Ronin: A Marine Scout-Sniper Platoon in Iraq

The book gives a good inside view in the life of snipers in combat. As a non military person I can only have the deepest respect for people who fight for world peace and protect democracy.

Captain A. Maas never went out the wire on any of the reconnaissance patrols, sniping missions, and counterterrorist actions which are told in the first-hand accounts within RONIN. The fact that these scout/snipers were not listened to at the time by Maas and other Marine officers, when their duty was to report honestly what was going down in the field in combat, was unconscionable; the fact that a staff officer like Maas has the audacity to attack the RONIN scout/snipers now is unpardonable, and brings to mind Shakespeare's epic lines from HENRY V: "Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame." Marine commanders are on the record in this book, such as Captain Marty Keogh, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Sullivan, Major Muller, and Major Murphy--the reason they are on the record is that I sought out Marine combat commanders and fortunately, those on the record in this book never lied to me about any combat they endured. As author of RONIN,I am well-aware that anyone who reads the book is entitled to their opinion. Having said that, the factual inaccuracies laid on this book by Maas--a Marine company executive officer with no special operations experience, no scout/sniper experience, and no counterterrorism experience in his life, and you may place a small bet that he will continue to make a very good staff officer in his career--are a hoot. First, I am not a journalist. I am not a reporter. I am an author and counterterrorism & guerrilla war specialist. I was attached as an embedded author and counterterrorism specialist to 2nd Battalion 6th Marine Regiment. I have been fortunate to attach with the following units in 21 months in the Iraq War: Special Operations Task Force 121, US Army Special Forces, Kurdish peshmerga, 10th Mountain Division light infantry,101st Airborne/Air Asault scouts and snipers, 82nd Airborne paratroopers, 82nd Airborne paratrooper scouts and snipers, Marine scout/snipers (RONIN platoon, 2/6, subject of RONIN: A Marine Scout/Sniper Platoon in Iraq), Marine infantry, Iraqi Army infantry. Golf Company 2/6 Marines, such as Sergeant Fejzic, also feature in RONIN, and like every other warrior, spy, scout/sniper, and interpreter in the book, tell their story in their own words. Finally, Corporal Justin Novi, Marine scout/sniper and RONIN4 assistant team leader, wrote the introduction to this book. Novi's introduction is heartfelt, honest, real and well-done. Kudos to him for a fine introduction, and congratulations to RONIN for their honesty, integrity, courage, and commitment. I made a vow on September 11th to write at least one book on a Marine unit at war. Fortunately, thanks to RONIN, I was lucky to keep that vow. Semper Fidelis. Mike Tucker, author of RONIN: A Marine Scout/Sniper Platoon in Iraq Counterterrorism & Guerrilla War Specialist/Author Straits of Malacca, Malaysia

I found this book very informative to me on a personal note. Being a mom of one of Ronins scout snipers, I knew my son and his fellow Marines were in extreme danger daily. Knowing many of them I found myself needing to know more. I knew my son grew to have a great friendship with Mike Tucker and talked about him through letters he had sent to me. Never meeting this man I found it exciting but scary knowing my son would be part of history through the eyes and words of a real life writer. There were times when he was in Iraq and I would not hear from him for weeks,and I would pray that I could just know what he was really doing. The not knowing was the hardest part, but when I received a letter already 10 days old or that scary late night phone call just to hear him say Hi mom ! It made everything alright. This book can now give me answers to questions he would not answer. For those of us who have never seen war times don't assume that tv tells all. If you want real life situations, stop and read this book. It tells the ups and downs in a very stressful, unprepared enviroment with our brave soldiers who face this daily. Thanks for telling their story and becoming a true friend, Mr. Tucker.

Former Marine Mike Tucker embeds himself into the Marine Scout-Sniper platoon of the 2/6. Code-named Ronin, it consists of twenty highly trained, motivated and skilled operators who are deployed in Fallujah from Sept. 2005 to April 2006. Winning their confidence and the confidence of their interpreters, Tucker gets them to provide an oral history of their experience as snipers in one of the most dangerous cities in war torn Iraq. Tucker himself is almost kidnapped twice by the Fallujah Police and had they succeeded, it is likely that he would not be alive today. Ronin is not a collection of war stories one expects from a sniping book. Rather, it is a horror story of things that go wrong everytime as the command structure first ignores them and then employs them in duties unbefitting of their training and skill. Ronin snipers pull no punches when they scornfully point out that the Fallujah Police are Al Qaeda operatives who betray their movements, snatch fallen foes to prevent the collection of intelligence (that the fallen are the Fallujah Police themselves), and protect IED planters and weapon smugglers. They point out that the since the US pays for the police, that we are defeating ourselves. Their bitterness extends beyond the Fallujah Police and they have some hard thoughts about their commanders who forbade them to shoot or capture a prized target. Tactical unreality sets in when their command expects them to do house clearing with bolt action rifles! Do not read Ronin if you're expecting exciting stories of battlefield marksmanship. Rather, Ronin is a story of good men betrayed by ignorant or inept leaders - something many of us have experienced ourselves. Hopefully Ronin's story is an aberation within the Marine Corps. Even if it is, the book is a wake-up call to Americans that our guys on the ground are not being listened to upstairs and that our policies in Iraq need serious review.

There are a lot of books out now providing the opinions of various so called authorities on the Iraq War and how we should proceed in its prosecution. This is something quite different and quite unique. The voices in Ronin are not those of journalists or political theorists but of the troops on the ground, straight up, to the point, unvarnished. Reading this book is like sitting in the hooch with these men after a mission, hearing them recount in their own words the small victories and the myriad of frustrations they experience. If you want to know what is really going on in Iraq, I highly recommend this work by Mike Tucker.