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It Was What It Was: A Tale of the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq (2006-2008) (Tales from the Global War on Terror
"...the timeless tale of a young leader and his soldiers on the ground seeking to find meaning and purpose in the gritty, visceral reality of war at the small unit level." General David Petraeus
What would you do if you had to rebuild a city populated largely by people who wanted you dead or gone? Where would you start?
As the dust settled on the U.S. military's initial victory in Iraq, the Army found itself mired in a difficult campaign to defeat a growing insurgency and rebuild the war-torn country. Untrained for counterinsurgency and without enough troops to secure the population, the Army responded by creating several new brigades specifically to meet these requirements.
It Was What It Was invites readers into the life of a freshly commissioned lieutenant in one of these units. Join him and his comrades as they stand up a new brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, train and equip it, and deploy together to the heart of Baghdad.
Essential reading for aspiring military leaders and a treasure trove for historians and enthusiasts, this book sheds light on the strange and often contradictory difficulties of small unit leadership in 21st century warfare.
Buy a copy today and immerse yourself in the strange world of modern counterinsurgency warfare.
What would you do if you had to rebuild a city populated largely by people who wanted you dead or gone? Where would you start?
As the dust settled on the U.S. military's initial victory in Iraq, the Army found itself mired in a difficult campaign to defeat a growing insurgency and rebuild the war-torn country. Untrained for counterinsurgency and without enough troops to secure the population, the Army responded by creating several new brigades specifically to meet these requirements.
It Was What It Was invites readers into the life of a freshly commissioned lieutenant in one of these units. Join him and his comrades as they stand up a new brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, train and equip it, and deploy together to the heart of Baghdad.
Essential reading for aspiring military leaders and a treasure trove for historians and enthusiasts, this book sheds light on the strange and often contradictory difficulties of small unit leadership in 21st century warfare.
Buy a copy today and immerse yourself in the strange world of modern counterinsurgency warfare.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 25, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 19, 2024
“For me though, even as all the tangible evidence of our work has likely vanished and our efforts have gone mostly awry, the sense of purpose and satisfaction I feel about what we accomplished remains.”
This and many other reflections in “It Was What It Was” bring out some raw emotions for those of us who served in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT for short). While I enjoyed this book quite a lot, I was perhaps too caught up in daydreaming about the narrative and my own experiences in Iraq to think much about the inevitable conclusions that would be reached. But author Daniel Pace intentionally leaves his reflections out of the story until the end, to give the reader a chance to digest an interesting description of a far-off time and place where we can vividly image ourselves or, perhaps, a son, daughter, father, or brother. It’s a place filled with violence, rich culture, crime, hospitality, hatred, great food, terrible hygiene, hope, and just unfathomable (and I mean totally unbelievable) heat.
For anyone who’s served overseas, and especially for Iraq War veterans, it’s impossible to not appreciate a memoir like this. Pace takes us through several years of his war-time service to include training, pre-deployment, deployment, R&R--which has the same haunting feeling of other R&R retellings such as “All Quiet on the Western Front”--redeployment back to the States, and then watching the unit prepare to go back to war. All of these sections are well done, and I could talk at length about most of them. But it’s interesting how he connects his feelings of being the “ghost” at the end, as the unit prepares to leave without him, to the endless cycle of GWOT deployments. Soldiers were trained up, hardened, turned into experts, but ultimately…what then? So many were broken, mentally and physically. And it’s not always easy to understand why.
I’ve read many memoirs from GWOT veterans, and this book holds its own. “It Was What It Was” is not trying to provide an epic psychoanalytic narrative like “Generation Kill,” which is arguably the standard for Iraq War stories. And it doesn’t focus heavily on violence, chaos, or combat like “The Forever War” and “House to House.” But it is a truly engaging story with humane and relatable content which makes it very approachable. Also, it is an excellent first-person account of how “The Surge” worked on the ground in 2007-2008, comparable to “The Good Soldiers” and “A Chance in Hell,” although probably better than both those titles.
