This book is terrible!!! Half of the pictures are too dark to see, the rest look like they were drawn with blocks. It is littered with typos. It has speeches by President Bush, but the speech at the beginning of the air war is the wrong one. It also has great lines like "Killed when his tank was hit by a mine". Must be one of those high-tech mines that sees you coming and jumps out of the ground. Don't waste your money!

I was working on a paper on Middle East history and found this book extremely helpful. It packs a slew of information into a few select pages and is loaded with essential facts and figures on the Gulf War. It's not the sort of book you read cover to cover, but is a great reference for finding out specific nuggets of information about the war.

The only errors I've found were in some photo captions, but when I contacted the publisher they said many of those were fixed following the first printing. The publisher noted this was the first military book ever published by Hellgate Press and it was a bit of an adjustment going from editing business "how-to" books to editing military history.

The website also has some good information if you aren't sure you want to buy the book.

After checking out the author's Web site, I decided to buy the book. I was very nicely surprised. The book adds a lot to the information. A nice layout, a good read for anyone who served, anyone who knows anyone who served, for anyone who has an interest in the Gulf and the war of in 1991. My recommendation is, skip the Clancy book and go for this one!

I found Stanton's book as a self-serving promotion of an Army officer who did something stupid and in violation of the current US CENTRAL COMMAND policy and in violation of State Department travel warnings issued weeks before the invasion. Granted as an Army officer also present during the invasion there is no doubt that his two days of observation were interesting but hardly of any strategic value. Two days in the Sheraton and then a human sheild is all very good, and makes a good story for an officer who knowingly entered a country purely for self gain. The books reflects how a individual who has used a circumstance to self promote himself. As any military value is highly questionalbe and not worth the read.
COL FRED HART
FORMER HOSTAGE AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSIES IN KUWAIT AND BAGHDAD AUG 1990-DEC 1990.

Marty Stanton has the ability to spin a fascinating story. Before the first Gulf War, he was assigned to a one of a kind military organization, quite unlike anything which most career soldiers will ever experience. The opportunities that assignment gave him for travel and interaction with the locals, lead to a unique perspective on that period of history. Coupling his rare view of events with his sense of humor, he has used his gift for writing to produce an accurate account of events which is fun and easy to read. Most soldiers never have the opportunity to find themselves in the sort of situations that Stanton writes about. Using plain language that takes you along with him on the adventure of a lifetime, this book is a must for anyone going on an assignment as a military advisor or observer. A good read for anyone interested in history, the military, or life in the Middle East.

Truth really can be stranger than fiction--and better reading, as well. Colonel Stanton's very impressive, highly readable memoir of his extraordinary adventures prior to and during the first Gulf War is a remarkable book--both for its ability to capture the inventive nature and casual courage of our finest military officers and for its ability to tell a thrilling personal story in a way that is neither bragging (too often a fault with first-person accounts) or pretentious. Stanton has the gift of telling a story straight and letting events speak for themselves. His experiences when stranded in Kuwait City during the opening phase of Iraq's invasion--when he kept an open line to U.S. authorities for days and reported directly from the Iraqi headquarters in his hotel--might have made a fine story in themselves, while revealing much about the Iraqi military's hidden weaknesses. His follow-on adventures as a prisoner-of-not-quite-war, absolutely true and corroborated, are better than the stuff of classic adventure novels. And he made it back to friendly lines in time to fight Desert Storm. This is a splendid military tale, well-told, of adventures that rival the great old military narratives from the Middle East, whether of Gordon Pasha, Lawrence or Wingate. And it's enormous fun to read, while making it very clear how we were able to defeat the Iraqis so handily. As this review is written, Colonel Stanton, whom I am privileged to have met as a consequence of my own military service, has served on the ground in our second Iraq war and is now in Baghdad, working on the reconstruction of Iraq. He's a soldier's soldier--and a superb storyteller. This book could not be more timely. The next time you feel the impulse to pick up a fictional thriller, skip it and read Stanton's book. It's more exciting--and it's true. Destined to become a modern military classic!

