in a large city (ask the Germans who fought at Stalingrad), but the Marines in a series of small actions, often locally outnumbered pacified the city in record time. The author gives us a moment-by-moment account of many of these small actions and the reader is awed by the remarkable courage displayed.

Washington Times

West takes you inside this very tough battle in such a way that he places the reader in every patrol or raid. While most non-veterans will be amazed at Wests factual accounts of city fighting, the battle-hardened heroes of previous wars will find familiar stories of courage and bravery as the Marines fight to gain the next block.

Leatherneck

West presents the Marines at Fallujah not as automatons, but as flesh-and-blood individuals [and] describes scenes of battle with unerring precision.

Armed Forces Journal

Essential reading for anyone soon to deployNo True Glory puts the reader in command, on patrol, and in the assault. The reader must answer, What would I do?

Naval Institute Proceedings

NO TRUE GLORY
A FRONTLINE ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE FOR FALLUJAH
A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published October 2005
Bantam trade paperback edition / October 2006

Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

All rights reserved
Copyright 2005 by Bing West
Interior Maps by George Ward

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005048199

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-307-80834-9

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

Corporal Daniel Amaya, KIA (Killed In Action)
Corporal Mitch Moorehead, WIA (Wounded In Action)
Lance Corporal Toby Gray, KIA
Corporal Carlos Perez-Gomez, WIA
Corporal Timothy Connors
Lance Corporal Abraham Simpson, KIA

Corporals are the backbone of the infantry.

Supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
Would be able to live on forever, ageless, immortal,
So neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost
nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.
But now, seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us
In their thousands, no man can turn aside nor escape them,
Let us go on and win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others.

Homer, The Iliad

To high officials given glory, from them much is expected.

AbizaidGeneral (four stars) John P. Abizaid, U.S. Army, commanded CentCom, or Central Command, which included all U.S. forces in Iraq. He reported directly to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and spoke directly with President George W. Bush, General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Ambassador Paul Bremer.