American Heroes: On the Homefront

by Oliver North

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of Heroes Proved, a moving collection of “straightforward, honest testimonials to the courage American troops display on and off the battlefield” (Kirkus Reviews).

For more than a dozen years, combat-decorated Marine Oliver North and his award-winning documentary team from FOX News Channel’s War Stories traveled to the frontlines of the War on Terror to profile the dedicated men and women who serve our nation. This time, he follows them from the battlefield to the homefront and finds extraordinary inspiration in their triumph over life-altering adversity.

In this new volume of his New York Times bestselling American Heroes series, North describes the courage, commitment, and strength of those who serve—and those who love them. The term “selfless devotion” may be a cliché to many—but not to the men and women on the pages of this book. Their stories resound with bravery, a warrior ethos, and spiritual strength that will encourage us all.

Heroes are people who knowingly place themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Since the terror attack of September 11, 2001, more than two million young Americans have volunteered to serve in difficult and dangerous places. No military force in history has been asked to do more than those who have served and sacrificed in this long fight. They are American heroes. So too are their loved ones here at home. These are their stories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476714370
Publisher:	Threshold Editions
Publication date:	11/05/2013
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	194 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Oliver North is a combat-decorated US Marine and recipient of the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for valor, and two Purple Hearts for wounds in action. From 1983 to 1986, he served as the US government’s counterterrorism coordinator on the National Security Council staff. President Ronald Reagan described him as “a national hero.” A New York Times bestselling author of both fiction and nonfiction, he is also host of the award-winning documentary series War Stories on Fox News. North lives with his wife, Betsy, in Virginia. They have four children and sixteen grandchildren. Visit him on Facebook and Twitter, or learn more at OliverNorth.com.

Read an Excerpt

American Heroes

Jesseca and Brian Meyer

The radio in the Combat Operations Center (COC) crackled with a garbled message followed by the nine-line EOD order. The Marine watch officer monitoring the communication traffic shouted through the hole in the primitive mud wall, alerting Staff Sergeant Brian Meyer and members of his Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team. A suspected improvised explosive device, commonly known as an IED, had been discovered by a squad of Marines on routine patrol and now an EOD response team was needed somewhere outside the wire of Patrol Base Almas.

In the sixth month of his seven-month combat deployment to Afghanistan, Brian had made about eighty such trips beyond the confines of PB Almas to dispose of IEDs, the terrorists’ weapon of choice. He didn’t know at the time that this would be his last trip and his longest journey.

Her radiant smile and stunning features captivate you immediately. Even though she is just five feet one, her father’s Aztec blood and her mother’s Spanish heritage make Jesseca Meyer stand out in any crowd.

They met in August 2008 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Jesseca, a college junior majoring in sports management, was working at the Pepsi Center as a security supervisor and was assigned to accompany a Marine Corps bomb team tasked with sweeping the third level of the arena for any explosive devices. Four Marines paraded in with their equipment and their egos. Brian, a member of the team, was immediately drawn to her beauty. He sensed she’d spent a lifetime around tough guys, so he decided to turn on the charm rather than the testosterone. His efforts paid off and before the convention ended a friendship was formed as she stayed in Denver and he returned to Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. The relationship progressed as the couple talked by phone daily and texted in between calls.

A few months later, Brian asked Jesseca to come to San Diego for a Halloween celebration at his house. At the time, Brian and three other Marines, Justin Schmalstieg, Bryan Carter, and Mark Wojciechowski, known to his friends as Tony Wojo, all assigned to 1st EOD Company, rented a home outside Camp Pendleton’s back gate. As Jesseca would learn, life in the Marine Corps is fragile. All four roommates would go on to earn Purple Hearts; two would die in combat. Just six months after the party on April 30, 2009, twenty-five-year-old Staff Sergeant Mark Wojciechowski was killed in action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, three months into his second combat deployment.

Brian and Jesseca’s friendship grew into love. The first week of May 2010, they flew to Florida for the annual EOD Memorial Ball, an event honoring members of their brotherhood who made the ultimate sacrifice.

During one of the presentations, a ranking member of the EOD community praised the wives for the extraordinary role they played in supporting their husbands while doing some of the most dangerous work in the military. As thoughts flashed through her mind about what Brian and his men did on each and every assignment, Jesseca knew she wanted to be that support and spend the rest of her life with him.

Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, where Jesseca and Brian first met in 2008. Chamber of Commerce

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     6
Introduction: Hanging Around with Heroes     9
The Jihad     15
Wake-up Call     15
Who Is the Enemy?     20
Oil Fuels the Jihad     22
The "Lands of the Prophet"     25
We Don't Get It     26
What Do They Want? Why Do They Hate Us?     28
Counter-Attack     31
Fighting Back     31
A New Kind of War     35
The First American Casualty     39
The Marines Enter the Fray     40
Into the Hindu Kush     46
Karzai's Courage     51
Expanding the War     53
The Case Against Saddam     53
Preparation for Preemption     56
WMD: The Casus Belli     61
Preparing for the Road to Baghdad     65
Embedded-Finally     69
Good to Go     73
Hostilities Have Commenced     79
Into the Fight     82
Helicopter Down!     84
Cas-Evac!     95
To the Banks of the Euphrates     99
An Nasiriyah, the Bloody Gauntlet     102
With HMM-268 & RCT-5     106
Mother of allSandstorms     109
To the Gates of Baghdad     117
They All Fall Down     120
Quagmire     122
Make Ready to Move Out     124
Drive North     126
Across the Tigris     129
Press on to the Capital     130
Into Baghdad and Beyond     133
The "Thunder Runs"     138
Liberation Loses its Luster     153
Tikrit, Iraq     153
Bayji, Iraq     154
Missteps and the Rise of the Insurgency     158
Dying to Kill Us     164
Bloody Anbar     169
"The Most Violent Place on the Planet"     169
Battlefield Innovation     174
"No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy"     177
No Good News?     179
Hearts and Minds     180
The Fight for Fallujah     183
Will Democracy Work?     187
The Election in Afghanistan     187
Iraqi Vote I: National Assembly Election     189
Iraq Vote II: The Constitutional Referendum     192
Iraq Vote III: The New Government     194
Turnaround     199
Closing the Terror Pipeline     199
Ramadi: IED Central     206
The Awakening     211
Hero Values     217
Courage     217
Commitment     220
Compassion     223
Faith     227
Wounded Warriors     233
Sgt Luke Cassidy     235
Sgt Gregory Edwards     236
2nd Lt. Andrew Kinard     238
LCpl Aaron Mankin     241
The Bottom Line     244
The "Other Heroes"     247
When Dad Is at War     251
Keeping It Together at Home and at War     254
E-mail Cuts the Time but Can't Close the Distance     257
Getting it Done!     259
How Iraq Has Changed     262
Why Don't We Hear More of This Kind of News?     268
How They Did It     270
Can It All Still Go Wrong?     274
Where We Could Do Better     274
Appendix     279
Glossary     283
Images Credits     287
Freedom Alliance     288

Editorial Reviews

North is a retired Marine infantry veteran of Vietnam and was a key player in the Iran-Contra affair. This book is a mostly workmanlike presentation of his experiences as a war correspondent for FOX (which shares copyright on this book) as the U.S. invaded Iraq. Any political uproar it may cause is likely to stem largely from Pavlovian responses to the name of the author, a response that ignores that he has written both fiction and nonfiction as well as having been a Marine officer. So it is hardly surprising that he does excellent work covering a Marine aviation unit, one appointed to transport assault troops and evacuate wounded in aging helicopters-never without risk and sometimes with bloody incidents. These are vividly and knowledgeably described, as is the Marines' courage and professionalism. Nor is it surprising to witness the empathy between a retired Marine about to become a grandfather and younger Marines about to see combat. The briefer coverage of the armored units of the 4th Infantry Division is a little frustrating, and the polemics against antiwar journalists and politicians, while unlikely to offend readers who share the author's views, feel redundant. So does the capsule history of Iraq in the appendix, although well-written enough to give the author credibility as a popular historian. Even the larger issue of the linkage between a correspondent, a network and a publisher who are all politically simpatico can hardly be made into anything especially sinister without the same kind of political partisanship that the book exhibits in its less inspiring moments. DVD of Fox News North special not seen by PW. (Dec.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

2013-10-20
True stories of the men and women who put their lives in danger to defend the United States from terrorists. Combat-decorated former Marine North (Heroes Proved, 2013, etc.) and former Marine and FBI agent Hamer take readers on a tension-filled ride from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Vietnam to the living rooms of the American men and women who serve and protect their fellow Americans. "This book is about celebration, not devastation," writes North. "It's about men and women and even children who triumphed over their individual tragedies." What the authors reveal are the personal stories told by the enlisted and their spouses and families as they prepare to leave on long deployments as well as what happens upon their return. Trained to sweep for IEDs, the soldiers conduct some of the most dangerous work in Afghanistan, where any disturbed dirt might hide an IED. Living in sweltering heat and eating dried rations, each day on patrol is taut, and each story places readers on edge as the tension builds toward the inevitable, that one step that changes everything. The men and women venture out "whole" only to return missing one or more limbs or, in some cases, not to return at all. Often newly married or with a baby on the way, these warriors are suddenly confronted with new challenges as they face painful surgeries and amputations, months of hospital stays and rehabilitation, and the process of learning to live with multiple handicaps. Despite all this, they often agree to do it again. Supplemented by color photographs, the stories are straightforward, honest testimonials to the courage American troops display on and off the battlefield. Authentic narratives of the men and women of the armed forces who have sacrificed for their country.

Kirkus Reviews