I enjoyed this read, both for the story it told and for how it helped me process my own journey from my days in the Army. I sat for a few minutes after I put it down, trying to gather my emotions and make sense of the past. Oddly, I found myself missing the hell out of my time in Iraq, and at the same time, shaking my head for knowing how pointless and needlessly dangerous it all was. Did it have any meaning? Was that time the highlight of my life and yet also a failure? Or was the very nature of giving my best, despite the merits of the cause, something I should be proud of? I’m not sure I’ve found the answers to any of that, so I’ll agree with Daniel here… “It Was What It Was.”
This and many other reflections in “It Was What It Was” bring out some raw emotions for those of us who served in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT for short). While I enjoyed this book quite a lot, I was perhaps too caught up in daydreaming about the narrative and my own experiences in Iraq to think much about the inevitable conclusions that would be reached. But author Daniel Pace intentionally leaves his reflections out of the story until the end, to give the reader a chance to digest an interesting description of a far-off time and place where we can vividly image ourselves or, perhaps, a son, daughter, father, or brother. It’s a place filled with violence, rich culture, crime, hospitality, hatred, great food, terrible hygiene, hope, and just unfathomable (and I mean totally unbelievable) heat.
For anyone who’s served overseas, and especially for Iraq War veterans, it’s impossible to not appreciate a memoir like this. Pace takes us through several years of his war-time service to include training, pre-deployment, deployment, R&R--which has the same haunting feeling of other R&R retellings such as “All Quiet on the Western Front”--redeployment back to the States, and then watching the unit prepare to go back to war. All of these sections are well done, and I could talk at length about most of them. But it’s interesting how he connects his feelings of being the “ghost” at the end, as the unit prepares to leave without him, to the endless cycle of GWOT deployments. Soldiers were trained up, hardened, turned into experts, but ultimately…what then? So many were broken, mentally and physically. And it’s not always easy to understand why.
I’ve read many memoirs from GWOT veterans, and this book holds its own. “It Was What It Was” is not trying to provide an epic psychoanalytic narrative like “Generation Kill,” which is arguably the standard for Iraq War stories. And it doesn’t focus heavily on violence, chaos, or combat like “The Forever War” and “House to House.” But it is a truly engaging story with humane and relatable content which makes it very approachable. Also, it is an excellent first-person account of how “The Surge” worked on the ground in 2007-2008, comparable to “The Good Soldiers” and “A Chance in Hell,” although probably better than both those titles.
I enjoyed this read, both for the story it told and for how it helped me process my own journey from my days in the Army. I sat for a few minutes after I put it down, trying to gather my emotions and make sense of the past. Oddly, I found myself missing the hell out of my time in Iraq, and at the same time, shaking my head for knowing how pointless and needlessly dangerous it all was. Did it have any meaning? Was that time the highlight of my life and yet also a failure? Or was the very nature of giving my best, despite the merits of the cause, something I should be proud of? I’m not sure I’ve found the answers to any of that, so I’ll agree with Daniel here… “It Was What It Was.”
November 9, 2025
excellent book
This is a good book about winning hearts and minds of local populations during nation building exercises . Th author is truthful and honest in his appraisal that US nation building doesn’t work. I applaud the authors integrity to speak the truth. This book is a must read for any NCO or Officer that deploys on a nation building project. I’m not sure we ever learn to stay home when we don’t belong .
This is a good book about winning hearts and minds of local populations during nation building exercises . Th author is truthful and honest in his appraisal that US nation building doesn’t work. I applaud the authors integrity to speak the truth. This book is a must read for any NCO or Officer that deploys on a nation building project. I’m not sure we ever learn to stay home when we don’t belong .
December 16, 2024
Interesting, insightful, and often amusing tale of a young lieutenant's tour in Iraq. While combat does occur, his unit was able to pacify their sector and much of their fifteen months was community policing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews