The Snake Eaters: An Unlikely Band of Brothers and the Battle for the Soul of Iraq

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Overview

WHEN A DOZEN UNPREPARED AMERICAN ARMY RESERVISTS ARE DROPPED OFF on an isolated Iraqi outpost with orders to be its military advisors, they have no idea that what they will really be doing is fighting. With no training to fall back on, this group—including a guitarist, a DEA agent, a plumber, and a postal worker—must somehow mentor the “Snake Eaters,” an Iraqi battalion locked in a deadly struggle over an insurgent-infested town along the Euphrates River. They are plunged into complex counterinsurgent warfare side by side with their Iraqi charges, soon discovering that at such close quarters moral standards are inevitably blurred. The battle becomes so personal that the combatants know each other’s names, faces, and especially the families caught in the middle.

Owen West, a third-generation U.S. Marine, tells the gripping, boots-on-the-ground story of the remarkable American and Iraqi troops who for two years fought the insurgency street by street and house by house in the poisonous city of Khalidiya, Iraq. The American advisors were a ramshackle group of Army reservists, Marines, and National Guardsmen with little support or understanding from the higher ranks. The Iraqi battalion they were assigned was from the very first both amateurish and hostile. In a town where the people they were trying to protect were indistinguishable from the enemy they were trying to kill—and few locals ever told the truth—it seemed like a mission doomed to failure.

But with courage, infinite patience, and a sense of duty few outsiders understood, the young American and Iraqi soldiers on patrol learned to work with each other and with the townspeople, winning their trust and revealing war as a series of human acts. From Major Mohammed, the Snake Eater who garners the most respect from the Americans precisely because he likes them the least, to the bighearted Staff Sergeant Blakley, a medic stalked by a sniper, the heroic soldiers in these pages are as complex as their war.

By the end of the mission, the Snake Eaters was the first Iraqi battalion granted independent battle space, the insurgency was wiped off the streets of Khalidiya, and peace was restored. A rare success story to emerge from the war, West’s exceptional book is as instructive as it is impossible to put down.

Owen West is donating his net proceeds from The Snake Eaters to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation and to the families of fallen advisors and fallen Iraqi “Snake Eaters.”

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
A former U.S. Marine major with two tours in Iraq (and the author of two novels), West makes a convincing case for the importance of military advisers who train indigenous security forces to fight insurgencies, because indigenous forces know the language, the local people, and can more effectively root out insurgents. West says that the U.S.’s undermanned and inexperienced adviser teams posted a losing record in the Iraqi insurgent stronghold of Khalidiya, before he initiated his strategy of advising the Iraqi Battalion 3/3-1, “the Snake Eaters.” Aligning with Major Mohammed and his unit, West writes: “I became convinced that our own country could accomplish more with fewer forces and less money if we changed the way we fought....” He explains in vivid detail how Sunni and Shia career soldiers as well as the fresh-faced reservists and National Guardsmen operate in hostile territory with snipers, roadside bombs, and suicide bombers. Combining the might of his Iraqi allies, the goodwill of local civilians, and more savvy American troops, a perceptive adviser with distinct priorities and motivation led to a tamer Khalidiya, West concludes, spelling out clearer military methods with a speedier exit strategy usable for any future conflict. Agent: Dan Mandel, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (May)
Kirkus Reviews
Gripping, disturbing account of American advisors in Iraq, focused on several National Guardsmen and the Iraqi soldiers (jundis) they trained. Besides being meticulously written, this book has an unusual pedigree: West, a novelist (Four Days to Veracruz, 2003, etc.), former Marine and son of renowned military writer Bing West, was recalled in 2006 to serve a second combat tour in Iraq, as an advisor in Khalidiya, a city beset by a brutal insurgency. West's personal experience makes up the final third of the book, but the primary section focuses on the National Guard advisor team that he helped replace. Initially, their war resembled an unholy combination of Black Hawk Down and Catch-22. Unlike full-time soldiers, they were abruptly withdrawn from civilian life, given outdated training in counterinsurgency and sent to a posting outside the city to pair up with an Iraqi battalion, a move meant to showcase the Bush administration's intent to "stand down" as Iraqi units "stood up." West vividly captures the personalities of the advisor team, who quickly found themselves contending with frequent sniper and bomb attacks, culminating in the death of a well-liked U.S. corpsman. The author's crisp writing makes more apparent the material waste and absurdity of America's "small wars." Despite the advisors' bravery and good intentions, they were consistently undercut by supply problems and chain-of-command issues that inevitably gave the Guardsmen short shrift. West ably captures the drama in the initially tense relationships between the Americans and their beleaguered Iraqi counterparts, the remnants of Iraq's professional officer class, and he's sensitive to the nuances of Iraqi culture, which initially allowed al-Qaeda and other insurgents to fester in hardscrabble cities like Khalidiya. The author argues that the unit trained by the Guardsmen evolved into a determined and nonpartisan fighting force: "For a bunch of carpenters and cops, they were a pretty determined bunch." One of the better reflections on the war in Iraq, with enough sense of on-the-ground combat reality to hold disturbing portents for future "small wars."

