Review (PDF) Highway To Hell
Present-day Iraq is a crucible of torture and Islamic terrorism, swamped with insurgents pitched against the mighty US Army and its allies…but there’s another wetner army in Iraq that dwarfs the British contingent and is second only in size to the US Army itself.It’s a disparate and anarchic multi-national force gathered from twenty or more countries numbering some 30,000, a mercenary army of men and a few women with guns for hire earning an average of $1,000 dollars a day. They are in Iraq to provide security for the businessmen, surveyors, building contractors, oil experts, aide workers and, of course, the TV crews who have flocked to the country to pick over the carcass of Saddam’s regime and help the country rebuild.
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Arrow (May 29, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0099499460
ISBN-13: 978-0099499466
Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.9 x 7 inches
Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,931,558 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #830 in Books > History > Middle East > Iraq #1362 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > Middle East #1787 in Books > History > Military > Iraq War
I've read a number of books on private military contractors (PMCs); some are too dry, some are too violent, and some are too academic. This book struck me as a nice compromise between the different styles of writing. To be sure, you know what to expect when a book is titled "Highway to Hell" and you see the author posing with an AK on the front cover. It's clearly not an academic study of the emergence of the PMC and the legal vacuum in which they once operated in Iraq. That said, I think the author does a good job not making the story too brash and trashy by including too many violent details. People do die, but it's not as Hollywood as he could have made it. This is not to say that he's trying to write a classic either. It's got bravado and action film one-liners to spare, but he holds off on what could have been a much more violent book.I think part of the attraction for a lot of readers is living vicariously through the author who has had a great number of adventures across the globe. He's the type of real life inspiration for the dopey morons Hollywood puts into action films--yet he proves that he's not heartless and he's not stupid. The author goes on a series of rants in the book about the various topics he discusses and he does such much in the way any average Joe might. He says what he means. He doesn't try to hide behind jargon to be politically correct. If he thinks something was dumb, he says it. If he disagrees, he says why. It is very conversational in this way. That said, I can imagine that a few of his rants may turn readers off. (However, the type of people likely to dislike his opinions are also rather unlikely to have read far enough into his book to get to them.
Highway To Hell Highway 1, Hell & Horror - Vietnam War Convoys - Ambushes: Truck Drivers - Chasing Ghosts - LIVING IN HELL (LIVING IN HELL Kindle) Hell's Super (Circles In Hell Book 1) A Cold Day In Hell (Circles In Hell Book 2) Hell Yeah!: Her Hell Yeah Cowboy (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Harland County Series Book 8) Hell Divers: Ghosts (The Hell Divers Trilogy Book 2) Truce: The Historic Neighbor From Hell (A Neighbor From Hell Series Book 4) Christmas from Hell: A Neighbor From Hell Novel Principles of Highway Engineering and Traffic Analysis Traffic and Highway Engineering Principles of Highway Engineering and Traffic Analysis, 5th Edition Traffic & Highway Engineering, 4th Edition Highway Engineering Handbook Highway Engineering: Planning, Design, and Operations Highway Construction and Inspection Fieldbook: Project Construction Management Book Soil Mechanics in Highway Engineering (Series on Rock and Soil Mechanics) Dixie Highway: Road Building and the Making of the Modern South, 1900-1930 Oregon's Highway 99 (Images of America) Wie Highway Engineering
