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Black Hearts: A Study in Leadership
AT THE VORTEX of Jim Frederick's Black Hearts: One Platoon s Decent into Madness in Iraq 's Triangle of Death (Harmony Books, New York, 2009) is a gripping account of a single incident involving some of the most despicable actions by U.S. Soldiers since the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. On 12 March 2006, four members of 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry, 101st Airmobile Division, planned and committed the brutal rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution and mutilation of her and her family, to include her 6-year-old sister. After cover-up by the four perpetrators and at least one member of their chain of command for several months, a private first class from the platoon overheard an off-hand remark implicating one of the perpetrators and reported his suspicions to his chain of command. Subsequently, all four of the men were charged and convicted.
While a single horrendous event is at the core of Frederick's narrative, Black Hearts is more than just a thorough, detailed, well-researched, journalistic investigation into the criminal actions of a few men. Black Hearts is a study in leadership - mostly bad leadership. Against a documented background of grueling combat conditions, which places the effects of leadership - both good and bad - into vivid relief, Frederick acts for us as Dante's Virgil, only instead of a descent into Hell proper, he takes us into the Triangle of Death, where we watch as the effects of a pattern of poor leadership behavior and irresponsible decisions compound over time, and we cringe as the battalion and its Soldiers are dragged into a dark, valueless abyss.
Admittedly, the conditions were appalling: During its year-long deployment to Iraq, elements of the 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry (1-502) got hit by or disarmed approximately 900 roadside bombs and were shelled, mortared, or received small arms fire almost every day. Twenty-one Soldiers from the battalion were killed during this period, and nine of them came from 1st Platoon, Bravo Company. Of the 135 Soldiers in Bravo, 51 of them did not complete the year-long deployment because they were either killed, wounded, or transferred. The battalion did not have sufficient strength to accomplish its mission,...