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781451655933
  • Publisher: Free Press
  • Publication date: 5/1/2012
  • Edition description: Simon & Schuster
  • Pages: 352
  • Sales rank: 100,045
  • Product dimensions: 6.38 (w) x 9.06 (h) x 1.12 (d)

Meet the Author

Owen West is a former Marine major who served two combat tours in Iraq. He is the author of two novels, including Sharkman Six, which won the Boyd literary award for best military novel, and his work has appeared in Men’s Journal, Playboy, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and numerous other publications.

The author is donating his proceeds from this book to The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation and to the families of fallen Iraqi soldiers known as the “Snake Eaters.”

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  • Posted May 1, 2012

    Recommended Reading

    I served as the Team Leader for Team Outcast from August 2005 to July 2006. The team, comprised of reservists, was made up of a plumber, a postal clerk, a rock guitarist / air conditioning repairman, a cop, a mechanic, a flooring salesman, a clerk at Lowes and a contractor; on paper Outcast should not have been successful. Owens book, "The Snake Eaters," does a masterful job exploring/explaining how Outcast achieved remarkable successes.

    Owen explains how, in pre-mobilization training, Outcast received almost no training of value; the team members joked that it was 2 weeks of training crammed into 90 days. "The Snake Eaters" emphasizes the role of the combat advisor in counter insurgency warfare. Advisors serve multiple roles. They are their units link to the most powerful military in the world, confidants, buffers, actors, amateur psychologists and diplomats. Above all else they are warriors. They prove their mettle in combat and earn the privilege to advise. "The Snake Eaters" shows that warriors, not supplicants, succeed as advisors, and that these warriors can come from unlikely sources.

    Owen shows that advisor teams and their units are a jigsaw puzzle of combat power. Each member of the team and key leaders in the advised unit are the key pieces to that puzzle. Success hinges on the ability of the advisor to reshape his piece of the puzzle, to turn negatives into positives, and push toward success. "Snake Eaters" makes it clear that rigidly applying doctrine, without regard to the reality on the ground, can be detrimental to the advisor's mission.

    I'd love to say that Outcast cracked the code to the advisory quandary, but there are no pat answers. Each advisory team faces a complex array of issues. Those issues run the entire gamut of human relations from the stress of combat to dealing with mundane personality issues. The key is the ability of the advisor to remain flexible.

    Aside from the actual advisors, the interpreters play a crucial role, and Owen makes this abundantly clear. They are the advisors eyes and ears. Good ones are worth their weight in gold; bads ones will get an advisor killed. Outcast was blessed with great interpreters. Brave men that risked everything to start a new, free country.

    Owen has done a tremendous job memorializing the contributions of one small team of advisors, Team Outcast, in all it's incarnations. I'll be proud to show it to my children and use it to explain why it was important that their Dad leave them for a year.

    Staff Sergeant David Cox said, "only we understand what we and the Iraqis worked for, and how hard it was every day, and who we lost along the way. But together we did it! I just hope the politicians don't screw the pooch..." I hope, thanks to Owens efforts in "The Snake Eaters," that more people now understand what we worked and bled for, and I share Ssgt Cox's concerns.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted May 4, 2012

    I was an Outcast Advisor from 2005-2006 and am honored to say I

    I was an Outcast Advisor from 2005-2006 and am honored to say I worked with the Snake Eaters. Owen West’s book “The Snake Eaters,” remembers accurate details of our experiences and struggles and shows the personal growth between advisors and the Snake Eaters molding a country, an army, and two extremely different cultures. It made me feel extremely proud and honored to see how Owen West honored each Snake Eater and Advisor and showed their selfless service, duty to country, honor, integrity, and inner strength to bring the fight each day multiple times a day. Even when the fight seemed overwhelming and support from other units nonexistent, West was able to show the drive each advisor and Snake Eater had to adapt, overcome and beat the insurgency. As an advisor remembering these events again it sends goose bumps up my arms. It is a honor knowing I was a part of 3/3/1 Snake Eaters!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
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