Customer Reviews

McCoy's Marines: Darkside To Baghdad

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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!!.

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.

This is not just a view of the BC...the entire battalion shines. Loved this view of a grunt battalion!

The Iraq war was easily the most reported, most televised war in our history. But I find that you don't really know what happened until the books come out. This book is a perfect example. This is the story of the 3rd battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment - the Three-Four Marines - and their march from Kuwait to downtown Baghdad.

The author was embedded with the Three-Four during the war. More important, however, the author had been a marine himself. He understood what the grunts were going through, he also understood what the leaders, especially Lt. Col. McCoy was doing.

More than a story of combat, this is a story of leadership in action. McCoy leads from the front, inspires his men, all the things that the talk about, but he seems to do it naturally. It's also a story of the author learning a lot about himself by examining his own thoughts and feelings about the war.

This is one of those books that you just have to be glad was written.

I disagree with the previous reviewer, Barth. McCoy's Marines isn't about the author, Koopman, wanting to be the main hero. This is about a former Marine going to war as a journalist and everything experienced along the way.

The author writes about Col. McCoy. But because Koopman was also involved in the events described, he has to write about his experiences, too. This is nonfiction storytelling, not an egomaniac's version of war.

Anyone thinking poorly of Koopman for including those letters is wrong. Including the families' letters is a tribute to the families and those they love.

This is a solid, if dated, account of the Iraq invasion of 2003. Like many of the books that came out in the 2003-2005 timeframe, many observations have been overtaken by events. The invasion itself is barely a first chapter in the now 8-year-old war.

This book's value is for an upclose account of an embedded journalist doing his job. Even though it's titled "McCoy's Marines," it's not really the story of the Marine commander, or even his Marines. They are important 'characters,' of course, but this story is a closer look at John Koopman's daily life. He intercuts the narrative with letters sent him by newspaper readers at home, and focuses on his worries for his own family. Of course, those feelings were experienced by any soldier, so Koopman can 'stand in' for everyone, by relating what he was feeling.

The biggest flaw is just not enough Marines. He talks to the commander, McCoy, and the battalion's top NCO, but not enough of the young guys actually doing the fighting. Of course, the commander is going to have positive, upbeat things to say - and so would the junior Marines. But I think the junior guys would be a little more honest, and give a truer feel for what the 'average' man felt. 'Generation Kill' is a better example of this - though maybe it goes too far the other way, in presenting the Marines as combat junkies.

It's a good story, though not one that adds much to our knowledge about Iraq. Read it more for a look at what an embedded journalist might go through, rather than a story of Marines or soldiers.

"McCoy's Marines: Darkside to Baghdad", by John Koopman, is the story of a former Marine, turned journalist, who was an embedded journalist during the initial liberation of Iraq in 2003. This book follows his personal experiences as he prepared for, and deployed with the third battalion, fourth Marines.

The book opens with Koopman reminiscing about his time as a Marine, and how he got he got his beginnings in journalism. With his background, it was only natural that he would want to be an embedded journalist when the opportunity arose in 2002.

During the initial preparations for deployment, Koopman traveled from San Franscisco to Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twenty-nine Palms. It was here that he formed the initial friendships with Lt Col Bryan McCoy, whose radio moniker `Darkside' is the basis for the sub-title for the book, and with Command Sergeant Major Dave Howell. It was these two friendships that permitted his access to many of the opportunities presented later in the book.

As the unit traveled through Iraq, the story centers around Koopman and his perceptions of the Marines. He makes numerous references to articles published in the San Francisco Chronicle, however none of these newspaper articles appear in the book. As Koopman writes about his experiences, he intersperses many of the personal emails received from his readers back home. These interruptions in the flow of the book are an incredibly profound way of experiencing modern combat - you are thrown into a physically and emotionally draining combat event, and are reminded of the mundane events of your families back home. During World War II, soldiers and Marines had to wait weeks or months to hear from family members. With modern communications, combatants are faced with the psychological shock of having to rapidly switch gears from the unnatural experience of having bullets and RPGs flying at you; and then a few hours later participating in a VTC telling your child "Daddy, loves you". Although he does not mention this kind of experience in the book, Koopman's presentation style creatively represents this modern twist on combat.

In this 2009 paperback reprint of the book originally published in 2005, Koopman writes a few additional chapters on what has happened to both Iraq and some of the Marines. It is really Koopman's story, vice the story of the Marines of 3/4. It mentions the combat actions, but it is told from a third-person perspective, and then only briefly. Koopman seems to write only about the six fatalities and Sergeant Major Howell, and Lt Col McCoy. There were very few other personal perspectives offered in the book. Despite the book's narrow focus, it was very interesting and very well-written.

Although the information related to the Marines is interesting, Mr. Koopman wanted this book to be about himself.

I'm sure his family would be interested in his emotions and thoughts during the war, but the reader is not. In addition, while the letters from service members families are important to them, it makes the reader feel that John wants the world to know how much of a hero he is to so many.

His personal use of expletives is unnecessary and seems like he is trying to hard to be a tough-guy, not a geeky journalist.

Overall, I would recommend the book for a quick read, skimming over the author's self preoccupation and learning what the 3/4 saw and did.

McCoy's Marine's is a first-hand account of going into Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as told through the eyes of an embedded journalist and Marine. It tells the story of McCoy and his brave team, the 4th Battalion/5th Marines, who led the way into Baghdad.

This book gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of our troops on the front lines. It includes both triumphs, tragedies, mistakes and some unintended consequences of the war. It also tells of the difficulties of trying to determine friend from foe while being forced to make split-second decisions in the heat of battle.

The book also shares some personal e-mails from family and friends back home trying desperately to connect with their loved ones overseas. The reader gets a taste of what some family members were feeling as well.

I gained a greater appreciation for the physical, emotional and mental challenges our troops face during deployment and the silent, secret scars they must bear for the rest of their lives, upon returning home.

It was a great read and I highly recommend it. May God bless all the men and women of our armed forces!