Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood
Donovan Campbell
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0812979567
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell wanted to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. So he joined the service, becoming a commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One. Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family. They were assigned to Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen—with the chilling cries of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret—Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces.
Thrillingly told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership and loyalty.
Me and a Guy Named Elvis: My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presley
I'm Perfect, You're Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah's Witness Upbringing
Fraud Fighter: My Fables and Foibles
Tell it.” From there, one thing led to another, and now the stories are a book, and many people know what my Marines did. It doesn’t make up for the lack of medals, I know, but it was the last unfinished thing I had to do. Having done it, I felt a sense of completion that I lacked earlier. Now I’m writing this afterword nearly five years after the events of that fateful 2004 deployment. Since then, I’ve completed business school, had two daughters, and been recalled for yet another tour in.
Vehicle equipped with a PRR, they would pass that backward, and so on in a long game of high-speed telephone. Messages traveling from the convoy’s back to its front reached me the same way. Compounding our difficulties, vehicles at random points along the convoy broke down every so often. We could ill afford to be separated from them. With thousands of same-color, same-model military vehicles on the same road at the same time, it would have been easy for a few of our separated members to latch on.
Bit disappointed; “infantry” didn’t sound as sexy and elite as did “scout-sniper.” In retrospect, though, Colonel Kennedy was absolutely right, and not getting my first choice of platoons was one of the best things that ever happened to me. On October 15, I checked into the Golf Company office, a tiny room on one end of the red-roofed, whitewashed cinder-block building that was the battalion’s headquarters. In typical military fashion, four desks were crammed inside the office. Only two were.
Against the sturdy metal gate of a compound wall. He rebounded, then shook his head just like a bull in a bullfight and charged again. This time the gate exploded inward, and second squad streamed inside to relative safety. Leza started running inside, then paused, turned around, and grinned at me despite the heavy fire. “Hey, sir. That’s Carson for you, huh?” For the first time, I found myself grinning during a firefight. “Yeah, it sure is. Let’s get the hell inside, huh?” We poured into the.
That hurts like a sonofabitch.” Every Marine inside the compound turned to look at him as he took off his helmet and turned it over, examining it closely. Then, proudly, Carson brandished it aloft, displaying a long, shallow furrow running along the length of the top right side. Somehow, someway, a stray round from the distant firefight had penetrated our world and smacked Carson’s helmet. “Check it out, I just got hit in the head! Man, that hurts.” Grinning and shaking his head, the giant.