House to House

Additional House to House Information

On the night of November 10, 2004, a U.S. Army infantry squad under Staff Sergeant David Bellavia entered the heart of the city of Fallujah and plunged into one of the most sustained and savage urban battles in the history of American men at arms.

With Third Platoon, Alpha Company, part of the Army's Task Force 2/2, Bellavia and his men confronted an enemy who had had weeks to prepare, booby-trapping houses, arranging ambushes, rigging entire city blocks as explosives-laden kill zones, and even stocking up on atropine, a steroid that pumps up fighters in the equivalent of a long-lasting crack high. Entering one house, alone, Bellavia faced the fight of his life against six insurgents, using every weapon at his disposal, including a knife. It is the stuff of legend and the chief reason he is one of the great heroes of the Iraq War.

Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of characters, from a fearless corporal who happens to be a Bush-hating liberal to an inspirational sergeant-major who became the author's own lost father figure, it develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire. Their friendships, tested in brutal combat, would never be quite the same. Not all of them would make it out of the city alive. What happened to them in their bloody embrace with America's most implacable enemy is a harrowing, unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit.

A timeless portrait of the U.S. infantryman's courage, House to House is a soldier's memoir that is destined to rank with the finest personal accounts of men at war.

What Customers Say About House to House:

flame me. However,. Any other account I've read about others facing life and death situations DON'T run through three paragraphs of self-reflection.Forth, I've considered the possibility that in relating the story the author really does remember it the way he has described it. Perhaps it was in the writing or in the style it was presented. Or perhaps, after reading a really good account of combat like The Old Breed, which is written in a superb style with great intelligence and reflection, I have little tolerance for badly composed combat tales.Okay guys and gals. But when I've been in life and death situations. During my tours of combat in Nam, if I'd said such a thing to an officer, I'd be in the brig.Third, much of the end of the book when the author was facing the machine gun in the house, was almost a stream of consciousness which is okay for literary technique.

yes, with a gun pointed in my face. I wasn't thinking about anything except about that gun pointed in my face. First, I don't doubt for a second the actual EVENTS that took place as described by the author. but when I read the story my BS sensors just kept going off. I'm still not exactly sure why as the FACTS I believe. Certainly the author fracked up the common sentence structure. I saw ya over in Nam. I know who you are.

Second, some of the reported dialogue especially the blatant insubordinations toward a Major (I believe it was) seems stupid. you dirt munching grunts. This is consistent with what I understand as verbal history tradition of combat experience, so I focus on what it must mean that the author remembers it the way he does.Fifth, I can only react to what I've read in an honest way, or at least I want to be honest. You all that are apologist for the author can rant and rave all ya want. Ya. bunch of filthy animals, ha ha.

"House to House" is exactly what all of the five-star reviews have said: realistic, gritty and enthralling. However, without diminishing SSgt Bellavia and his men's superhuman achievements, the book did read a bit like Bellavia was boasting to his buddies at the bar; during my time in the Marine Corps (2001-05), we had a euphemism for what SSgt Bellavia does a lot of in this book: "sucks his own d***". The book was excellently written and the action gripping, but if I was to believe everything in it, it would appear the Army's Task Force 2-2 took Fallujah by itself with SSgt Bellavia leading the way (I'm sure the Marines of RCTs 1 and 7 would disagree). Anyway, I recommend this book wholeheartedly, just be prepared for a little auto-fellatio on the part of the author.

I read this along with Moment of Truth in Iraq and the two books compliment each other though the authors might lean in opposite directions a little at times. I appreciate so much that the author was honest. As a Warrior's Wife I am so glad I read this book. This country was founded by a General (Washington)who understood the concept of God and Morality in battle more than anybody and it won America her freedom. Some books like this have a hidden agenda or come off as ego-driven stories. The author was brutally honest about it all--his fears, his pride, his mistakes and how he corrected them, and the need for morals in the realm of combat. We cannot fight a war without it and expect the same outcome for us or for others.Though this is not the agenda of the book, it solidifies the need for good leadership and will make you appreciate all our troops suffer for the cause of Freedom. A truly wonderful book.

It is a train wreck that won't slow down or leave the tracks. This is a wild book. When I first picked it up I had my doubts, but when I looked up again, I had read 100 pages without blinking and without knowledge of passing time. One of the best accounts I have ever read and I hope there are more out there because the adrenaline rush is outstanding. Read it.

You can judge for yourself what made it possible. Given weeks to dig in and to prepare the battlefield, the "insurgents" brought in experienced Chechnan fighters, turned entire buildings into 'kill zones', wired whole complexes with great piles of explosive, and used their thorough experience of American urban-terrain tactics to turn the whole city into a concrete-maze deathtrap, from foundation to roof. But it is not a book to turn away from or skip, for in what von Clausewitz called "a contest of moral and physical factors by means of the latter" Bellavia and his brothers-in-arms triumphed over some of the cruelest and most ruthless men that an evil enemy could find or create. Bellavia lost close friends. In the end the American forces prevailed. Many had American body armor and weapons. (With enough adrenaline, you can keep going for minutes after a wound that should kill you instantly).

And most had only one wish: to buy their way into Heaven by sending to Hell every American bold enough to face them.This is not a book to take up lightly. If you have any humanity at all, the sufferings of battle will outrage your sensibilities and maybe raise your gorge. Staff Sergeant Bellavia, with John Bruning, has produced what may be one of the finest personal battle memoirs ever penned.In the Second Battle of Fallujah, American forces faced a rutheless enemy. With every advantage, they planned to show that America could be stopped on the battlefield by fanatacism.This is real war. Before the city was secured, Bellavia and his men were pressed almost beyond human endurance by fighting, dehydration, disease, and the callous benificence of their own brass. Almost the entire chain of command above him was killed, officers leading in the best tradition. Nor does that battle end cleanly; one resolution after another fails, until the return to daylight. The gruesome but inescapable humor of a fellow soldier's embarrasing wound is echoed in Bellavia's own climactic battle, where the author faces down the primal fear himself.

Many of them pumped themselves full of drugs. (If you care to study the question, I recommend Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture and Geoffrey Perret's slightly dated A Country Made By War).The visceral drama of the battle is enhanced by a virtuoso command of story structure, which I assume is the contribution of John Bruning. These were not citizens defending their homes. They were outsiders and foreigners who came for the rare and special chance to kill as many Americans as they could. Like a symphony, the story swings steadily between peril (tension) and release (humor or brief triumph). And a final coda seals a lifetime of meaning over the terror, triumph, and exhaustion of the battle."Valley Forge, Custer's ranks, San Juan Hill and Patton's tanks.Men in rags, men who froze, still that Army met its foes."As as it did once again, at Second Fallujah.