This is a riveting account of the war in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division as it convoys north from Kuwait to Iraq's Tallil Air Base en route to night-and-day battles within the major city of Samawah and its bridges across the Euphrates. Boots on the Ground becomes an action-filled microcosm of the new kinds of ultramodern war fighting showcased in the overall battle for Iraq.

Karl Zinsmeister, a frontline reporter embedded with the 82nd, brilliantly conveys the careful planning and technical wizardry that go into today's warfare, even local firefights, and he brings to life the constant air-ground interactions that are the great innovation of modern precision combat.

What exactly does it feel like to travel with a spirited body of fighting men? To come under fire? To cope with the battlefield stresses of sleep deprivation and field rations for weeks on end? Ultimately, Boots on the Ground is a human story: a moving portrayal of the powerful bonds of affection, trust, fear, and dedication that bind real soldiers involved in battle.

This is a true-life tale of superbly trained men in extraordinary circumstances, packed with concrete detail, often surpassing fiction for its sheer drama.

Karl Zinsmeister, a graduate of Yale, was a J. B. Fuqua Fellow at AEI and has been an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He was editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise, a Washington, D.C.-based magazine of politics, business, and culture. His articles about the war have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, National Review, Washington Times, and Fayetteville Observer. (The 82nd is based in Fayetteville, North Carolina.)