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In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. By Rick Atkinson. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. ISBN 0-8050-7561-5. Maps. Photographs. Glossary. Index. Pp. 319. $25.00.
Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson has emerged as one of the best military history writers of this generation. Pulled from his research on the U.S. Army in World War II, Atkinson found himself "embedded" with the 101st Airborne Division's command group in the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. This book is far more than the subtitle, A Chronicle of Combat, would suggest. Atkinson's previous books (The Long Gray Line, Crusade, and an Army at Dawn), and his familiarity with Army leaders, qualified him more than any other journalist in Iraq to understand the dynamics of division command. The soldiers that the author accompanied...