In one case, officials said, an Iraqi scientist was shot in the back of the head while walking down a street hours after leaving an interview with members of the U.S. Iraq Survey Group, which is searching for weapons of mass destruction.
Mr. Marlantes puts you in the heads of scared young men walking blindly in column through head-high grass in terror of trip-wires and ambush by enemies fighting on their home turf, or hacking their way through impenetrable bush overwhelmed by fatigue, jungle rot, fear, sickness, tigers and leeches.