Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Hearts and Mines

Subtitle: With the Marines in al Anbar - A Story of Psychological Warfare in Iraq

Author: Russell Snyder

Narrator: John Allen Nelson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 03-29-13

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

This is a true story of war, the story of one man's transformation as he retraces the mine-strewn roads of a land itself transformed by mankind's most shockingly inhuman practice. It is the firsthand account of a member of one of the United States Army's three-man Tactical Psychological Operations Teams, groups of men tasked with winning the hearts and minds of Iraq's civilian population through leaflets, loudspeakers, conversation, and bribery. Transcribed from and inspired by the author's personal wartime journal, it is a story of introspection. It relates how the feelings of eagerness and uncertainty in a young man unfamiliar with war were replaced with the dread knowledge that, buried within his soul, beneath a facade of goodwill and morality, lurked the capacity to kill his fellow men.

There are scenes of battle retold in Hearts and Mines. There are descriptions of the feelings of seeing once-familiar human bodies destroyed beyond recognition. Some days are described as being full of hope and appreciation for the beauty of the world, others with despair for the omnipresent cruelty and destruction which has a habit of consuming men when they feel unaccountable for their actions. It captures the sensory experience of living in a singular environment full of strange plants and animals, friends true and false, and determined enemies, encapsulating the existential fear of mortar and rocket attacks, and the ever-present threat of IEDs, as well as the ridiculousness of military bureaucracy, such as was demonstrated by a sergeant major's decision to punish graffiti artists by removing the doors of all the camp's toilets.

In late 2001 Russell Snyder joined the United States Army as a psychological operations specialist. As a member of the 9th PSYOP Battalion, the army's only active-duty, tactical psychological operations unit he deployed to Iraq, the experience that inspired him to write Hearts and Mines. Subsequently he was deployed twice more to Iraq. He is a recipient of various military awards including the Bronze Star medal. Now a civilian, he lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Members Reviews:

Excellent

Russell Snyder's new book is called "Hearts and Mines: With the Marines in Al-Anbar: A Story of Psychological Warfare in Iraq." It's a beautiful book and one that may move you to outraged action, but not in the way you might expect.

I got the book from its author at a Veterans For Peace convention. I assumed it was an anti-war book. I was startled first by the literary skill of the author, who paints a powerful picture of his time in Iraq. I was startled second, slowly, gradually, as I waited for the author to turn against the war. I've read many other accounts by soldiers who came to regret their actions. They suffer from the actions they have taken. They deeply regret having killed innocent people. They find it almost too much to bear. They lay down their guns. They resist. They go AWOL. They file for conscientious objector status. Or they receive their discharge and then denounce the institution of war, committing never to be a part of it again.

That never quite happens with Snyder.

Here's an intelligent, sensitive young man capable of describing a wide array of conflicting emotions that soldiers experience in wartime. He enjoys the camaraderie of the military.