Table of Contents
Author's Note xi
An Infantry Primer xiii
Prologue 1
October 1991
Book I Homeland Defense: March 2001-February 2004
1 Weekend Warriors 11
Saint Patrick's Day 2001
Failure to Launch
Missionaries, Mercenaries, and Misfits
2 Minutemen 32
A New Paradigm
Beirut-on-Hudson
3 The Strategic Reserve 51
Not Ready for Prime Time
The Roughnecks
4 Preemption 69
Parking Lot Heroes
Saint Patrick's Day 2002
The Bridge-and-Tunnel Group
5 The End of the Whip 88
The Storm Before the Hurricane
Saint Patrick's Day 2003
When Pigs Fly
Book II Operation Iraqi Freedom: March 2004-September 2005
6 When the 69th Comes Back 115
Saint Patrick's Day 2004
Checking the Box
The Blacksheep
General Order Number 1
7 Green in the Desert 141
Reconnaissance
Shithouse Poets
Mach Jesus
8 Taji 158
Task and Purpose
Babes in the Woods
Napalm in the Morning
9 The Rouge Bouquet 178
Framework Operations
The First Kill
The Economy of Force
10 The Infantry 200
Counterinsurgency
Charlie 24
The Heart of Darkness
11 Information Operations 215
Hagar the Horrible
The Most Dangerous Road in the World
12 Route Irish 231
Last Man Standing
Checkpoint 541
Vehicle-Borne Death
Saint Patrick's Day 2005
13 Task Force Wolfhound 250
Fresh Legs
The Trial
Revenge of the Assassins
Iraquization
14 Boots Off the Ground 272
69 Minutes
The Enemy at Home
Afterword: The Operational Reserve 284
Saint Patrick's Day 2006
Afterword to the Paperback Edition 289
Acknowledgments 295
Index 297