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Iraq: Inside the Inferno

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Dear Friend,

I have just returned to Afghanistan and I’m writing to tell you about a new book project I’m working on and an important organization that I’m backing with this book. I hope you will too.

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 as 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 sends 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 is 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.

A NEW BOOK DEDICATED TO THE MISSION & SOLDIERS’ ANGELS

I am currently at work on a new book called IRAQ: INSIDE THE INFERNO. It will cover my years reporting in the field from 2005-2008. It will tell, 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 will assemble some two hundred of the most powerful, telling, and dramatic photographs I have taken in Iraq (many never before published). With my publisher, Richard Vigilante Books, we have enlisted an award-winning documentary producer from Discovery Channel, Karen Kraft, and her handpicked team to create the book. Pictures of American warriors at work, engaged in killing terrorists or rebuilding a school or a shattered neighborhood. My intent is to combine the best of my pictures with the best of my writing to create an entirely new type of experience. And for the final product to have the enduring memorial value of the most treasured, well-crafted volume in a great library.

IRAQ: INSIDE THE INFERNO will come off the press for shipment late this year before the holidays, but my publisher is not going to ship the regular version to bookstores until Spring. Why? Because we want to raise $50,000 to help Soldiers’ Angels.

To meet this goal, my publisher is creating a limited number of boxed, signed, and numbered deluxe editions of the book to be offered exclusively to my supporters and both of us are contributing a portion of our proceeds to Soldier’s Angels.

THIS BOOK IS SPECIAL
This 220 page, full color book will be 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 will be 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.

I will personally sign and hand-number each copy of this special edition and enclose a certificate, suitable for framing, to memorialize your support of my mission and of Soldiers’ Angels.

PRE-ORDERS
The 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. As you know, I have returned to Afghanistan just days ago and my arrangement with my publisher provides book royalties to me earlier than a traditional publishing arrangement in order to assist me with my mission.

My publisher is now accepting pre-orders for IRAQ: INSIDE THE INFERNO. Pre-ordering will guarantee you a copy – we can print this special edition only once – and within days of the book coming off the press. 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 pre-order.

More importantly, pre-orders will help us raise funds for Soldiers’ Angels more quickly. I’d be thrilled if we could raise all of the $50,000 we have targeted for Soldiers’ Angels on pre-orders of the special edition alone. If we can do that, then we can raise even more.

I think you’ll love the book and hope you’ll pre-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.’