This book isnt bad, but its not great either. The first third of the book is the author telling you how great his team is and how they built it up from nothing. Though lacking in modesty of any kind the story plods along at a slow but steady pace.

When the book ( finally ) gets to the combat sections, those are more intersting but still a little preachy. Overall it would recommend other books written by soldiers returning from combat over this one. LONE SURVIVOR is excellent.

I very much enjoyed this book and it is one of the better novels about the war in Iraq and the part the special forces played in it. The author does a fair amount of airing some dirty laundry. But I found this nice as it helps to dispel many of the myths and misconceptions people have about special forces. Special or not it is still the military and they have to deal with all the stupidity of senior officers, rules and territorial pissing contests as every other serviceman. It is despite these difficulties that they are able to take and complete some of the most difficult missions out there that makes them special. Another nice part of this novel is the author spends a good amount of time detailing the team building and training these soldiers go through in order to build a tight nit team.

The author writes is a what could be called a very upfront and sometimes abrasive manner, but I enjoyed it and I found myself hating the same system and rules that the author did. This book does a good job of bring you in and making you feel a part of the story which is rare in book of this sort.

I really liked this book. It was done like you were sitting their talking to the author.

It reminded me of the countless chats my dad and I had where he shared his war stories. I remember sitting on his knee when I was young and him telling me what Vietnam was like.

It was just like that, a nice chat w/ someone you are fond of.

I highly recommend this book!

I enjoyed this book. Despite the wide variety of opinions here, I think everyone will agree with me that this is a light read and pretty straightforward in its narrative style.

For readers that want a novel with lots of action and fighting, looking for a real-life version of a good modern action movie, don't read this. You won't be happy with it, because while it does give you a detailed camera-on-the-helmet view of the fight, the fight itself isn't as dramatic or exciting as you will want.

For readers that want to see some fighting, but equally are interested in the non-fighting aspects that surround it -- the planning, the training, the logistics, the choice of weapons, the strategy -- this is a decent book. Again, it is a light read, and this applies to this aspect of the book as well. It does a good job of showing what's behind the curtain of the fight without boring you with too many military acronyms or esoteric military references.

Despite some minor writing flaws (which actually round out the Roughneck theme) this is a great book! I was surprised by the few negative reviews. I think many reviewers miss the point. Decisive combat not is not about luck, it's about having the courage to do a quick risk/reward evaluation and put your training to use. The Army is full of officers like Major X, who hamper our capabilities by being anally safe. I commend MSG Antenori for having the courage to train hard, stand up to Major X, and write about. If you're looking for a perfectly constructed novel try The Grapes of Wrath. If you want a book about America's best soldiers kicking [...] in spite of politically correct and tactically unsound officers, you have got to read Roughneck Nine-One.

This is one of the top books that I have read written by someone in the Special Forces Community. The first hand accounts of the battle are true to operators that were there and also to the reader by not leaving out the messy stuff. The book was a fast read as it is never dry and always gives you a reason to keep reading. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to get insight into the capabilities of an A-Team or just wanting a good read.

This book goes into great detail and great honesty of the actions of a Special Forces A-Team in Iraq. Although the main author, Antenori, gets a little arrogant at times while speaking of how "great" the Special Forces are, I was able to get past it and enjoy the rest of the book.

Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-team at War

Army Magazine, July 2006 by Spencer, Jimmie W

Noncommissioned officers have a great deal of credibility both within the Army and with the American people. They tend to answer questions straight from the heart with little or no regard for political correctness. What you get is the unfiltered truth. If you hear it from an Army sergeant, you can pretty much "take it to the bank."

SFC Frank Antenori, U.S. Army retired, in his book Roughneck Nine-One, tells the story of a Special Forces Ateam (Green Beret) at war in a noholds-barred fashion that you would expect from a senior noncommissioned officer.

