Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death, Paperback Book, By: Jim Frederick

This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment-a unit known as &the Black Heart Brigade." Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq's so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country's most dangerous location at its most dangerous time. Hit by near-daily mortars, gunfire, and roadside bomb attacks, suffering from a particularly heavy death toll, and enduring a chronic breakdown in leadership, members of one Black Heart platoon-1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion-descended, over their year-long tour of duty, into a tailspin of poor discipline, substance abuse, and brutality.