Dear Friend,
After more than a year of work by a great team, my new book Iraq: Inside the Inferno 2005-2008 is finally ready and off the presses. I can say honestly its terrific--and that’s not bragging because it was a huge team effort. Karen Kraft, the editor, led a team of more than a dozen professionals—artists, military advisors, photo editors, print color experts and more—to get this project done.
IRAQ: INSIDE THE INFERNO covers my years reporting in the field from 2005-2008. It tells, with words and pictures, the dramatic story of how we won the war in Iraq – not primarily with our overwhelming technology, not with shock and awe destruction, but with the far more important force of American values.
The book assembles more than two hundred of the most powerful, telling, and dramatic photographs I have taken in Iraq (many never before published).
I picked Karen, an award-winning documentary producer from Discovery Channel, to work with my on the book because I wanted to combine the best of my pictures with the best of my writing to create an entirely new type of experience. I wanted a book with all the inherent visual drama of a film and yet also a book with the enduring memorial value of the most treasured, well-crafted volume in a great library.
More about that in a moment, but first I have to tell you about the other thing I am trying to accomplish with this book: helping a great organization help American military personnel and their families.
ABOUT SOLDIERS' ANGELS
Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-led nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the American soldier in the field: morally, materially, and spiritually. Its volunteers number over 200,000. In my opinion, SA is the most effective of all civilian support groups. You’ve read about them in some of my dispatches. I have been a champion of their heroic efforts for years.
Soldier’s Angels has a number of great projects, including Adopt a Soldier, which matches one soldier in the field to one supporter or family at home who send a letter every week and a care package at least once a month. But their most important contribution is also one of the most expensive: the First Response Backpack.
U.S. military personnel who are injured or wounded are moved out to treatment so fast that sometimes their gear and personal items never catch up with them. Evacuated in the clothing damaged or removed during treatment, these soldiers often find themselves without basic supplies. A Soldiers’ Angels First Response Backpack provides comfortable clothing, a full set of travel-sized toiletries and accessories, an international calling card the soldier can use to phone home, and a handmade Blanket of Hope. To date, Soldiers’ Angels has distributed more than 15,000 backpacks to the wounded.
I’ve seen the great impact Soldiers’ Angels has in the field, so you won’t be surprised that I want to help them. Or that I’m asking you to join me in that effort.
What’s the goal? Simple:
Raise $50,000 to help Soldiers’ Angels.
To meet this goal, my publisher has created a limited number of boxed, signed, and numbered deluxe editions of the book to be offered exclusively to my supporters--with a portion of the proceeds to go to Soldier’s Angels.
Order Yours Now
THIS BOOK IS SPECIALIraq: Inside the Inferno, is 220 pages of full color photos and text, printed on the finest paper used for art books, and bound using timeless techniques of the book-makers’ craft. Here are some of the details:
- The pages are Smythe sewn, not just glued the way most books are today.
- The paper is acid free and guaranteed to last 800 years without yellowing or deterioration.
- The beautiful cloth cover – not plastic or some other synthetic fabric – will be gold stamped on both front and spine.
- And each book will be encased in a cloth-covered, gold stamped slipcase.
ORDERSThe cost for each signed, numbered deluxe copy is $49.95, plus shipping. A lot of money, but here is the bottom line: The money we raise from sales of this book is crucial not only to support my own mission but for our goal of raising at least $50,000 for Soldiers’ Angels. That’s why we have tried so hard to create a work that expresses our gratitude for your support.
Order here
We’ve already sold more than 2000 copies of this special edition—in pre-orders only. Now that the book is finally off the presses sales are beginning to pick up again. If our experience with the special signed edition of my last book, A Moment of Truth in Iraq, is any guide, it will sell out, so the only way to absolutely guarantee you will be able to get a copy is to order as soon as possible.
I’d be thrilled if we could raise all of the $50,000 we have targeted for Soldiers’ Angels. Will you help?
I think you’ll love the book and hope you’ll order today. It makes a great gift, especially because it is also a gift to the American soldier, who, as I said in A Moment of Truth In Iraq, ‘is not only the most dangerous man in the world, but the best man, too.’
Very respectfully,
Michael Yon