Black Hearts tells the story of a few bad soldiers from 1st platoon, Bravo company of the 1-502nd Infantry Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, that was plagued with toxic leadership and lack of control over soldiers. The book documents the events that led to the ultimate demise of the soldiers involved in the horrific incident that occurred on March 12, 2006. Four soldiers were arrested in the brutal murder of an Iraqi family, which was a result of the lack of leadership and structure these soldiers received. Black Hearts takes a deep look into what happened to this troubled platoon and what unfortunate events occurred during their deployment. This whole battalion was at a disadvantage before they left the states, given the mission …show more content…
Arriving in October 2005, the entire campaign units were struggling throughout with being over-tasked and under-staffed, and 1st platoon was a major victim of this occurrence. Relieving the 48th Infantry Brigade, who had no relations with the locals and very little presence in the AO, they had to reestablish control of the area around FOB Yusufiyah. With terrible living conditions and little to no equipment, the platoon had to juggle improving their fighting positions while at the same time secure the JSB and the AVLB. The company TOC had no kitchen to cook food nor any running water. Soldiers would fill sand bags from sun up to sun down trying to provide themselves with some sort of cover against attacks. The PSG Miller would request supplies constantly, but it seemed a low priority of the the higher command. This was a common theme throughout the time they were in the triangle of death. It wasn't often that officers would visit the FOB or provide supplies to enhance their situation, but when they did it was not a welcomed response. Kunk would come by and tell the soldiers how undisciplined and how little work they had completed with little consideration of how hard the soldiers had been working with the limited resources. On top of trying to establish an area where they could sit down and not have to worry about direct fire, 1st platoon was also tasked with conducting patrols and manning TCP's which they did not have the men to
Among these leaders was Bravo Company’s 1st platoon’s SFC Robert Gallagher. The platoon endured terrible living conditions including no running water and filthy living space. These inadequate living conditions must be met with some relaxation on the standards they were expected to follow. Company leadership viewed this as a bribe to keep the soldiers in high spirits. In reality, they set the stage for the erosion of the morals the enlisted soldiers are supposed to possess. While the morals were being chipped away, so was the original plan the battalion had hoped to follow. Fragmentation orders became a pseudo-standard for the boys of Bravo Company. What had originally started as short-term overnight patrol bases turned into fortified traffic control points with the exception of any form of fortification other than in notion only. Despite the fact that platoon-level leadership requested for supplies they were repeatedly turned down. A major breakdown in the communication between the leadership created a loss in faith in the higher leadership for the lower-enlisted soldiers on the ground. Very soon into deployment, Bravo Company began to experience contact with unseen enemy forces. The enemy was able to engage and plant IED’s and cause casualties while remaining elusive. After the first few casualties within the company, the mission to start set up traffic control points was to begin. While conducting patrols down the road time and time
As they began to clear the routes in the AO the casualties starting occurring. After some time had passed all the platoons had experienced many deaths and were starting to lose a lot of their platoon leadership. The mounting pressure of combat combined with the pressure coming down from LTC Kunk communication between the company and battalion level leadership began to digress. With morale lowering with every day and casualty that went by the men began to run the tactical checkpoints that they had set up ruthlessly. They weren’t treating civilian harshly and would even harass them physically. This gave them a notorious record among the Iraqi civilians. Going into December 2005 the men had begun to relax on their own standard operating procedures along the
Black Hearts was about the 2005-2006 deployment of the 101st‘s second brigade‘s 1-502nd (First Strike) to Iraq. The book more specifically honed in on Bravo Company and their first platoon’s decent into complete madness throughout the deployment. The 1-502nd and its commander Lt Col Kunk, was tasked with the mission of getting control of and hold the land in-between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Kunk was a particularly difficult man to get along with. He would explode and go on a tirade over just about anything, big or small. This caused serious problems at meetings when he only wanted things his way and would personally attack his commanders who he thought he could not trust. This area had been recently dubbed as the “Triangle of
“S*** rolls downward” an old army phrase is what exactly happened to 1st platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. Black Hearts is a fictional book on soldiers in the 101st Airborne division in the 502 Infantry Regiment during deployment to Iraq in 2005. Black Hearts is a book which gives the reader the point of views the different types of stress a soldier goes through during a deployment both physically and especially mentally. The book goes in depth and paints realistic events throughout the deployment and the impact it had one specific company.
