If you were expecting a military memoir in Owen West's latest book, THE SNAKE EATERS, you might be disappointed. Because this is not a memoir, as I expected. But, much as I love memoirs,I was not disappointed. Because West's exhaustively researched and carefully documented history of the New Iraqi Army's Battalion 3/3-1 and its small but intrepid band of US advisors is anything but dull. Covering the period from September 2005 through February 2007, West has loaded this NIA unit history with enough interesting and pertinent facts and and information to keep military history buffs and political analysts arguing for months, if not years. And while the arc of the narrative follows the training and development of the 3/3-1, the emphasis here is on the role of its US advisors, a mixed bag of army reservists, national guardsmen and Marines, both officers and NCOs. The setting is the town of Habbaniyah, halfway between Ramadi and Fallujah, or smack in the middle of a still hotly contested region rife with terrorists and insurgents.

West has made history into a page-turning collection of violent confrontations, daily shootings, sniper attacks and IED explosions. The US advisors are right in the middle of all this as they attempt to train new Iraqi army recruits (jundi) and at the same time maintain proper relations with their Iraqi officer counterparts and the fractured leadership of the civilian populace.

There are dozens of named principals here, and West has kindly provided a couple of pages listing the cast of characters, both Iraqi and American - a list I often referred to. There is also a simplified map of Habbaniya which was extremely useful (as are pages of endnotes, an index and a selected bibliography). West makes it eminently clear that inadequate and misguided training, and the culture clash, are often the biggest obstacles to the advisor unit's cohesion and workability. And the lack of clear guidance from higher up remains a problem too, as it always has in military advisor situations. Here is a perfect example, in part of a memo from USMC General Richard Zilmer.

"You have to look at these people as if they are trying to kill you, but you can't treat them that way. So (a) Be Polite, (b) Be Professional, (c) Have a plan to kill everyone you meet."

Which kinda sums up the daily dilemma that faced US advisors like LTC Mike Troster, MAJ Walt Roberson, SFC Mark Huss, SSG Shawn Boiko and others from the first advisor team, and, later, MAJ Steve Sylvester and author MAJ Owen West from the team that relieved them.

Troster's first team of advisors gets the lion's share of attention here, which is perhaps fitting, since they laid the initial groundwork in gaining the trust and respect of the NIA officers and jundi. It seemed a bit odd to me, disconcerting even, that Owen West is not even part of the story until well toward the end of the book, when he was assigned as a combat replacement in October 2006. His late entry indicated to me, however, what a tremendous job he has done in recreating that first year of the early advisors to the 3/3-1. There must have been literally hundreds of hours of individual interviews and research to piece this history together so thoroughly. And then he made it read almost like a military thriller. His descriptions of combat are graphically ghoulish at times, enouch to make your skin crawl. Here is one, about an IED and firefight - a "mass casualty" -

"From his position he could see an Iraqi man sprawled in the street, his dishdasha riding up his charred torso, half pink, half black. He was howling. And dying. An eight-year-old boy had propped himself up with one arm. Neary could see right through him. He was missing half his rib cage. His lung or some other organ inflated and deflated like a balloon. He looked more like a burst watermelon than a human being."

And sometimes, after introducing you to particular advisors, and giving you enough anecdotes about them that you felt you knew them - and liked them - it took only a few words to give you goosebumps of regret and sorrow, as in this brief passage about the death of the medic, SSG Blakley -

"The second bullet ripped through Blakley's neck and plunged into his chest ... when he reached his fallen partner, shielding him. Gentile needed all his strength to get Blakley inside the truck. He pulled his friend close and felt for a pulse somewhere in the wet.
'Come on, brother.'
Blakley exhaled and was gone."

Such a passage may bring the sudden, unexpected sting of tears to your eyes. It certainly did to mine. It will also bring home the awful - awe-full - knowledge of the sacrifices made by our military advisors that too often go unheralded and unnoticed.

THE SNAKE EATERS (the title comes from the 3/3-1's unit patch of an eagle clutching a snake) is not a book that can be easily summarized; it is too densely packed with information and events. (And there is much here about both Iraqis AND Americans.) It might be loosely compared to HORSE SOLDIERS, Doug Stanton's bestseller about the initial invasion of Afghanistan by a small group of US advisors working with Afghan chieftains and their followers. All it is lacking is the more personal 'homefront' information that Stanton's book contained.

Owen West's book is not an easy book to read. But it NEEDS to be read, and not just by generals, politicians and poicy makers, but by every American who so casually takes for granted the many freedoms protected and ensured by our military forces. There is much to think about here. ( )