Unless otherwise noted, photographs are reproduced courtesy of the United States Department of Defense.

 

With chai cups in hand, General Colin Powell (chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf (commander, U.S. Central Command) meet in Saudi Arabia before the beginning of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. These two Vietnam veterans crafted an overwhelming offensive that liberated Kuwait. As secretary of state, Powell was also involved in the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns that followed the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks.

 

The guided missile destroyer USS Cole anchors in Aden harbor following the October 11, 2000, terrorist attack that blew a hole in the port side and killed seventeen U.S. sailors and wounded thirty-nine others. Valiant damage-control efforts saved the ship, which continues to serve today.

 

A blackened hole marks the Pentagon three days after the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 struck the western side at 9:37 a.m. on September 11, 2001. Six flight crew, 53 passengers, and 125 in the Pentagon were killed by the attack. Less than a month later, U.S. forces directed from this building began operations in Afghanistan.

 

NATO advisors gather for a short briefing at Qala-i-Jangi fortress on September 10, 2012. The officer at the far right is Air Force Captain Michael A. Sciortino, who served as an enlisted terminal air controller during the Qala-i-Jangi fight in November 2001. By 2012 he was back in country as an advisor to the Afghan national army.

 

The Pink House was the center of the prisoner uprising at Qala-i-Jangi fortress in November 2001. The dome in the background marks a memorial to CIA officer Mike Spann, killed in action during the fighting.

 

A CH-47 Chinook pulls away after dropping troops in Afghanistan in 2009. U.S. Army Chinooks provided reliable lift year-round in the Hindu Kush Mountains.

 

Colonel Frank Wiercinski and his tactical command post team under fire during Operation Anaconda on March 2, 2002. The colonel is the soldier to the lower right of the X-shaped antenna.

 

The M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle raises dust as it churns through Iraq in 2004. These armored infantry carriers played a key role in the initial 2003 invasion and follow-on counterinsurgency operations.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Scott Rutter, commander of the Second Battalion, Seventh Infantry, poses in his M-2 before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Rutter and his soldiers advanced all the way to Baghdad in a lightning campaign.

 

In July 2008, General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visits the First Battalion, Eighth Infantry, in Balad, Iraq. At the far left stands Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander, who proved to be a highly aggressive combat leader. Behind Myers is Major General Raymond Odierno, then the commander of the Fourth Infantry Division, later both the corps and force commander in Iraq. At right is Colonel Fred Rudesheim, Sassaman’s brigade commander, later a major general and also a veteran of a subsequent Iraq deployment.

 

General John Abizaid (commander, U.S. Central Command) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listen to General George Casey (commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq) at Baghdad headquarters in 2004.

 

A U.S. Marine M-1 Abrams tank fires its 120 mm main gun to clear a hostile position in Fallujah in November 2004. The enemy could not match this kind of firepower, but eventually found ways to attack and destroy even the heavily armored M-1.

 

On the highway between Ramadi and Fallujah, Iraq, an IED detonates against a U.S. truck patrol on March 28, 2006. The moment was captured by an onboard video recorder. In this explosion and the following firefight, one American soldier was killed and three were wounded; at least three insurgents were killed. For many U.S. troops, this is how they met their enemy.

 

Lieutenant Colonel Muhammed Salman Abbas, Iraqi army, and Major Kevin Hendricks, U.S. Army, talk prior to a May 2005 operation in north Babil Province, Iraq. At the time, Abbas commanded the Second Battalion, Fourth Brigade, Sixth Iraq Army Division. Hendricks was the S-3 (operations officer) for the Second Squadron, Eleventh Cavalry.

Captain Alan Simpson, U.S. Army

 

Staff Sergeant Danny Laakmann stands watch in Ramadi in the hot summer of 2005. The enemy has left a message on the wall: “Slow Death.”

Captain Alan Simmons, U.S. Army

 

Colonel Michael Steele, commander of the Third Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, accompanied his soldiers on operations in mid-2006 in Salah ah Din Province, Afghanistan. Steele led from the front on mission after mission; he’d been wounded leading his Rangers on the so-called Black Hawk Down battle in Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993.

 

Captain Travis Patriquin sent this photo to the U.S. Army Military Review to accompany an article he submitted in 2006. In Ramadi, Iraq, he grew a mustache, spoke Arabic, and was a catalyst in the Anbar Awakening that brought Sunni Arab militamen into the fight against al-Qaeda. Patriquin was killed in action in Ramadi on December 6, 2006. His article was published posthumously.

 

In Ramadi, the governor of Anbar Province, Mamoun Sami Rasheed (left), and Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha look skyward. The sheikh led the Anbar Awakening, organizing tribal militiamen in 2006 to battle al-Qaeda in western Iraq. He was killed by an insurgent bomb in 2007.

 

Captain Frank Rodriguez, commander of Troop A, Fifth Squadron, Seventy-Third Cavalry.

 

Paratroopers of the Fifth Squadron, Seventy-Third Cavalry, led by Captain Rodriguez, advance along a narrow street in the congested Fadhil neighborhood of Baghdad on February 28, 2009. Down the street, an Iraqi woman walks with her children. Fadhil was very difficult to patrol and secure.