The Ragged Edge
A US Marine’s Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion
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Narrated by:
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John Pruden
About this listen
At a time when the United States debates how deeply to involve itself in Iraq and Syria, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea, USMC (Ret.), holds a unique vantage point on our still-ongoing war.
Deployed to Iraq in March 2004, his team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi army battalion trained by the US military. Zacchea tells a deeply personal and powerful story while shedding light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents.
The Ragged Edge is the first American military memoir out of Iraq or Syria that features complex Arab and Kurdish characters and that intimately explores their culture and politics in a dispassionate way. Zacchea's invaluable lessons about Americans working with Arabs and Kurds to fight insurgency and terrorism come precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any time in US history.
©2017 Michael Zacchea and Ted Kemp (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Now Coughlin has written a highly personal story about his deadly craft, taking readers deep inside an invisible society that is off-limits to outsiders. This is not a heroic battlefield memoir but the careful study of an exceptional man who must keep his sanity while carrying forward one of the deadliest legacies in the U.S. military today.
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Great...if you want another book about Iraq.
- By Anonymous User on 11-09-05
By: Jack Coughlin, and others
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The Long Road Home
- A Story of War and Family
- By: Martha Raddatz
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In April 2004, soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division were on a routine patrol in Sadr City, Iraq, when they came under surprise attack. Eight Americans would be killed and more than 70 wounded. Back home, as news of the attack began filtering in, the families of these same men feared the worst. This intimate portrait of the close-knit community of families Stateside, the unsung heroes of the military, distinguishes The Long Road Home from other stories of modern warfare.
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Narrator spoils this one
- By Anonymous User on 12-09-07
By: Martha Raddatz
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Echo in Ramadi
- The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City
- By: Scott A. Huesing
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.
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Combat is Combat
- By Anonymous User on 05-21-18
By: Scott A. Huesing
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The Only Thing Worth Dying For
- How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan
- By: Eric Blehm
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The Only Thing Worth Dying For chronicles the most important mission in the early days of the Global War on Terror, when the men on the ground knew little about the enemy - and their commanders in Washington knew even less. With unprecedented access to surviving members of ODA 574, key war planners, and Karzai himself, award-winning author Eric Blehm cuts through the noise of politicians and high-level military officials to narrate, for the first time, a story of uncommon bravery and terrible sacrifice.
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Ending is..... can't even put a word to it.
- By Anonymous User on 04-18-15
By: Eric Blehm
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Black Hearts
- One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death
- By: Jim Frederick
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment - a unit known as the Black Heart Brigade. Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq's so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country's most dangerous location at its most dangerous time.
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Sadness
- By Anonymous User on 04-02-19
By: Jim Frederick
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A Desert Called Peace
- Carrera, Book 1
- By: Tom Kratman
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 26 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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He raised an army against those who took everything from him. They should have picked their enemies more carefully. Five centuries from now, on a remarkably Earthlike planet that is mankind's sole colony in space, religious fanatics called the "Salafi Ikhwan" have murdered the uncle of former colonel Patrick Hennessey. That was their first mistake, because uncle was rich and Hennessey was rather a good colonel. But they also murdered Hennessey's wife, Linda, and their three small children, and that was their worst mistake for she was the only restraint Hennessey had ever accepted.
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The description is better than the execution
- By Anonymous User on 02-21-14
By: Tom Kratman
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Generation Kill
- By: Evan Wright
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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They were called a generation without heroes. Then they were called upon to be heroes. Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam.
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Politically Neutral??.....Not.
- By Anonymous User on 11-26-12
By: Evan Wright
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The Guerrilla Factory
- The Making of Special Forces Officers, the Green Berets
- By: Tony Schwalm
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The Navy has the SEALS, and the Army has the Green Berets. They are masters of asymmetrical warfare, trained to immerse themselves in hostile territory, sleeping near their enemies and building relationships with people who may want to kill them. Retired lieutenant colonel Tony Schwalm knows this group well, because he is one of them and he trained them. In The Guerrilla Factory, he provides an unbelievably gripping inside look into the grueling training that every army officer must endure to become one of America's elite Green Berets.
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Great Book for Future Officers or Enlisted
- By Anonymous User on 01-12-16
By: Tony Schwalm
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The Fighting 69th
- By: Sean Michael Flynn
- Narrated by: Erik Steele
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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On the eve of September 11, 2001, New York City's famous National Guard regiment, the fighting 69th Infantry, was not fit for duty. Most of its soldiers were immigrant kids with no prior military experience, and their equipment was derelict. The thought of deploying such a unit was laughable. Sean Flynn, himself a member of the 69th, memorably chronicles the transformation of this motley band of amateur soldiers into a battle-hardened troop at work in one of the most lethal quarters of Baghdad.
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Impressive and inspiring
- By Anonymous User on 02-23-08
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The Silence of War
- An Old Marine in a Young Marine's War
- By: Terry McGowan, Bill O'Reilly - foreword
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Terry McGowan had been a beat cop, a marine captain, and a special agent for the FBI before retiring at the age of 50. But when tragedy struck the United States on September 11, 2001, Terry felt an undiminished sense of duty to protect and serve his country. Six years later he was in Iraq as a member of a team of high-ranking retired and active-duty military working for the highest level of marine military intelligence. His success in Iraq led to a position as a law enforcement professional with the marines in Afghanistan.
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Respectful, Heartfelt, but Writing is Dry
- By Anonymous User on 09-04-16
By: Terry McGowan, and others
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The Fighters
- By: C. J. Chivers
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost 2.5 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001. C.J. Chivers has reported from both fronts from the beginning, walking side by side with combatants for more than a dozen years. He describes the experience of war today as it is endured by those most at risk - the camaraderie and profound sense of purpose, alongside courage, frustration, and moral confusion mixed with technical precision. In these remote places where the reason for their presence is sometimes not clear, these young men kill or are killed, facing palpable and often constant threat of ambush or hidden bombs....
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a very human perspective...
- By Anonymous User on 08-22-18
By: C. J. Chivers
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Back in the Fight
- The Explosive Memoir of a Special Operator Who Never Gave Up
- By: Joseph Kapacziewski, Charles W. Sasser
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller, Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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On October 3, 2005, Kapacziewski and his soldiers were coming to the end of their tour in Northern Iraq when their convoy was attacked by enemy fighters. A grenade fell through the gunner’s hatch and exploded, shattering Kapacziewski’s right leg below the knee, damaging his right hip, and severing a nerve and artery in his right arm. He endured more than forty surgeries, but his right leg still wasn’t healing as he had hoped, so in March 2007, Kapacziewski chose to have it amputated.
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A true hero.
- By Anonymous User on 01-28-21
By: Joseph Kapacziewski, and others
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Two Wars
- One Hero's Fight on Two Fronts: Abroad and Within
- By: Nate Self
- Narrated by: Nate Self
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time, Army Ranger hero Nate Self tells his story. Self recounts the Roberts Ridge Rescue mission, the ferocious battles in Afghanistan, and the lone war of attrition that Nate Self has waged against post-traumatic stress disorder. This audio will become a go-to work for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate Self opens up his whole life - tragedies, successes, failures, and a struggle with suicidal thoughts - to share the facts.
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Story of a Young Warrior
- By Anonymous User on 09-15-24
By: Nate Self