From Publishers Weekly
Veteran war correspondent Schultheis (
Night Letters: Inside Wartime Afghanistan) spent six months in Iraq with an Army Civil Affairs Team, a highly trained, elite unit whose primary objective is rebuilding war-torn regions. Despite the overwhelming need for such soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the army has only a single active-duty Civil Affairs Battalion, and the overwhelming majority of the 5,000 Civil Affairs soldiers are in the army reserves. The dedicated professionals of Civil Affairs Team A-13 featured here are a disparate group of civilian soldiers. Led by a former Special Forces major, the team includes an ex–Peace Corps volunteer, a California surfer girl, a former Marine sniper with a heart of gold and "Fat Larry," an accountant from middle America. Civil Affairs soldiers never initiate combat, but it finds them often enough. As they go about rebuilding schools, repairing sewers and setting up mobile walk-in medical clinics, they also must dodge roadside bombs, snipers and mortars. Schultheis quickly bonds with Team A-13 and celebrates their small victories against difficult odds in a surreal environment, delivering warm character studies and tense highway encounters. And he ends up making a terrific case for a full update of the Marshall Plan.
(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
Gripping, on-the-ground reportage of Special Operations soldiers struggling to rebuild a shattered neighborhood in Baghdad The U.S. Army Civil Affairs Corps has a unique role within the modern military: these elite, highly trained soldiers are sent to combat zones after the primary fighting has ended to help rebuild war-ravaged regions. Working among the local population in seven- member teams, unprotected by other US forces, they work to restore power grids and sewer lines, get hospitals and schools up and running, and bring order to devastated lands while winning the hearts and minds of a conquered people. Today, these unheralded Civil Affairs soldiers are being tested as never before in the streets and villages of Iraqwhere the future of the nation could be decided by whether or not they succeed.
In Waging Peace, veteran war correspondent Rob Schultheis takes you into West Baghdad with Civil Affairs Team A-13 as they face death threats, ambushes, and roadside bombs while struggling to revitalize a neighborhood scarred by battle and three decades of corruption and neglect under Saddam Husseins tyrannical rule. Along the way he brings to life the unforgettable men and women of CAT-A13: a former Peace Corps volunteer whose taste for the exotic local cuisine leads to surprising alliances with the local shopkeepers; a southern California surfer girl turned language specialist who helps launch an Islamic womens center; and a crusty ex-Marine Corps sniper whose irascible exterior masks a devotion to the suffering children of Baghdad. And leading the team is ex-Green Beret Major Mark Clark, who is equally deft at outwitting insurgents and battling bureaucrats to help the local Iraqis rebuild their lives and ensure his soldiers made it home safely when the mission is complete.
A rare and poignant portrait of what is really happening in Iraq based on an unprecedented six months of intense reporting, Waging Peace finds the street- level reality of todays Baghdad that is too often hidden beneath the headlines and sound bites.
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