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MILITARY
BOOKS
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Michael Whitehead
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Colonel Michael Whitehead, USA
(ret.) “an Army Reservist, flew into Iraq to began a ten-month tour of duty that gave him an eyewitness view of the
opening year of the war. Over the course of his deployment, he visited all of the major Iraqi cities from Basra to Baghdad
and lived in a palace overlooking the historic ruins of Babylon. He chronicled his experiences and e-mailed them home to family
and friends, providing accounts that were so genuine and engaging that ultimately his messages from Babylon were forwarded
to interested readers across the country. Read accounts of his dealings with the Marines, the 29 nation Multi-national Division,
KBR contractors, and Blackwater. This email diary is a vivid memoir of the first year of the Iraq war,
and an attempt to explain to family and friends the unique and unusual events that he was experiencing.” Colonel Michael
Whitehead is the author of Messages from Babylon.
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W. H. McDonald Jr. of the The American
Author Association said of Messages from Babylon, “Colonel Michael Whitehead authored an insightful
book on our current situation in Iraq called "Messages from Babylon". It reads like you are receiving his emails
messages from the Iraq battle front. The Colonel takes his readers through his 10 month long tour of duty from the outbreak
of the war.
Whitehead recently retired from a 30
year career in the Army Reserve. In all that time never saw any combat - that is up until he was 49 years old. Then he got
orders to deploy overseas on an assignment in a supporting roll for a Marine unit as their Civil Affairs Officer. This allowed
him a real insider's view of what was going on and where.
He chronicles his daily life, his thoughts
and his observations through his almost daily emails; thus we are able to feel the fresh emotions and telling of the events
as if they had just happened. We learn all kinds of little trivia like having the medical evacuations going up as soon as
units got extension orders for another six months tour of duty. The information is newsy and informative and gives a broad
picture of what was happening.
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Whitehead gives us a causal look at
his personal tour and what he saw but more importantly we get lots of candid comments about what he was thinking at that time.
Unlike war memoirs from WWII or Vietnam the information seems clean of what we refer to as enhancements from lack of memory
or a creative retelling over time and few beers. So what he writes seems as fresh as the day it happened.
Easy to read and assimilate and surprisingly
entertaining. I think any solider or Marine going to Iraq might benefit from the reading of this book. The writing is clear
and clean so it is family friendly. Put this on your personal list of books to read!”
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