Road to Baghdad: Behind Enemy Lines: The Adventures of an American Soldier in the Gulf War

When Stanton (Somalia on $5 a Day), a U.S. Army major serving as an advisor in Saudi Arabia, took a mini-vacation to Kuwait in the summer of 1990, he found himself caught in the Iraqi invasion. He chronicles his adventures in this informative, balanced and often witty Gulf War memoir. Watching the tanks roll in from his room at the Kuwait Sheraton, Stanton offered intelligence reports to U.S. forces (and dined next to Iraqi colonels and generals when the hotel became Iraqi headquarters) before being arrested two days later. As a hostage, he and a group of fifteen others (British, French, German and Japanese, all memorably portrayed) were taken to several strategic-target detention centers; along the way, Stanton encountered a wide range of Iraqis and developed a deep-seated animosity toward Saddam Hussein and a low opinion of the Iraqi army. Released in December 1990, he flew home to Florida to see his family and marry his Canadian fiancee; in January he returned to the Gulf:""After twelve years as an officer in the army, I was going to war."" Stanton adds something to our knowledge of almost every subject he covers: his narrative of the Battle of Khafji (often overlooked because it was primarily a Saudi affair) is enlightening, as are his portrayals of Iraq in wartime and the modernization of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Readers also learn, for example, that Saudi soldiers limit their training because they cannot leave their families unprotected by a male relative, and that the hostages (all male) could intimidate the Iraqis by threatening to take off their clothes. Stanton's keen eye and ready humor make this a standout in the field.