Frank Carlson Library

"It's the rule--always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine's...

Mesopotamia was the first place in which man created and sustained an urban, literate, technologically sophisticated society. Tracing the rise of Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian cultures from 5,000 B.C. to the Neo-Babylonian empire of Nebuchadrezzar II, the author supports Mesopotamia's claim to the role of "cradle" of civilization.

"Hunting Down Saddam contains up-to-the-minute-material and provides never-before-heard accounts of the triumphs and frustrations, strategies and attacks, of those who put their lives at risk to track down Saddam Hussein." "This book tells the whole story of the pursuit of Saddam, from prewar to his capture; it gives candid accounts straight from the soldiers on the frontline, which have not been sanitized or filtered through the media, the military,...

"At night, in Huda's fragrant garden, a breeze sweeps in from the desert encircling Baghdad, rustling the leaves of her apricot trees and carrying warning of visitors at her gate. Huda, a secretary at the Australian embassy, lives in fear of the mukhabarat--the secret police who watch and listen for any scrap of information that can be used against America and its allies. They have ordered her to befriend Ally Wilson, the deputy ambassador's wife....

"Serving as a chaplain to U.S. Marines, Lieutenant Carey Cash had witnessed the miracles that began months earlier with a spiritual revival in the desert of Northern Kuwait, culminating April 10, 2003, in one of the fiercest battles of Operation Iraqi Freedom. With vivid detail and gripping emotion, Lieutenant Cash gives a firsthand account of this amazing story--how the men of an entire battalion found God in the presence of their enemies"--Provided...

Describes the palaces, temples, and houses of Mesopotamia, including Ur, Babylonia, Sumer, and Assyria, as they must have been according to the evidence unearthed by archaeologists.

"From a MacArthur Fellow and the author of The Good Soldiers, a profound look at life after war No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel shadowed the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they carried out the infamous surge, a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed all of them forever. Now Finkel has followed many of...

The true story of Ephraim Mattos, a former US Navy SEAL, and what he witnessed while volunteering as a frontline combat medic for the Free Burma Rangers during the battle to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS.

Nineteen-year-old Billy Lynn is brought home for a victory tour after a harrowing Iraq battle. Through flashbacks the film shows what really happened to his squad, contrasting the realities of war with America's perceptions.

When Marines enter an abandoned house in Fallujah, Iraq, and hear a suspicious noise, they clench their weapons, edge around the corner, and prepare to open fire. What they find during the U.S.—led attack on the "most dangerous city on Earth" in late 2004, however, is not an insurgent but a puppy left behind when most of the city's residents fled. Despite military law forbidding pets, the Marines de-flea the pup with kerosene, de-worm him with chewing...