David Wurmser was one of the authors of the notorious 1996 report: "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" along with, among others, Richard Perle, Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith, and James Colbert, then of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. In this paper, Wurmser, et. al. characterize Saddam Hussein as a weak leader who should be toppled primarily to hand Iraq over to King Hussein of Jordan, to embarrass and weaken Syria for the benefit of Israel. Here is a quote: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq--an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right--as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions. . . . " Imagine my surprise to see Wurmser now making Saddam Hussein the main show--the embodiment of evil in the region. He and his colleagues have been plotting the overthrow of Saddam now for more than seven years. They are willing to lie, cheat and steal to achieve this end. Consequently the sanctimonious hypocrisy in this book is astonishing. If the American public only knew how badly they are being served by Wurmser, Perle, Feith and their ilk, the warmongering in Washington might stop. Their contempt for the public and for human life is truly astonishing.

David Wurmser writes a brilliant treatise on how regional competitions, an unguided foreign/national security bureaucracy and a distracted White House came to make the situation with Iraq an intractable one. His book requires an appreciation for the technical aspects of government and the politics of the interagency process. Withstanding that, the book speaks to these points without daunting or loosing the reader. While contemplating some of the darkest hours in Washington policy making, it is laced with a contagious optimism for the future of a country and it's people subjugated by Hussein. This book is worth every dime.

David Wurmser explains that when dealing with a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein diplomacy, sanctions, and UN pressure are essentially ineffective. Saddam will pursue the development of nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc. at all costs. If it means his people starve and go without medication for sicknesses he will let that happen. Saddam is out to secure his own power in his country and the Middle East and will stop at nothing to do so. Richard Perle is one of the most logical and straight forward experts you will ever find on Iraq. We live in an unfortuante world where military action, violence, and force are sometimes necessary to secure peace and freedom. Many people don't understand that. They think asking for peace will bring peace. It simply does not work that way with dictators like Saddam Hussein. Wurmser points this out and backs it up. If you want to know why it's necessary to remove Saddam with force read this for the answers. People are quick to call men like Perle and Wurmer war mongers but they actaully desire peace as much or more than the people calling them that. However, they are educated enough and have enough vision to see that peace comes at a price when dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein.

Probably the only journalist ever to have interviewed Saddam Hussein while stoned on ecstasy--Roberts, that is, not Hussein!--Roberts paints a chilling portrait of an Iraq thirty or so years into the Hussein regime. The book is very funny in parts, but there's terror behind the canvas that Roberts covers with his amusing anecdotes. I found some of the treatment spotty and some jibes needlessly cruel, but on the whole, an entertaining account.

Earnest idealists and humorless conservatives will never get it. The book is screemingly funny, obviously written by a keen student of the tragiocomic human condition. Roberts does a fine job clubbing us over the head with the absurd realities of third world existance (and making us enjoy it), while never letting us forget the underlying human tragedy. Nothing's sacred here, not history, not his host's English skills, not the press corps, not 300 pound gay secret policeman, not George Bush, and certainly not Saddam Hussein. I particularly enjoyed Roberts' hilarious commentary on Saddam Hussein's official biography, his tripped out interview with the demonic dictator poster boy himself, and the bit where he dared the leader of Islamic Jihad to show him exactly, exactly mind you, where it says in the Koran that Israel must be destroyed. I also loved the eerily plausible conspiracy theory where George Bush orchestrated the invasion of Kuwait. On another level I cannot forget the harrowing descriptions of a clandestine trip into the heart of Bagdad in the midst of the Gulf War bombing. The book had me laughing and at the same time educated me a bit about the history of the region. I liked it immensly, but then I'm more cynical then your average third world dictator.

