McCoy's Marines: Darkside To Baghdad [Hardcover]

John Koopman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 3, 2005

They were the soldiers who pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein — the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, led by Lt. Col. Bryan P. McCoy (radio call sign: Darkside). And this is the story of their war, seen from the inside by the reporter they called Paperboy. From the build-up in Kuwait to the first push into Basra, from the briefings to the heat of battles planned or stumbled upon, San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Koopman captures the war in Iraq as it was lived, fought, and felt — the nitty-gritty as well as the guts-and-glory of it — and as he saw it firsthand from Darkside’s humvee or riding with the sergeant major (the Marine infantry battalion’s "most feared, respected, loved, and hated man"). A former service Marine himself, Koopman was seeing combat for the first time, too. His account, part memoir, part biography, part battle history, encompasses all the bravery and fear, camaraderie, excitement, humor, and sorrow experienced on the shifting front line of America’s war in Iraq. In spring of 2004, author Koopman returned to Iraq and reunited with McCoy’s Marines following their return to Iraq and the new insurgent war. This "rest of the story" makes for a fascinating epilogue.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

San Francisco Chronicle reporter and marine veteran Koopman was embedded in the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines, during the most recent war in Iraq. He enjoyed a close working relationship with the CO, the battalion sergeant major, and several other members of the battalion. This didn't destroy his ability to distance himself from aspects of the military that he never liked, or from political judgments on the war. The combination of embedding and prior service did give him a rare perspective on the gritty (literally, when a sandstorm blew up) details of ground combat in Iraq and how the modern American marine relates to his buddies, his enemies, and his family back home. The conclusion of the book offers equally rare material on the nation-building efforts that continue, with sympathy for both the U.S. military and most shades of Iraqi opinion. Koopman occasionally dwells on his own emotions at excessive length, and the book is sometimes jumbled; but one keeps turning pages. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005

“If McCoy himself were the reviewer, I imagine he would judge this book faithful to the guidance he gave Koopman before the war.”

Los Angeles Times, Sept. 25, 2005

“In McCoy’s Marines: Darkside to Baghdad, San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Koopman inserts himself into the story, and much of the book is his account of the problems, joys and fears of being an embedded reporter during the Baghdad assault in 2003. Koopman, a former Marine, had either the good luck or foresight to attach himself to one of the Marine Corps’ go-for-broke characters: then-Lt. Col. Bryan McCoy, whose radio call sign was ‘Darkside.’ It was his battalion that fought in Al Cut and then toppled Hussein’s statue in Baghdad; not for nothing is he known by other Marines as ‘Killer’ McCoy.”

Follow Me (Second Marine Division newsletter), September 2005

“War, death, pathos, personal sacrifice, courage, bravery, leadership, charisma, history…these are but a few of the issues Koopman addresses in his gripping true account of ‘McCoy’s Marines’ in Iraq”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Zenith Press; 1st edition (March 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760320888
• ISBN-13: 978-0760320884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,410,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Koopman's War, June 25, 2005

By 

Keith Kopets - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McCoy's Marines: Darkside To Baghdad (Hardcover)

By Major Keith F. Kopets, USMC

Sometimes, you can't judge a book by its cover. This is one of those cases. LtCol Bryan P. McCoy and the Marines of 3d Battalion, 4th Marines provide most of the material for this book, yes, but McCoy's Marines is not really about them. It is, essentially, one part memoir, three parts combat report, refracted through the lens of author John Koopman. He was on a mission to cover the war in Iraq for the San Francisco Chronicle. He met the battalion in February 2003 at Camp Ripper, Kuwait, and stayed with them north into Iraq, all the way to Firdous Square, Baghdad.

Censure was not a problem for Koopman. "I don't expect you to be a cheerleader for the Marines," McCoy told him. "That's not your job. Just be fair and accurate, that's all I ask. If we screw something up, I expect you to write about it. If it's something that needs to be fixed, a story will speed things up."

Koopman got along well with the men in the battalion. He had been a Marine himself in the late 1970s, reporting to Parris Island after high school in 1976. He was 17 years old, from a small town in Nebraska. "I was pretty naïve back then," Koopman remembers. He finished his enlistment a 21-year old sergeant at Camp Lejeune. He met his wife, Isabel, on liberty in Spain during his last deployment.

He left her and their eight-year-old son in San Francisco to report on the war. Koopman, like the Marines he covered in Iraq, felt the sting of separation. "I called home," Koopman says, on his satellite phone from Iraq:

"Isabel cried when she heard my voice. I couldn't understand it at the time. But that's how it works. When you're at home, thinking about the war or anything you've not actually experienced, the not knowing is what kills you. When you're there, and you can touch and feel the dirt, and see other people, and understand the risk and threat, it's not so bad."

That's immediacy. If you served in Iraq, you know what Koopman felt like; if you were back home with a friend or loved one in the war, you know what Koopman's wife was feeling. The family separation was another bond Koopman shared with the men of 3/4. "What I came to look forward to in the war," Koopman writes, was "the look on a Marine's face when I handed him the handset and told him to call his mom."

Koopman does not wear the reader down with metaphor or political abstraction. His writing is linear, direct, and without pretension. "The Marines went in heavy," he writes, for example. "That's their way. Nothing subtle about them. Walk in with a gun in your hand and start asking questions." At times, Koopman is profane; at times, he is funny. He is never boring. But he reminds you, though, more often than he should, that he is a journalist writing his first book. The sentence fragments are the give-away. You have to bear with them.

When it comes down to it, Koopman is faithful to what he saw and what he felt. His view of 3/4 and the war may have been through a soda straw, but the book works because he stays in his lane. He is less concerned with the larger picture or making sense out of the war than he is in simply setting to print his own observations. In his conclusion, he writes, "People ask me my opinion all the time. They think because I was in Iraq a couple of times that I have some knowledge, some answers. But I know nothing."

If McCoy himself were the reviewer, I imagine he would judge this book faithful to the guidance he gave Koopman before the war. He would probably censure Koopman, though, for the hagiographic inference of the title. But Koopman, I think, would dig in and defend. He would say that 3/4, as he saw it from the outside looking in, was a battalion that took on the personality of its commander.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just another reporter looking for a couple bucks, July 28, 2005

By 

M. Atkinson "Strangelove" (everywheresville,US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: McCoy's Marines: Darkside To Baghdad (Hardcover)

This book is horrible. Skip it. just get 'Generation Kill' instead.

John Koopman is right. He is no reporter as he states early in this rushed, hackneyed attempt at storytelling. Full of typos, I wonder if anyone really did proofread it.

Also, the actual reporting of action doesn't even begin until page 111. The previous 110 pages of drivel are Koopman's life. Trust me, 5 pages would have sufficed.

Poorly written, slow, and written a jarring short-sentence style, I will soon be listing it for sale here while it's still in hardback.

AVOID!!.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid reporting but a bit narrow, September 22, 2005

By 

Steve Collins (North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: McCoy's Marines: Darkside To Baghdad (Hardcover)

Writing was good but I found some typos. Wasn't much of a story here, actually, and that surprised me. Not about the battalion commander so the title misleads. It's good...but not the best around. Wanted more action, to be frank.