There have been a wide variety of publications being penned by the various embedded journalists but one of the better works was Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War by Evan Wright. Wright, a writer for, of all publications, Rolling Stone Magazine, was also embedded with the Marines, specifically with the First Reconnaissance Battalion, the leading unit of the invasion (nicknamed the "First Suicide Battalion" for their position ahead of other U.S. Forces and for their role in racing ahead to trigger suspected ambushes).

Generation Kill has energy, verve and above all a taut sense of reality caught up within its pages. Wright pulls few punches, portraying the Marines, warts and all, delving into their attitudes and opinions on the war, their fears and hopes and personalities. As for the war itself, Wright builds a vivid picture of the mixed bag that was Iraq - the strange melange of little and futile organized resistance interspersed with vicious and intense Fedayeen attacks, and the horrific ongoing accidents of small groups of Iraqi civilians wandering into the crossfire. Brutally honest, involving and at times wrenching, Generation Kill is an well-written, highly charged piece of work.

In the Company of Soldiers : A Chronicle of Combat by Rick Atkinson is another example of embedded coverage. In this case Atkinson, the author of arguably the best account of the First Gulf War, Crusade, and of An Army at Dawn, was placed with the 101st Airborne Division commanded by the larger-than-life Major General David Petraeus. In the Company of Soldiers spends far less time looking at the war as a whole, as with his previous work, and little time on the individual soldiers on the battlefield.

Atkinson focuses the work on the senior commanders, looking at the logistics, planning, decision-making, communciation and adaptability of the 101st's command structure. Petraeus comes off as a caring, charismatic and intensely competitive leader and the overall image of the U.S. field commanders is one of high professionalism although there is a sense that Atkinson might have been better served in spending an equivalent amount of time with the men in the field. As a sketch of the decision-making and leadership qualities, it is a solid, but unexciting piece of work albeit not as encompassing as Crusade nor as far-reaching as An Army at Dawn.

Thunder Run by contrast is a pure battlefield account, and possibly one of the best written since Black Hawk Down. Thunder Run is a rousing and detailed account of the armored strike on Baghdad, following the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, the Spartan Brigade. A "thunder run" is an rapid, fast-moving armored attack, designed to punch through enemy defenses in a highly aggressive manner. Written by David Zucchino, Thunder Run offers an intense front-seat view of modern armor at war. The traditional strategic doctrines governing the use of armor and the "thunder runs" were, ironically enough, effectively turned on their heads when carried out in Iraq.