This is one of the best books I have ever read; it made me laugh out loud, it made me cry, and it gave me a far better understanding of the real situation still faced by Iraq. Dr Roberts is like a cross between PJ O'Rourke, John Bierman and Martin Amis, mixing bizarre first-person narrative with historical perspective in a way I found both highly entertaining and richly informative. By providing the background to the ongoing war against Iraq, Roberts forces us to see a bigger picture -- and it is not a pretty one. The reader's sympathies are ultimately with the poor Iraq people who have suffered so terribly at our hands and for no reason other than the crimes of a leader they loathe more -- it seems -- than we do. The vivid accounts of Gulf War action and the dreadful aftermath of the UN embargo rank among the greastest pieces of prose I can think of. I have since read some of this writer's other books and they are all just as good. I am surprised he is not better known.

This truly is a fascinating account of just how the United States military was able to move 500,000 troops and all their equipment halfwar across the world, fight a war, and then bring it all home. The numbers and statistics of the effort are truly stunning.

I am no logisticians and perhaps have missed some of the finer points of leadership as a logistician that this book apparently provides. Nevertheless, it can be an interesting for anyone who is interested in just how the US military works and what a complex organization it really is.

Gen. Pagonis only has one flaw - his ego. He really does talk himself up in this book. If one should trust his account of his military career he singlehandedly saved an entire company from annihilation in Vietnam, preserved the M1 Abrams tank program from Congressional hostility, and then did the entire logistical planning and execution surrounding Desert Storm.

But if one disregards Pagonis ego this is a great book.

From a military history point of view, logisticians get far too little credit for allowing the front line to even exist. Lt. Gen. Pagonis' book does attempt to offer some insight into the challenges of supplying the Army's needs as it built up during Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91, and then through Desert Storm. Very little is said about the withdrawal process of Desert Farewell.

The problems with this book are that it is too much centered around a business school philosophy book- not to take too much away from the success that Pagonis had, but it seems less about the challenges of supply in a hostile environment than a depiction of how to solve problems. I greatly respect the efforts and solutions that Pagonis encountered and defeated, but wish this was more a military-oriented book and less of a business school effort.

Regardless of these issues, Moving Mountains will give a reader some appreciation for all of the tasks and unsung duties by the rear echelon forces in combat, and how the Army has developed its ability to deal with any potential environments it may find itself in the future.

Anyone interested in buying this book must understand two things up front:

1. This book is written by a professional soldier and not a business school professor.
2. This book is one man's account of his duties and opinions on the subject of logistics and is not intended to be a textbook on the subject of logistics or a war novel.

If you understand these two things before you by the book then you will find this book to be very interesting as it is one of the few books written on military logistics. Moreover, you will gain insight into as to how General Pagonis used his personal leadership style to manage the logistical challenges of the first Gulf War. For someone wanting to learn about the nuts and bolts of logistics this book isn't for you. However, for those of you who want to gain an understanding of how logistics can impact the success or failure of a war while picking up a few words of wisdom in leadership from one of the best in the business will enjoy this book. I have read this book twice and I enjoyed it each time. Although I couldn't use much of the material from the book in my MBA classes, I was able to apply some of the information from this book while I was earning a graduate certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from Penn State.

Although several types are mentioned that aren't found in many publications, one common point are missing (at least), Rockwall,

I purchased this book after I've recently been exposed to our local Texas Indian artifacts. This book was extremely helpful in identifying and categorizing items that I have stumbled across. It is a must to have in your backpack!

Baudrillard does think the Gulf War happened - the title is just a provocation (it was clearly effective, since people who didn't read the book fell for Baudrillard's little joke and gave it one star).

This book is a great European perspective in the changes that war has undergone, which places it in the same tradition as the work of Paul Virilio's STRATEGY OF DECEPTION, which is a vaguely Baudrillardian take on the Kosovo conflict, written in the same style.

