Guided by a magic rhyme, Jack and Annie travel to ancient Baghdad on a mission to help the Caliph disseminate wisdom to the world.

At night, in Huda's fragrant garden, a breeze sweeps in from the desert encircling Baghdad, rustling the leaves of her apricot trees and carrying warning of visitors at her gate. Huda, a secretary at the Australian embassy, lives in fear of the mukhabarat--the secret police who watch and listen for any scrap of information that can be used against America and its allies. They have ordered her to befriend Ally Wilson, the deputy ambassador's wife....

"The US military is preparing to withdraw from Iraq, and newly-minted lieutenant Jack Porter struggles to accept how it's happening--through alliances with warlords who have Arab and American blood on their hands. Day after day, Jack tries to assert his leadership in the sweltering, dreary atmosphere of Ashuriyah. But his world is disrupted by the arrival of veteran Sergeant Daniel Chambers, whose aggressive style threatens to undermine the fragile...

As bombs and missiles fall on Baghdad in 2003, a young boy uses the art of calligraphy to distance himself from the horror of war.

Mike and Kate Blaise fell in love during high school in small-town Missouri. Sharing a deep sense of patriotism, they both entered the U.S. Army--she as a commissioned officer and he as an enlisted infantry soldier who later became a helicopter pilot with the Air Cavalry. Forced to accept the realities of a military marriage yet determined to stay with her husband, Kate passed up her dream assignment in the United States to be with Mike, who was deployed...

Presents the history, geography, wildlife, culture, religion, and ethnic diversity of the people of Iraq, and the impact of the recent war and occupation.

Profiles twelve women soldiers who have served in the Iraq War, describing their experiences in the war, discussing the pressures of the job, and touching on the difficulties of being a woman in the military.