In the Company of Soldiers is an excellent book; very gripping. It shows that Gen. Petraeus is one of the best military leaders in American history.

An excellent book. Rick Atkinson really knows how to research a subject. To read his books is like being there

I was hoping for rick atkinson GOES TO WAR. What the book is is RICK ATKINSON goes to war. Me, me, me. I, I, I.

Terrible writing and shallow thinking: tedious faux-erudite sophomoric metaphor, no real insight.

Snide leftie hate speech: "Although most officers in the military are conservative, General Petraeus' opinions were nuanced."

I was hoping for rick atkinson GOES TO WAR. What the book is is RICK ATKINSON goes to war. Me, me, me. I, I, I.

Terrible writing and shallow thinking: tedious faux-erudite sophomoric metaphor, no real insight.

Snide leftie hate speech: "Although most officers in the military are conservative, General Petraeus' opinions were nuanced."

The book In the Company of Soldiers by Rick Atkinson is a decent book that deserves four out of five stars. This book is a first hand account of the war in Iraq, primarily offering great insight into the lives of the Generals of the 101st Airborne Division. The book focuses on all the day to day problems and successes of the high command. Planning and carrying out a war is a big deal. One organizational problem faced before the conflict actually began was the misplacement of the barcode scanner that was supposed to direct shipments leaving the supply ships. The scanner was placed on the third ship causing difficulty unloading the first two ships. In the Company of Soldiers lets you see the constant mental/emotional and physical stress the generals feel. When a helicopter crashes or a battle is not going as planned and troops are killed, General David H. Petraeus admits feeling spikes in his blood pressure. The guerrilla warfare the soldiers encounter is demoralizing and unexpected and leads the generals to question whether or not their battle decisions are correct.
This book could have been better if there had been more coverage of the lower ranking soldiers. The author's personal details, such as misplacing his gasmask or being irritated by the dust, could have been left out. Details about how chemical warfare or the effects of the desert climate affected the soldiers would have been more interesting.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to see what is like to be a high commanding officer in the military, but would not read it a second time.

In the Company of Soldiers follows General David Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division as they deploy from Fort Campbell, Kentucky to Kuwait, then make the march to Baghdad. Unlike most of the accounts I have read of the 2003 invasion, this follows the "behind the scenes" action of the Commanding Officers instead of combat units. Atkinson does an outstanding job at documenting the crucial, tiring decision-making process behind the invasion. Every decision from the seemingly mundane, such as whether to protect helicopter rotors with thick paint or tape, to the assault on Baghdad is meticulously covered. The best aspect of the book is the details one would not have heard on CNN. One of the biggest gaffs occurred during the deployment of equipment. Every shipping box had a barcode which would tell the receivers exactly what was in each box and where it needed to go. But, the Server which housed the barcode Database was on the 3rd ship to arrive. Meaning the first two ships were disorganized when being unloaded. We also get to experience living with the Commanding Officers. We see them celebrate a victory, and weep a failure. Atkinson also reveals small quarks that help the average American relate to the Commanding General in Iraq, such as General Petraeus eating Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning.

This book is very easy to read and should be read by any military history enthusiasts. By covering both the war planning and actual combat, like the capture of Najaf, Karbala, and Hilla, one experiences the war from the Pentagon down. Atkinson is also bipartisan until his afterward. It's nice to hear an account of the first 4 weeks of combat without the political rhetoric. Victories are commended, failures questioned. From fierce Apache firefights to bunking with a Private in the unforgiving Iraqi Desert, you are given the chance to relive the invasion.

With the recent announcement of General Petraeus as the next commander of troops in Iraq, I took special interst in reading about the way that General Petraeus feels about his mission and how he handles his troops. My son was deployed twice to Iraq, and two grandsons will be entering military service in two short years.

Rick Atkinson's account of his time embedded with Petraeus is written in great detail, worrying with the general over the details of combat, and considering the pros and cons of one choice or another, or the timing of an assualt. The reader gets an up-close view of the complexity of the problem and the pressure on the General.

I'm left with the impression that no one else would be able to do a better job than Petraeus in this most difficult of all assignments coming up. It will take the wisdom of Solomon to make the right choices that will bring this war to a good conclusion.

I really enjoyed Atkinson's book, An Army at Dawn, and looked forward to this account of American soldiers in Iraq. The book is a bitter disappointment. The author is so anti-Bush that it colors his report right from the start when he talks about how a father of many children dies and for what purpose. Of course most deaths in war are sad. Every writer knows that the lead of a story portends the slant of the story. He bashes Bush and his administration in the subtle ways of the media that leave critics looking bad if they complain. In the first third of the book, he didn't discuss in detail or with sophistication why the U.S. Congress, including many Democrats, approved the war. Nor does he mention how the previous administration thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Nor does he mention how the UN sanctioned Saddam 17 times. He mocks the allies by pointing out the small guys. He says the U.S. was basically going alone when Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Spain, Italy and other countries supported the action. These examples go on and on. He puts all the blame on the Bush administration. Let's not forget that Saddam miscalculated badly by not seeking peace terms with his adversaries and he lost his country.

I've only listened to the first part of the book on audio and it's boring. It's more about him the author than about the soldiers. What made them so great? Able to conquer a country the size of California in a few weeks? The Band of Brothers author very well described the rigorous training. Instead, Atkinson's starting point is the Shoney restaurant and all about his problems. The author rested on his laurels as a Pulitzer Prize winner, which probably intimidated his editors and kept them from pushing him to do a great job.

Instead, this book lacks insights into why people did certain things. Like most journalists, he kept close to the leaders so he could file his breaking news. It's another sorry example of partisan media bashing by the top media. See Woodward timing his book to run a month before the 2006 election and the NY Times publisher saying he was sorry he couldn't prevent the Iraq war. It's no wonder that the elite media no longer have the respect of half the country.

Peter

I listened to this audio book.

I agree that most of this book is with the Generals and not the ones doing the fighting. However, it was a very interesting book. The logistics of war baffles me. This book lets us know what our service men and women have to go through to provide our protection.