Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The Good: This book is a pretty good book detailing the fight the 2nd ACR fought against the Iraqi Republican Guards along the 73 Eastings line. I was a tank platoon leader in the 1st ID during Desert Storm and this book brought back memories. MacGregor takes the reader down "into the trenches" so to speak. If you have not served in an armor unit, you will get a good feel for what it is like from reading this book.
The Bad: Somebody please give MacGregor a pacifier. He constantly whines about how the generals were stupid and how he knew what he was doing and they should have listened to him. He starts the whining in the first couple of pages of this book. Sure, there are politically motivated generals who do not care about the Soldiers, but not all are. It is obvious he has an ax to grind because he had to retire as a lowly colonel while others he served with achieved general stars.
I knew this guy was starting to get full of it when he started criticizing General Franks, the VII Corps commander during Desert Storm. In a nutshell Schwarzkopf tells him to destroy the Republican Guards and Franks says, We can do this. We'll make it happen." After this Macgregor launches into a hissy fit about Shwarzkopf should have fired him because he obvious wasnt the right man for the job, he needed fighting spirit, yada yada yada. What did he want? Franks to jump up on the table, beat his chest and sing the Army song? Like I mentioned earlier I was a tank platoon leader in the 1st ID which was part of VII Corps and after we did the breach we pretty much hauled [...] in order to make contact with the Republican Guard. My ankles swelled up from standing in that darn turret for hours. I remember the passage of lines with the 2nd ACR. We passed by a Bradley with two Soldiers smoking cigarettes next to it looking at us as we rolled past and started the fight.
Overall, if you can get past the whining, this is a good read if you want to feel what Soldiers felt and experienced in the heat of battle.
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On 26 February 1991, cavalry troops of Cougar Squadron, the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, charged out of a sandstorm during Operation Desert Storm and caught Iraq's Republican Guard Corps in the open desert along the North-South grid line of a military map referred to as the 73 Easting. Taken by surprise, the defending Iraqi armor brigade was swept away in salvos of American tank and missile fire in what became the U.S. Army's largest tank battle since World War II. Douglas Macgregor, the man who trained and led Cougar Squadron into battle, recounts two stories. One is the inspiring tale of the valiant American soldiers, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains who fought and won the battle. The other is a story of failed generalship, one that explains why Iraq's Republican Guard escaped, ensuring that Saddam Hussein's regime survived and America's war with Iraq dragged on. Certain to provoke debate, this is the latest book from the controversial and influential military veteran whose two previous books, Breaking the Phalanx and Transformation Under Fire, are credited with influencing thinking and organization inside America's ground forces and figure prominently in current discussions about military strategy and defense policies. Its fast-moving battle narrative, told from the vantage point of Macgregor's Abrams tank, and its detailed portraits of American soldiers, along with vivid descriptions of the devastating technology of mounted warfare, will captivate anyone with a taste for adventure as well as an interest in contemporary military history.
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