Michael Yon’s “Moment of Truth in Iraq”

by Austin Bay
May 6, 2008

Michael Yon is one of those unusual Americans who emerge in wartime to do the jobs that need to be done. The job he is doing is covering combat in Iraq at the gritty, confusing and valiant level of close combat, and doing so with honesty, passion and professional expertise. His new book, “Moment of Truth in Iraq,” testifies to that.

The paragraph above (read the entire article here) is the lead-in to a fairly brief article by the great Austin Bay and found on the Strategy Page, about the equally great Michael Yon. After reading Bay’s entire piece, the last 350 words of which raised the hairs on my arms, I knew I had to buy this book for my three Army sons, my oldest and literal right arm and for myself.

Please read part of an editorial review from Amazon.com:

Never underestimate the American soldier. That’s the moral of former Green Beret Michael Yon’s brilliant battle-by-battle, block-by-block tale of how America’s new `greatest generation’ of soldiers is turning defeat and disaster into victory and hope in Iraq.

The American soldier is the reason General David Petraeus’s brilliant strategy of moving our soldiers off isolated bases and out among the Iraqi people is working. Working to find and kill terrorists, reclaim neighborhoods, and help lead Iraq to democracy.

Yon is no cheerleader. According to the New York Times, he has logged more time in combat situations in Iraq than any other reporter. When failed American leadership was driving Iraq into chaos and civil war, nobody told the story earlier or better than Michael Yon. The top brass was so mad that twice the U.S. military denied him access to Iraq.

And from Amazon.com part of a comment by the book publisher of Michael Yon’s book:

I HAVE NEVER BEEN PROUDER TO PUBLISH A BOOK

Michael Yon changed my mind about the war in Iraq, by making me understand it for the first time.

From the very beginning I was against the war. I thought it would be a disaster, another Vietnam. And until I had the privilege of working on this book with Michael I was always for immediate pull-out: why should one more American die for a doomed effort?

Michael–who is as close to totally non-political as anyone I know–showed me two things. First, because I judged by Vietnam, the war of my youth, I had radically underestimated what American soldiers could do. I knew they could blow away any regular opponent on any battlefield. But wage a counterinsurgency against an enemy with broad support in the population? Win the “hearts and minds,” to use the Vietnam era phrase that now can be used only ironically? That was asking too much, I thought.

So what are you waiting for? Click on the link HERE to buy Michael Yon’s book now!