Synopses & Reviews
Col. Wright served three tours of duty in the Iraq War, commanding the last active combat brigade to withdraw from Operation Iraqi Freedom. His book personalizes the broader operational conflict we’ve all heard so much about, giving us a previously unknown insider command perspective that will fundamentally change how our nation thinks of the war.
For Col Wright, the Iraq war was a good war fought well. In his new book, Iraq Full Circle, he offers a first-hand assessment of the US Army’s eight year war in Iraq.
As battalion operations officer for an infantry battalion from 2003-2004 operating in the dangerous and volatile Sunni Triangle, followed by a tour of duty as a Brigade Executive Officer from 2005-2006 in Baghdad, Wright witnessed some of the harshest fighting seen during the war. He saw the evolution from ‘shock and awe’ to the ‘clear-hold-build’ strategy during the height of sectarian violence and was on-hand for the transition to COIN followed by the handover of security operations to the Iraqi Security Forces. In August 2010, Wright, as a deputy brigade commander, was among the last combat soldiers to leave Iraq as part of President Obama’s draw-down of troops.
While Wright does not hesitate to criticize the political and military leadership that failed to foresee the insurgency, or the errors in judgment that led to the dismantling of the Iraqi Army in 2003, his overall assessment of the war is that the US Army achieved what it was asked to do by two Presidents. Calling upon his experience—and the examination of thousands of after action reports, combat operations orders, and over 100 interviews—Wright pieces together a compelling and cohesive narrative of the war. Readers will be surprised to learn:
· Wright had a strong hunch beginning in September 2001 that he would be deployed to Iraq; he and his fellow Army leaders began preparing for an invasion soon after the 9/11 attacks.
· Army leaders were already implementing much of the COIN doctrine in 2004 and 2005, well before the official change in doctrine and the publication of the new field manual on COIN.
· For Wright and most other leaders at his level, President Bush’s troop “surge” in November 2006 was completely uncontroversial and utterly inevitable. They knew that clear-hold-build was the right strategy and would work but that they did not have enough troops to make it stick.
In his closing chapters, Wright discusses the growth and evolution of the Iraqi Security Forces, from an abjectly corrupt and militarily useless cohort in 2004 to a well-trained and stable entity capable of securing Iraq and providing for (mostly) safe and open national elections in 2010. He finishes his narrative with his thoughts on the future of Iraq, understanding that sectarian divisions persist, but that the Iraqi Security Forces have been well-trained by the US Army to secure Iraq’s future.
Synopsis
From 2003 through 2010, more than 200,000 men and women were deployed in Iraq. For seven years, hundreds of thousands of men and women fought ferociously in the blistering sands in the Land Between the Two Rivers, the cradle of civilization. Some fought for pride, some for survival, some to bring democracy to a forsaken land that has known only tyranny and strife. Scores of books and articles have been published about the Iraq War, most criticizing the invasion decision, strategies, policies, and execution. Some have been personal memoirs capturing the heroism and sacrifice that men and women have displayed under fire. But no single work captures the full range of the conflict. U.S. Army Col. Darron Wright, a proven combat leader, joins forces with author Mike Walling to lift the veil on the Iraq War, revealing the build-up of troops; the equipping, training, and planning; the capture of Saddam Hussein; the Abu-Gahrib Prison and Samarra blunders; sectarian bloodshed; the formation of the new Government of Iraq; the training of Iraqi Security Forces; adoption of the Counter Insurgency (COIN) strategy; the first national elections; and, finally, the last patrol. Through vivid stories and military documents, Iraq Full Circle captures all of that and more, providing readers with a street-level, first-hand of the full conflict account from the tip of the spear.
About the Author
Colonel Darron L. Wright has served in the U.S. Army for 26 years. He was first assigned to active duty in 1991, when he served as a platoon leader, company executive officer, and company commander with the 3rd Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, Fort Ord, California. His next assignment was as a company commander of C Company, 3-325 Airborne Infantry Regiment and E CO 313th Military Intelligence Battalion, Long Range Surveillance Detachment (LRSD), Fort Bragg, North Carolina from 1996–2000. From 2000–01, COL Wright served as the Chief of Operations for 7th Infantry Division, Fort Carson. Colorado. Later, COL Wright was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, Fort Carson, Colorado, and upon arrival the unit deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom where he served as the Battalion Operations Officer. Following his second tour of combat, COL Wright served as the Battalion Commander for 1st Battalion (Airborne), 509th Infantry Battalion located at Fort Polk, Louisiana. After completion of battalion command, COL Wright deployed with 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division as the Deputy Brigade Commander during OIF 09-10 operating in Northwest Bagdad. COL Wright is the recipient of the Bronze Star with “V” device, the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award, and numerous other awards and commendations. COL Wright earned his Masters degree in Strategic Studies and National Security Decision Making from the Naval War College.