The battle of An-Nasiriyah is certainly a story worthy of telling. It was one of the most challenging battles of the Iraq War. The day was won by the bravery, valour, and courage of the USMC. Unfortunately, Tim Pritchard's account does not rise to these levels and much like the mired US armor, his book is stuck with second-rate writing.

Ambush Alley is characterised by this unfocused and clumsy writing. Pritchard's prose is difficult and often confusing to read in that he continually bounces between different men and units. I found this book disappointing to the extreme. House to House by David Bellavia and John Bruning provides a stunning battle counterpoint to this mediocre account of the Iraq War.

A very detailed account of what every officer in command wants to avoid : lost of awareness, lost of radio com and finally Blue on Blue Air strike called. They made it through and you wonder, how they managed to do it, without any more casualties.
I read it twice and found myself more into the story than the first time, following the platoons and companies on their objectives and being able to analyse and comprehend what went right or wrong at the time. A fantastic combat account about Marines.

This book was wonderfully written, and based on what I have been told by friends of mine who lived threw it, extremely accurate. THIS IS A STORY YOU NEED TO KNOW! Do yourself a favor and read ambush alley, you will be amazed, shocked, and angered, that it is the first time you have learned of this amazing battle from the opening days of the invasion of Iraq.

Just the title alone should make you buy this book. But the book exceeds the expectations of the title. Don't read this book if you are looking for a walk in the park. This book details one of the bloddiest battles on the Iraq War. These young Marines fight a bloody battle in a heavily populated city. This is real, this is combat told as it should be told. The year is 2003. This book concentrates on the people of the battle and does not lose the fact that battle are fought by living, breathing, real people - soldiers.

This was a great read. The danger the American military has to deal with is enormous. I truly enjoyed this book and have an even deeper appreciation for American soldiers.

Fast paced, interesting and well written. This book is very hard to put down. The main story centers around taking of the main bridges to enable the US envasion into Iraq.
The marines are divided into groups during the attack. Communication breakdowns cause confusion during the operation. As typical during warfare, the plans change due to the enemy. This results in several individual companies getting trapped without much needed support.
A great story of courage in war.

Was the Iraq war a necessity? What did we gain? History will answer these questions.
What did I learn from the battlefields?
War is an ironic ambush.
This book tells it all.

El-Nasiriyah was a town that the U.S. Army was only supposed to see in the distance as it took the main highway north to Baghdad. It turned out different.

The Marines were not initially supposed to participate in the attack on Baghdad, and it took time for them to lobby for the political go-ahead. By the time they got it, they also got a separate route: the Marines were to leave the main highway the Army was on and cross the southern part of Nasiriyah from west to east to get to another highway heading north. To do this, the Marines had to plan to take and hold two bridges in the southern part of town. No real resistance was expected, however, as the Shi'a population was supposed to hate Saddam and the Iraqi military in the area were supposed to have disbanded.

Before the Marines got there, the Army had already passed by, heading north on the highway west of town. Unfortunately, an Army Maintenance Company in the rear took a wrong turn and drove up to Nasiriyah itself. Thanks to what they had been told by our leaders (see above), they didn't think it was a big deal to drive into town. They actually got all the way through to the east before realizing that they had to turn back to link up again with the Army combat units headed north on the main road on the west. It was when they tried to drive back through town the second time that they were shot up. Nine died; when her Humvee crashed, Jessica Lynch was knocked out and injured but was treated at the local Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah until the U.S. Army picked her up.

Some of the Army trucks did make it back through to the west, however. At that point, they encountered the Marines who were (intentionally) headed into town and were ready for possible combat. The Marines, however, were held up by having to take care of the Army Maintenance Company trucks, as well as by unexpected Iraqi sniping outside of town.

As a result, Marine units entered the town out of the planned order of battle and ended up fighting the local population with small arms on both sides. While the Marines were a hundred times better riflemen than the townspeople, they were also a hundred times fewer in number, so they were in some tight spots for several hours before the planned units got back together, at which point the Marines' tanks blew resistance away. In the meantime, eighteen Marines were killed, about half of them by U.S. aircraft who were misdirected by the disorganization on the ground. It was traumatizing for all involved.

Ambush Alley seems to support Sam Damon Jr.'s contention that the Marine Corps is not configured for this kind of combat: too many wheeled trucks, not enough tracked tanks. (See his review of "The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division.") Possibly the Marines' inability to get assigned to the attack on Baghdad until very late in the game resulted from leadership's understanding that Marine Corps's equipment was not the best adapted to the mission. In the end, the Marines ended up with the harder route, suffered more, and didn't get to Baghdad on time.

It is also striking how many of Nasiriyah's population -- men, women, children, old people -- attacked the U.S. forces, mainly with handheld weapons, AK-47s and rocket launders (RPGs), although also some mortars (no armor). Instead of the Iraqi army taking this stuff out to meet the U.S. forces in the desert, where they knew it would be pulverized by U.S. aircraft, it has been stockpiled in the neighborhoods waiting for the U.S. forces to drive in.

One of the best things about this book is that Pritchard incorporates multiple points of view into the narrative (for example, the decision to attack the north bridge without tank support). Some thought it was necessary, others thought it was foolhardy. Pritchard just gives the information and lets the reader decide.

But the "omniscient narrator" style rubbed me the wrong way. I realize that when Pritchard writes about what the Marines were thinking, he's taking that information directly from interviews he had with them after-the-fact. But sometimes it comes across like a football game where the camera shows the coach on the sidelines and the announcer says what (he presumes) the coach is thinking. I think I would have preferred to either have the individual Marines' accounts told in the first-person, or to have had Pritchard write in the first-person about what the soldiers told him in their interviews.

But other than that minor complaint the book is excellent.