They found out they were going to one of the most if not the most dangerous place in Iraq South Baghdad also known as the Triangle of Death. October 2005 2nd Brigade started to arrive Kunk dispersed the Companies: Bravo-West, Charlie-South, Alpha-central, and Delta-North. Kunk assigned Bravo and Charlie who he believed to be his best companies the mission he judged to be the toughest. The relief in place and transfer of authority was quite displeasing many men said that the National Guard unit 48th were quite beaten up and done for. They claimed the men looked beat and scared letting the enemy dictate where they could and could not go and had very little intel on the AO and surrounding areas to pass along to them. As everyone started to settle in to their AO Kunk started focusing on the overall mission to fight the insurgency and support the people and train the IA. Now focusing in more on Bravo, Goodwin took over the Yusufiyah area and was very
Reading this book I found it to be very intriguing. It is a story about men from the 101st Airborne Division’s legendary 502nd Infantry Regiment known as “the Black Heart Brigade. These men were deployed to the country’s worst and most unfavorable location at the most dangerous time. The platoon the book talks about the most would be the Bravo Company First Platoon. They were constantly in a rough patch throughout the entire book, facing constant leadership changed and trying to survive the Triangle of Death. Being in this hostile environment caused many of the soldiers to lose discipline and not even care about life or death for their own sake. Their mentalities were at an all-time low, causing them to do crazy things like rape a fourteen year old Iraqi girl and murdering her and her family cold blooded. It was a tragic deployment and we can clearly see and feel the motions they had during their time in Iraq.
War, the Ultimate Proving Ground: The black troops persevered in the face of hardship, prejudice, and discrimination. They fought in spite of atrocious treatment and in the face of bitter challenges, believing they could make a difference.
It did not take long for morale to drop, especially in 1st PLT. Within the first 4 months of the deployment, 1st PLT had lost their PL and PSG as well as a few “Joes” to IEDs
In the book, Bad Boys, Ann Arnett Ferguson goes on a three-year journey through Rosa Parks Elementary School to observe and research why it is that mostly black males are ending up in jail and are unsalvageable from such a young age. She interviews and observes daily interactions with the eleven and twelve year old students that have been labeled “at risk” by their teachers and peers. She wants to research how it is being in school when all of the educators have already labeled them as “unsalvagable, at risk, and bound for jail”. These kids pretty much act in the way that their teachers treat them. They get into trouble every single day and most of the times these boys provoke it because
Joseph Conrad once observed that “a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” As a result of the violence that is necessary during wartime, soldiers are permitted to engage in savage behavior that is normally forbidden in society. In The Wars by Timothy Findley, however, soldiers act in violent ways even when they are not actively engaged in battle. The inherently savage nature of humankind is evident when Robert Ross kills the German soldier after the gas attack, when Robert is raped in the baths, and when Robert kills Captain Leather. These violent events that occur outside the direct action of the war demonstrate the evil inherent in
About 180,000 African American people comprised 163 units that served in the Union Army, during the time of the Civil War, and many more African American people had served in the Union Navy. Both the free African-Americans and the runaway slaves had joined the fight. On the date of July 17, in the year of 1862, the U. S. Congress had passed two very important acts that would allow the enlistment of many African Americans, but the official enrollment had occurred only after the September, 1862, issuance of the, Emancipation Proclamation. In general, most white soldiers and officers, had believed that most of the black men, who had served in the Civil War, lacked the courage, and the will to fight
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
According to the author Tim O’Brien, people tend to readily accept the ‘facts’ presented of what happened during a war. People do not consider the existence of fallacies regarding the actual stories of what happens in wars, few consider that the ‘facts’ of an incident often change through people’s words. The film ‘Saving the Private Ryan’ by Steven Spielberg features both facts and seemingness part of the war story. Since it is so difficult to fully describe a war using human language, Spielberg ended up revising his stories to make sense out of it. Spielberg included parts that did not occur or exclude parts that did occur in order to make their stories seem more credible. According
The story of the Black Hearts Brigade, told by Jim Frederick, starts out with the 1st Battalion of the 502nd Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division in the summer of 2005. The author starts with a brief chapter of the events that unfolded when four soldiers of this battalion went to a house, raped a girl and killed her and her family. In the first part of the book Frederick explains the grand strategy the US was taking in Iraq at the time, the history of the area named the triangle of death, and how the 1-502nd did in their pre-deployment training. The main focus in Iraq at the time was getting south Baghdad under control. South Baghdad, otherwise known as the triangle of death, had a very rich history due to its location (right
Frederick starts Black Hearts by showing the readers how there was bad tension between the soldiers and their higher leadership prior to their deployment. This internally means that there was no esprit de corps between the 1-502nd. If there is bad blood between the leadership and their men, it is extremely difficult to gain their trust or respect once you are on deployment. Although they are required to follow orders from their higher leadership, they will be obeying out of resentment instead of respect. A lot of the time, first platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd Regiment was respecting the rank and not the person. This is a common term in the military, which Frederick brings to light in the book.