Watch me discuss the book “Rage Company,” a Marine’s perspective of the Surge and the awakening of Sunni tribes that changed the tide in Iraq’s Anbar province. I’d also like to offer a special thanks to Sgt. Martin T. Bustamante Jr. for the combat footage.
Rage Company: A Marine’s Baptism by Fire
By Thomas P. Daly
Foreword by Bing West
April 2010
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Bing West, USMC (Ret), from his foreword to Rage Company:
“So vivid are his descriptions that the reader can sense the tipping point and can anticipate that al Qaeda in Iraq will strike back savagely. What a tale Daly tells! You won’t read this in textbook theories about counterinsurgency.”
Nathaniel Fick, author of the New York Times bestseller, One Bullet Away:
“Rage Company will stand apart from the many Iraq memoirs and histories already published.”
T. X. Hammes, Colonel, USMC (Ret) author of The Sling and the Stone:
“Tom Daly captures the uncertainty, chaos, fog and friction inherent in all combat…In particular, he provides an inside, street-level look at the emergence of the Anbar Awakening… Definitely belongs on the bookshelves of professionals.”
A Sobering Reminder
CNN announced that Gunmen killed 25 people in an Iraqi village.
I was on the ground in Ramadi during the Awakening, when Taliban “hotbeds” were turned around by Sons of Iraq. It was this unlikely alliance between Sunni nationalists and coalition troops that redirected the war. Yet here we are, three years later, and the “scouts” continue to be targeted.
We risk an al Qaeda resurgence if these “Sons of Iraq” are eliminated.
My first meeting with scouts that were members of Sons of Iraq marks the point when the battle turned around. The tide changed, and instead of the Iraqi civilians standing by as Americans were attacked ever day, the civilians joined us in the battle to make their homes safer for everyone.
We need to make sure that these scouts and their families are protected.