Platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd Infantry Regiment committed one of the most heinous, documented crimes that occurred during Operation Iraqi Freedom - the rape, subsequent quadruple murder and burning of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and her family who lived just minutes away from the unit’s tactical outpost. What conditions could possibly existed for American Soldiers to take such callous actions? What leadership lessons could be learned in the midst of such tragedy? In his most recent novel, Black Hearts:
in this environment that Kunk started belittling and micromanaging his company commanders and sowed the seeds of mistrust between the different companies and the headquarters unit. In defense of Kunk, the mission he received was going to be one of the most difficult missions during the Iraq war. Upon reaching their area of operations and conducting their battle hand-off, the problems already started to arise with Bravo Company. A majority of their leadership was wounded or killed in action, creating
The book Black Hearts is written by Jim Frederick and tells the story of all the controversial accounts one infantry unit ran into while on deployment in Baghdad, Iraq. The book is a documentation, captured accounts and events written down to tell the crazy story these soldiers went through. The specific unit Frederick writes about and what Black Hearts is about is 2nd brigade of the 101st airborne infantry division. “Black Hearts” was the unofficial insignia of 2nd brigade. Frederick covers one
fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl and the cold-blooded execution of her and her family. It is hard to believe that such an abhorrent event could occur under the command of well-experienced and decorated leaders that so many soldiers have entrusted their lives with. Frederick does an excellent job depicting a well-rounded story, taking into fact all accounts of the story, integrating both the perspectives of leaders and subordinates that display how much of an impact poor leadership can have on others, including the lives
Texas A&M University Black Hearts Book Analysis Jesus Gomez MLSC 421-502 CPT. Speakes 10/23/14 Black Hearts is a non-fiction book about a platoon of soldiers from the historical 101st Airborne Division in the 502nd Infantry Regiment which was activated during World War II and has served in the Vietnam War, first Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The book describes the unit’s deployment in 2005 to Iraq to the region known as the Triangle
The book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick is an in-depth narrative about the 1st platoon, Bravo Company 1-502nd Infantry 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq in 2005. The leadership failures documented in this book range all the way from the general officer level down to the lowest private. LT general Ricardo Sanchez failed to understand the climate his command group was entering as they were deployed into Iraq. From then on the entire leadership failures continued to compound upon each other with
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