Review Black Hearts, One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness In Iraq’s Triangle Of Death

Frederick, Jim, Black Hearts, One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness In Iraq’s Triangle Of Death, Broadway, 2010

 

Black Hearts, One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness In Iraq’s Triangle Of Death is a depressing story about how a U.S. army platoon was neglected, denigrated and committed a heinous crime during its deployment in Iraq. Most of the book is about how a battalion from the 101^st Airborne Division was deployed to what was called the Triangle of Death, one of the most dangerous parts of the country just south of Baghdad. It emphasizes how aimless the U.S. military was for many years in Iraq carrying out tasks that had no real impact. It’s only at the end that the book goes over the rape of a 14 year old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family by American soldiers. Black Hearts blames the chain of command for allowing the unit to deteriorate to the point that it carried out this act.

 

There are three parts to author Jim Frederick’s work. The first is on the 1^st brigade of the 101^st Airborne’s time in the Triangle of Death. The brigade’s Bravo company was given tasks that it didn’t have the manpower for such as covering two bridges and a series of checkpoints along a road. Usually a company would be able to rotate its platoons between jobs so that the soldiers could get some time off but that wasn’t true for Bravo which ate away at morale and the soldiers’ mental stamina. Not only that but there were so many checkpoints they could only put 3-4 soldiers in each one which was a breach of protocol. The company got no relief since the brigade commander was overly abusive. His main interaction with his troops was to yell at them and tell them how bad they were. The overall impression that one gets is that Bravo was doing guard duty which made them targets for insurgents and was having no real impact upon the war. This was true for most of the U.S. forces during this time period.

 

The second part is on the psychological breakdown of the 1^st platoon. It was placed in an isolated area and its distance from other parts of the company made it an easy target. It didn’t get adequate supplies like barbed wire and other defensive equipment leaving it even more exposed. When it asked for help it was only derided by the brigade commander. The platoon was constantly blown up by IEDs and its interactions with Iraqis at the checkpoint often became hostile . The unit came to believe that Iraqis were all liars and were not to be trusted. The 1^st ended up drinking and doing drugs which they got from Iraqi soldiers and would routinely abuse locals. Because the Bravo company was stretched so thin the 1^st platoon never got any relief. They came to feel that no one cared about them and had the constant fear of death hanging over their heads. The company commander rarely if ever visited them to see how far they had fallen. This is why Frederick blamed the commanders from top to bottom in the 1^st brigade for what happened next. They left 1^st platoon to feel like it was fending for itself and was completely unaware of how much the war was tearing upon their psyches.

 

That leads to the last part of Black Hearts which is the crime. Several soldiers from 1^st platoon broke into the house of the Janabi family, raped their 14 year old daughter, killed the family and lit the girl on fire. One of the culprits started telling his friends what he did which eventually led all of the perpetrators to be put on trial. It’s the climax to the story of how the 1^st fell apart.

 

Frederick does an excellent job breaking down how the 1^st platoon disintegrated under the pressure of war and neglect by their superiors. It also portrays a U.S. military at a loss for tactics and more importantly a strategy to win the war in Iraq. Black Hearts really turns into a condemnation of the American leadership. It not only failed the 1^st platoon but the military overall.

 

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