Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's

Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death

â€œRiveting. . . a testament to a misconceived war, and to the ease with which ordinary men, under certain conditions, can transform into monsters.â€â€”New York Times Book Review

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Divisionâ€™s fabled 502nd Infantry Regimentâ€”a unit known as â€œthe Black Heart Brigade.â€ Deployed in late 2005 to Iraqâ€™s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the countryâ€™s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time.

Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoonâ€”1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalionâ€”descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality.

Four 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq Warâ€”the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpostâ€”one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives.

Black Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.
Country USA
Brand Broadway Books
Manufacturer Crown
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Illustrated
Color Black
ReleaseDate 2011-02-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 8601404664120

Country	USA
Brand	Broadway Books
Manufacturer	Crown
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Illustrated
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	2011-02-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	8601404664120

Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death

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