Rage Company: A Marine's Baptism By Fire
In many ways, it could be any residentialurban area in America—if you patched up the bullet-riddled concrete walls and replaced the towering minarets with church steeples. For the Marines of Rage Company on their first patrol as part of Operation Squeeze Play, every step down the quiet, narrow streets of Ramadi brings them one step closer to apotential death trap.As the first scene in Rage Company explodes into frantic and harrowing action, it is clear that Captain Thomas Daly's memoir of the first six months of the Surge in Iraq is a taut, crisply written chronicle of bitter and ferociousmilitary action, yet it is also much more than that. In their effort to help clear al Qaeda from Anbar Province, Daly and his fellow Marines would learn that counterinsurgency required them to stretch beyond their training as efficient and deadly warriors. They would have to become diplomats, goodwill ambassadors, toughnegotiators, and shrewd judges of character. All this while remaining constantly vigilant and ready to spring into action on a moment's notice. These skills were in great demand at the outset of what became known as the Sunni Awakening, the uprising of local citizens against al Qaeda. Daly describes the tensemoment when, leading a small convoy to make contact with unarmed former Iraqi soldiers, he discovers that the group iswell armed, primed for a fight, and led by a general who expects to be treated with full military courtesy.During the Surge, Rage Company operated in conjunction with units of the United States Army, Navy SEALs, ANGLICO (Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company), Iraqi Army and Police Units, and anti-Al Qaeda guerrillas. This multilayered experience gives Captain Daly a unique perspective from which to tell a story in which it is sometimes more difficult to wring cooperation from other American military units than from former enemies who want to free their country but have no basis on which to trust the American forces to help them succeed.Filled with on-the-ground details and insightson military operations and strategy, Rage Company provides a powerful, street-level view of one of the great surprises of the Surge, an unlikely alliance that redirected the Iraq War and set the course for operations in the future.