{"product_id":"black-hearts-one-platoons-descent-into-madness-in-iraqs-triangle-of-death-9780307450753","title":"Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBlack Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death\u003c\/strong\u003e by Frederick, Jim. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780307450753.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment—a unit known as “the Black Heart Brigade.” Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq’s so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country’s most dangerous location at its most dangerous time.\n\nHit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon—1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion—descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality.\n\nFour 1st Platoon soldiers would perpetrate one of the most heinous war crimes U.S. forces have committed during the Iraq War—the rape of a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. Three other 1st Platoon soldiers would be overrun at a remote outpost—one killed immediately and two taken from the scene, their mutilated corpses found days later booby-trapped with explosives.\n\nBlack Hearts is an unflinching account of the epic, tragic deployment of 1st Platoon. Drawing on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with Black Heart soldiers and first-hand reporting from the Triangle of Death, Black Hearts is a timeless story about men in combat and the fragility of character in the savage crucible of warfare. But it is also a timely warning of new dangers emerging in the way American soldiers are led on the battlefields of the twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"CROWN","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44945279811637,"sku":"ByrdShop_0307450759","price":50.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780307450753_ea2a8c1b-931d-4b04-ad7e-c654a15c22f0.jpg?v=1778683670","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/black-hearts-one-platoons-descent-into-madness-in-iraqs-triangle-of-death-9780307450753","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}