[Littlearmies]

Re Black Hearts - I'd like to stress that this book isn't a hatchet job on the military - the crime itself and the investigation are just a small part of the book. Fredericks has clearly done a first rate amount of research and he writes very well about the stress caused by walking down a road looking for IEDs, or manning a checkpoint waiting for someone to shoot at you. In my view he expresses this better than Sebastian Junger does in "War". He makes cogent points to rebut those that suggest that service in Iraq or Afghanistan is somehow less tough than WWII because the soldiers are only facing insurgents rather than the Wehrmacht. The book is also a real eye-opener for us Brits who see our army in Afghanistan and elsewhere making do with too few soldiers for the job, and not enough equipment to do it - and who perceive the American way of war as riding in by the thousands with Oakley sunglasses and state of the art gear, blowing everything up and then declaring victory (okay exaggerated for effect but you know what I mean). These guys were in allegedly the worst place in Iraq at the time, without enough troops to do what was asked of them, evidently beyond the end of a very long supply line, and had a shitty CO to boot. My personal view is that this book should be required reading for all officers and NCOs as a study in just how the results of stress, undermanning, perceived isolation and poor leadership can result in terrible consequences (in passing there are some wider but still pertinent points made about the US Army as a whole) but there you go...