A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army
reviewed by Major Niel Smith, Small Wars Journal
Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army by Wesley Gray, Naval Institute Press, 2009, 256 pages.
Embedded presents a tale not often told among the growing collection of memoirs by former company grade officers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Marine Capt. Wesley Gray served as an embedded combat adviser with an Iraqi battalion in Haditha, Iraq, during 2006. Gray deserves great credit for shining the spotlight the critical effort to develop competent Iraqi security forces. For those who have never had the pleasure of closely working as an embed, Gray's narrative reveals the herculean challenges that most combat advisers face.
Although limited in scope to his location and time in Iraq, the situations he encounters are common to most advisers in Iraq. Gray's account of his learning curve is the strongest aspect of the book.