What Baudrillard has begun to see is that war isn't what it used to be. It's not about two countries getting in a political argument that breaks out in violence and all-out war. Baudrillard observes that Mutually Assured Destruction has brought war into the realm of virtuality. No longer is war the simple clash of brutes. Instead, it is a programmed operation that is executed according to a pre-defined model. The UN troops were not responding to the actual capabilities of the Iraqi army, Baudrillard says, but simply executing a plan that had already been decided upon. Thus, you didn't have the UN responding to Iraqi fire, but instead to the signatures on their infrared and radar, satellite images, coordinates, etc. The UN was essentially fighting a virtual reality war using real guns, pointing their missiles at dots on a radar and killing people in the process.

Thus, the Gulf War dissociated the image from reality. The Gulf War was a war of images: intelligence images, news images. A media phenomenon for the world and for the military and for the world. For the military, because virtual reality replaced war as we used to know it, and for the world, because the media phenomenon of the Gulf War became a prime-time exposé of America's technological might, and of the threat of Saddam to the New World Order. Beneath the proliferation of images were thousands of dead Iraqis. But all we saw was the images. The real didn't matter.

This is what Baudrillard is talking about when he says 'the real is no longer real.' Reality has become images - the real behind the images is no longer relevant. Did the Gulf War really happen? Eh, who cares. We saw the images.

This isn't necessarily a profound or true statement on the war, but the subtlety of Baudrillard's perspective is very interesting, because I think Americans don't really see the difference between old and new warfare. Americans don't perceive the way in which détente moved deterrence into the realm of virtuality by turning the Cold War into a scary period of hostility to a game of let's-try-and-be-really-scared. As an intelligent foreigner, Baudrillard notices, and this quick book contains a host of very interesting observations such as the ones discussed above.

Too bad it's so brief. Sometimes Baudrillard is too brief. But this book really has a great deal of very novel perspective. Read this, and then read Virilio. I think you'll like them.

Thelonious Monk said Kennedy was killed because he liked jazz. Try to disprove that. Postmodernism can be infuriating especially when it touches 'serious' topics. The writing style of Baudrillard (and translators) is not as dense as Derrida's but is not to everyone's taste. Still I think this is an important book. We are about to (maybe) have a sequel to the Gulf War. When I first reviewed this book I expected the new war would have minimal actual reporting from the field. It now appears that the press may be invited to the front lines.Apparently they have demonstrated sufficient loyalty or credulity in the last year to be trusted, or maybe the troublemakers have all been replaced.Anyway we will still be in a position of not knowing what to think, as usual. Since 9-11 it seems that many people are too craven to question anything at all in whole or in part. It behooves us as 'free people' to exercise some critical thinking. Personally I only believe the moon landing happened because the production values of the TV show were so poor.

Very well-written and mind-provoking. Certainly a MUST read!

So many technical errors that it should be labled as a fairy tale. Cannot be believe it was printed! I paid a dime for the book at a yard sale and feel ripped off!

I have to disagree with the previous review. This book does capture the essence of what soldiering is all about. Yes there are several technical errors, but I did not find them to detract from the power of the story. This book reveals the love/hate relationship that so many have with the Army, any Army I dare say. Having departed the institution only a few months ago I feel confident in saying this. There is so much to hate about the profession of arms, but there are those few rare moments - sometimes they occurred years ago - that you still treasure.Somehow those moments can keep one going when everything is at it's worse. That is what Carsten Stroud does in Iron Bravo. The book has wonderful atmosphere - one of Stoud's strengths as a writer - and presents the mind of the professional soldier beautifully. This book dosen't place the soldier on a platform, it merely shows them warts and all. And in my opinion the soldier comes out shining.

In a modern high-tech army, where officers move from one comand to another as they move up the ranks, it is the NCOs who have become the repositories of the history and tradition of the military. Iron Bravo is a semi-fictional account of the history of the US infantry as seen and understod by one NCO- a lifer named Crane- through his knowledge of unit history, his memories of Vietnam and his experience in returning to war in the Gulf. Stroud spent a year with the 1st, and this book is a compilation of the experiences of various soldiers, retold as the story of Sgt. Crane.

