Generation Kill
The true story of Bravo Company in Iraq – Marines who deal in bullets, bombs and ultraviolence
Another nameless town, another target for First Recon. It’s only five in the afternoon, but a sandstorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town’s sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq ...
First Recon are the special forces of the US Marine Corps, a lean, mean fighting machine trained to perfection and spoiling for action. This is their story as they spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq – a story of extreme bravery, borderline lunacy, touching camaraderie and breathtaking violence on the road to Baghdad.
First Recon’s thankless task is to race ahead of the main coalition forces to spring enemy ambushes, earning them the nickname «First Suicide Battalion». Generation Kill allows an intimate look at how people fighting in war actually experience it, as the voices of soldiers on the front line are heard for the first time.
Evan Wright is a contributing editor on Rolling Stone magazine. He spent two months living with a platoon of Marine reconnaissance soldiers during the war in Iraq.
Contents
- Title: Generation Kill
Living dangerously on the road to Baghdad with the ultraviolent Marines of Bravo Company - Period: 2003 Invasion of Iraq
- Type: War Reporting
- Author: Evan Wright
- Format: 448-page paperback with 33 photos and 2 maps
- Language: English
- Publisher: Corgi Books, London, England
- ISBN: 0-552-15189-0
- Published: 2004
Evan Wright accompanied Second Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Marine Recon Battalion on their daring ride from Camp Mathilda in Kuwait, via Safwan, Nasiriyah, Al Gharraf, Ar Rifa, Qala Suhar, Al Muwaffaqiyah, Al Kut, Al Hayy, An Numaniyah, Sarabadi, Salman Pak, and Baqubah, to Baghdad, and Ad Diwaniyah. Unlike anything they had trained for, these Marine special warfare soldiers rode point for Coalition Forces in flimsy Humvees scrounged from motor pools and scrap yards in the USA, and hastily put into working condition prior to their departure for Kuwait. Under the previously untried manœuvre warfare doctrine they were tasked to drive into and through known ambush sites, clear them, and ride on.