The Ragged Edge: A US Marine’s Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion

Michael Zacchea · Ted Kemp

May 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by John Pruden

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13 hr 17 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

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.

About the author

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Zacchea (USMC-Ret.) led the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis of the Iraqi Fifth Battalion and their U.S. advisers. He won two Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, and Iraq's Order of the Lion of Babylon. Zacchea is currently director of the UConn Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities.

Ted Kemp is an editor, writer, and foreign correspondent for CNBC Digital. Previously, he was digital bureau chief for CNBC EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), based in London. He lives in New York City.

John Pruden is a professional voice actor who records audiobooks, corporate and online training narrations, animation and video game characters, and radio and TV commercials. An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, John has a solid creative foundation from which to draw for his intelligent audiobook narrations.

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