There have been a great many books written about the experience of the infantryman through history, many of them excellent; what Carsten Stroud brings is a perspective over time. He's a combat veteran of Vietnam and a student of history, and he understands what it is that is common to the experience of the foot soldier throughout history. He takes pains to show how it it is that experiences of individual infantrymen through history constitute an unbroken thread across nations and through time. Stroud's description of the advance of the US 1st Armored Division through Iraq and his parallels to the WWII battle of the Kasserine Pass is particularly illustrative.

While not a scholarly history, neither is this the typical I-was-there story. It's a unique way of telling the infantryman's story, and as such, of interest to readers of both combat stories and military history.

He scores some debater points against Swartzkopf's memoirs, but they are of mundane importance. He did have one very interesting observation: that Swartzkopf's role was that of tactical execution, not strategy. The "hail marry" and the decision not to land the 1st marine division among others all came from Washington. Attempting to carve out some heroism for himself and the Saudi Royal family Khalid is very candid about how he spent his time in the war worrying about what his title was, that there would be no alcohol or female entertainers, and that Swartzkopf came to his office for meetings and not the other way around. He did successfully prove for the history books that he is indeed the "hero" of the great battle of Khafji. Thoughout the book he seems to repeat his obsession with the fact that every world-wide student of history knows Macarthur as the Korean War commander and Westmoreland as the Vietnam War commander, but few can mention the name of either's domestic counterpart. While this is a well written book and sheds a lot of light on Saudi perception of regional politics, I still think that historians will ask: "Khalid who?"

What makes this book interesting is Prince Khalid. He speaks of how important it was for him to be descended from Ibn Saud, and how critical it has been for his country to place his family members in governing positions - completely unaware of the unflattering image he is revealing of his inflated ego.

This book is an unusually good illustration of how someone who lives a pampered life can grow from a spoiled brat of a child into an impossible adult who cares more about his image and himself than the well-being of his charges or assigning credit where it is due. If wearing a uniform and driving around the desert in an air-conditioned Mercedes while your troops sweat it out in trenches...If avoiding the front lines or any dangerous area because you are "too important to be risked", if earning the title of General due to your family connections..if these things make you a warrior, then Prince Khalid fits the bill.

But after reading this book, I think that his definition of warrior, i.e. this book/his life..illustrates that he has little understanding of what that word really means.

I found this to be an immensely readable account of Desert Storm from the Saudi point of view, ... I was prepared for an egotistical, ham-handed account of how the Saudis won the war, with a little back up from other friendly countries-what I found was a far more balanced and perceptive accounting by a man who-even taken cum grano salis-performed an immensely difficult task. Yes, there was apple polishing on his own behalf, but I would encourage readers who may be tempted to snipe at the Saudi version of this story to question how Ameri-centric our own versions of Desert Storm are. Keep in mind that while we defeated Saddam militarily in six weeks of bombing and 100 hours of ground combat (I will leave it to others to debate who won the peace), the coalition did so only after six months of build up that without the considerable Saudi infrastructure-and checkbook-would have taken much longer.

Yes, he does go into great detail about his efforts to remain-at least in terms of protocol-on par with Schwarzkopf (no easy task, given his personality!) but I never got the sense that Khaled believed it was for anything more than show-even as he acknowledged that the show was important. All the world was watching, and Saudi Arabia was in a difficult position in both living up to its self-appointed role as crucible of the Muslim world and requiring military help from a country that couldn't be more different from S.A. In fact, Khaled should be commended for his perceptiveness of just how important politics and show would be in this, the first war of the 10-minute news cycle, information age.

For anyone who wants to understand Desert Storm, I would recommend first reading "The General's War," by Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, then reading this book. I found reading each account of the Battle of Khafji side by side fascinating for each account's spin on facts.