The Snake Eaters

“Every deploying adviser, and every American interested in how we are fighting our wars, should read Owen West’s gripping and important book” ( The Wall Street Journal ). From 2005 through 2007, the battle for the poisonous city of Khalidiya became so intensely personal that an Iraqi battalion, its American military advisors, and the insurgents they hunted knew one another by name. A third-generation U.S. Marine, Owen West was one of those combat advisors. This is his gripping account of how a t