Short Synopsis
In this military memoir, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea tells a deeply personal and powerful story while shedding light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents.

Full Synopsis
At a time when the United States debates how deeply to involve itself in Iraq and Syria, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea, USMC (Ret.), holds a unique vantage point on our still-ongoing war. Deployed to Iraq in March 2004, his team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi army battalion trained by the US military. Zacchea tells a deeply personal and powerful story while shedding light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents. The Ragged Edge is the first American military memoir out of Iraq or Syria that features complex Arab and Kurdish characters and that intimately explores their culture and politics in a dispassionate way. Zacchea's invaluable lessons about Americans working with Arabs and Kurds to fight insurgency and terrorism come precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any time in U.S. history.

"[A] thoughtful, detailed memoir. . . . Fiction lovers will recognize the employment of suspense techniques in the many stories told here, and consumers of history will appreciate a supremely reliable narrator with an eye for the smallest details." ---Booklist

"An honest, revealing glimpse of the dangers inherent in acting on good intentions based on ignorance." ---Kirkus

"A solid and informative account of the trials and tribulations the U.S. military experienced in Iraq, Zacchea's story is one we have heard before, but it's told exceedingly well." ---Library Journal

“Michael Zacchea and Ted Kemp have written a superb account of the efforts to build an Iraqi Army from scratch. This is a book rich in lessons and emotions. Every commander-in-chief contemplating intervention should read this.” ---General Anthony C. Zinni USMC (Retired), author of The Battle for Peace