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We March at Midnight

A War Memoir

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
0 of 1 copy available

What would the war do without me?

We March at Midnight is award-winning author Ray McPadden's chronicle of his experience as a highly decorated Ranger Officer leading some of the most dangerous missions during the height of the Iraq and Afghan wars. In 2005, Ray joined the army in search of what he calls "the moment"—a chance to prove to himself and his brothers in arms that he is a true leader. His job is to establish the first outpost in the Korengal, Afghanistan's deadliest valley, and his decisions and mistakes will have a permanent impact on the men he commands. During the fifteen-month tour, his unit receives numerous decorations for valor while suffering nearly 50 percent casualties, ultimately accomplishing their mission in a land considered unwinnable.

Prowess with a rifle platoon soon earns Ray a position in the world's premiere raiding force, the 75th Ranger Regiment, an accomplishment earned by less than 1 percent of the officers in the US Army, and during the most combat-heavy period of the twenty-first century. Ray spearheads the first joint-strike force of Army Rangers and Navy SEALs, in a shadow war against the agents of a foreign government, where lightning raids by helicopter, armored vehicle, and foot are his nightly routine.

In 2009, when Ray returns to the same corner of Afghanistan where his military career began, he suddenly finds himself tasked with leading Rangers against a target he knows all too well: the home of friends from his first tour. As he leads one last raid, Ray is at war with himself. Conquering this unexpected enemy proves the greatest challenge of all.

We March at Midnight is a blood-spattered tour de force of growing up, leadership, the nature of war, and its aftermath.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 24, 2021
      Novelist and former U.S. Army Ranger McPadden (And the Whole Mountain Burned) delivers a raw and intimate memoir of his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and his struggles with PTSD. The son of a career naval officer, McPadden “burn to do something noble” and, after “graduat from a handful of the army’s elite schools and Texas A&M university,” he was sent in 2005 to Kunar province in Afghanistan, where he led his 43-man platoon on “hunting missions” against tribal fighters allied with the Taliban. He describes the deaths and woundings of comrades in stark detail, and the “grave undertow” of guilt he felt when his squad failed to prevent an ambush on a supply convoy. Eventually, he began to “despise this war and the boyish reveries of manhood that brought me here.” After returning to the U.S., McPadden joined the Rangers and was sent to Iraq to target terrorist cells in nighttime raids. Back home in the U.S. on leave, he suffered from “spells of melancholy” and fits of rage that put a strain on his marriage. He did another tour in Afghanistan in 2009, before finally leaving the Rangers and spending the next 10 years “demilitarizing.” McPadden describes firefights and psychological traumas with equal precision, and makes a devastating case that the cost of America’s “forever wars” on its soldiers is too high. This visceral story leaves a mark.

    • Booklist

      July 1, 2021
      McPadden recounts his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2006 to 2009 as an infantry platoon leader, then as a commander of the elite U.S. Army Rangers. The Korengal valley in Afghanistan is the setting for the start of McPadden's journey from raw lieutenant facing battle for the first time and suffering severe wounds and then for his return as a hardened leader of commandos carrying out impossible missions with great precision. These are war stories told with masterful control of the gritty details and a poet's sense of tragedy. McPadden expertly describes his men, the land, the battles, the enemy, and civilians, thoughtfully addressing every aspect of life in a war zone. He conveys the voices of soldiers in harm's way and shares his hard-won insights into violence both on and off the battlefield. McPadden's struggle to control the warrior impulse in order to be a good leader and a good husband makes this frank and well-written account particularly inspiring. McPadden's compelling insider's view of twenty-first-century warfare is an exceptional military memoir.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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