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joker one a marine platoons story of courage leadership and brotherhood
when donovan campbells platoon deployed to ramadi in the spring of 2004 they believed theyd be spending most of their time building schools training police and making friends with the citizens . but shortly after arriving when campbell awoke to the chilling cry of jihad jihad jihad echoing from minaret to minaret across the city he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.for nearly the entire day joker one the forty man infantry platoon that campbell was charged with leading fought house to house to rescue other units sometimes trading grenades with their enemies from just a few feet away . in the days and months that followed hundreds of hard core insurgents launched simultaneous attacks on the marine forces in ramadi their ranks swelled by thousands of local volunteers drawn from the citizens of a city whose primary export was officers in saddam husseins army . by the fall of 2004 nearly half the men in campbells platoon had been wounded in some of the fiercest urban fighting since vietnam ; less than a month after they withdrew the forces in ramadi were doubled then tripled.although joker one is set in iraq the books themes brotherhood honor and sacrifice are universal . campbell shows us how his marines patience discipline and love for one another created a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts and how the essential goodness of these men remains unchanged by all of the pain and the terror surrounding them . his sharp eyed evocative and unflinching account of his deployment is just as impressive as the man himself a man who chose to enter the military because of his patriotism sense of privilege and deep religious faith when most of his princeton classmates were cashing in their ivy league educations for lucrative careers among the financial elite . the vivid and gripping battle scenes will satisfy fans of military memoirs but its campbells sense of duty faith and love for his men that makes joker one a truly extraordinary account of a war that has touched us all .