Written in a style that can only be described as soap opera-ish, he and his co-author, Hans Halberstadt, tell an extraordinary story of Special Forces A-tea m soldiers before, during and after combat. At a crossroad near the village of Debecka, Iraq, outnumbered and facing T-55 tanks, they were simultaneously locked in mortal combat, dealing with the news media and coping with the killing and wounding of dozens of supporting Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, when a U.S. Navy F-14 fighter mistakenly dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong target.

Antenori says of the supporting Kurds, "They reminded me of our Minutemen of 1776; they wore a mixed bag of uniforms: some were in camouflage, others in solid green, and others wore civilian clothes. Besides their rifies and ammunition, they had none of the 'battle rattle' Americans requireno CamelBaks, no kneepads, no gloves, no body armor protection. Some wore sandals instead of boots. They had left their homes early that morning after breakfast with their families. They had probably kissed their wives good-bye, picked up weapons, and gone off to spend the day at war, not sure they would come home at night. They are true militia, the kind that Special Forces Soldiers have trained and led for well over fifty years."

The reader is also given a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a Special Forces A-team, how it plans, trains, equips and deploys for combat, and the emotional roller coaster of ups and downs that it lives with day to day.

The book is in fact two stories in one; one of Special Forces soldiers in combat, at their best, and the other of constant bitching about almost everything. The combination results in a realistic story about real soldiers.

I would highly recommend this book to military historians and anyone interested in reading a good story, a true story that is easy to read and hard to put down.

SFC Antenori can add one more honor to an already impressive list of accomplishments, that of raconteur.

CSM Jimmie W. Spencer
U.S. Army Special Forces (Retired)

The author is a disgruntled E-7 who served with a Green Beret unit during the outbreak of the iraq War. Most of the book is boring and filled with military jargon and terms especialy related to special forces units. The climactic battle, near Kirkuk, at the opening hours of the war is interesting, but not really groundbreaking in terms of new combat methods. The soldiers' actions were very commendable, but not Medal of Honor material. The author is somewhat arrogant and soon retired with barely twenty years' service.

I'm surprised at how the negative reviews below have been received, with so many people labeling the reviews as not being helpful. I personally could not agree more with the two poor reviews. Let's start with the writing. As far back as middle school, any paper I wrote that contained an over-abundant usage of words, phrases, or literary devices was returned to me so those usages could be exchanged for more varied writing choices. Antenori's editor did him a great disservice when he allowed Antenori to ride the use of foreshadowing right into the ground. I have never, EVER, read a book that used "little did we know", "we would soon find out", "in a few seconds", etc. in the excessive manner that this book did. It seemed like every other paragraph ended this way, and it becomes pretty tedious. Something is going to happen in this book that justifies all your training. We get it, Frank.
In case you think that is an unfair reason to pan the book, how about the fact that almost NOTHING of any consequence actually happens in the book until page 150. Did I mention it's only 241 pages? And for all intents and purposes, the events at the intersection are over by page 226; the rest of the pages are just wrap-up. I'm not going to lie, I read these books for the excitement and the camraderie and the insight into these brave people that put their lives on the line for us. I don't read these books to sift through 150 pages of a group of men getting shuffled around, doing relatively mundane training exercises, and generally grousing about their lot.
Finally, if I haven't made a strong enough argument yet, I'll say it: these guys were really lucky. As was said below, and even by the author, if the Iraqis had brought their offensive A-game, ODA-391 would have been in a world of hurt. It's interesting how at the end of the book, under a sub-title marked "luck", Antenori chooses not to comment on this part of the operation. Without a DOUBT these are brave, brave men, and the work of the medics was impressive, but it must be said that this was not a mission that succeeded on guts alone, but instead relied massively on pure luck. But I guess sometimes such is life. I'm so happy for those men that this was the case, but it doesn't make for the most interesting reading. In summary, I'd skip this book. There are many great military non-fiction books out there, but this isn't one. It's light on action and packed with what is clearly fluff to flesh out the telling of a decent (very) short story.