My Last
War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq
by Charles M. Grist
Published by (date): iUniverse (October, 2009)
ISBN: 9781440152689 / 9781440152702
Price: Softcover: 21.95; Hardcover: 31.95
Tags: Non-Fiction Memoir Vietnam Iraq/Afghanistan
Synopsis:
Central Florida police officer Charles M. Grist is one of the few
Vietnam veterans to have served as an enlisted soldier in the Iraq war.
In 2004, he volunteered to be the sergeant-in-charge of the Protective
Service Detail for an Army Reserve general in Baghdad.
Grist and his unit, the C.O.B.R.A. Team, were based inside Baghdad’s
Green Zone, but their travels with the general led them along the deadly
roads of Baghdad, to the throne of Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon, and
through the picturesque hills of Kurdistan. It was a fast-paced life of
high adventure, filled with convoys, mortar or rocket attacks, and the
constant threats of ambushes or improvised explosive devices.
As a Vietnam veteran, Grist knew that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be
his last war. He used his daily journal to record his team's wartime
experiences, to document the events that shaped Iraq in 2004, and to
preserve the heroic deeds of some of the Army Reserve and National Guard
warrior-citizens with whom he served. That journal became the basis for
this book.