Svoboda, Peter, Headhunter, 5-73 CAV and Their Fight for Iraq’s Diyala River Valley, Casemate, 2020
Most books on the U.S. war in Iraq focus upon Anbar because of the Awakening there and Baghdad since it was the capital and the major sight of the civil war. Peter Svoboda’s Headhunter covers the 5th Squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division’s deployment to Diyala in eastern Iraq from 2006-07. The book focuses almost exclusively upon kinetic operations against the insurgency and the bond between the soldiers especially when they suffered losses.
The 5th Squadron was sent into the Diyala River Valley in July 2006. The author notes that the area was the center of the Shiite-Sunni divide with Shiite militias like the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army working within the police and insurgent groups like the 1920 Revolution Brigade, Mohammed’s Army and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). The unit however only really faced off against ISI and its allies. The Islamic State said it would establish its caliphate in Diyala and used it as a major base.
Headhunter records the period when the U.S. military shifted from just focusing upon military operations like raids and patrols to a more comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy during the Surge. You could barely tell that from Svoboda’s account however. Almost the entire book is taken up by one operation after another where the 5th Squadron was sent into an area to deny it to ISI. They would set up a base and try to find where the militants were operating in and conduct raids against them.
The unit was hit with IEDs and suicide bombers and suffered several losses. The latter takes up several chapters as the book goes through the relationships the fallen had with their comrades and their families. This gives the book a real human element.
The problem with this account is that it completely misses the monumental change the Americans went through during this period. It seems like the only thing the U.S. did in Iraq was get blown up by bombs and get into firefights with insurgents. There’s only passing mention of the Surge when the 5th Squadron started joint patrols with the Iraqi forces and began reaching out to local Iraqi officials like mayors to get them to work against the insurgency in return for services. This is a fault with many books that focus upon a specific American unit operating in Iraq. They get caught up in their day to day lives and miss the bigger strategy at work or the lack thereof.
It's good that there is a book about Diyala because it was a major front for Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents and the Americans. Unfortunately Headhunters doesn’t really give you a sense of this conflict. It’s really only about the offensive operations the 5th Squadron ran and the casualties they suffered as a result. It’s a shame that the author didn’t take the time to delve into the larger picture. On the other hand Svoboda does an excellent job discussing the soldiers that lost their lives and their families.
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