The book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick is an in-depth account of the 1st Platoon, Bravo Company 1-502nd Infantry 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq in 2005. Leadership Failures Documented in this book they range from the general officer level down to the lowest private level. LT Gen. Ricardo Sanchez failed to understand the climate his command group was entering as it deployed to Iraq. From that point on all leadership failures continued to compound each other with improper time to plan. It is customary to have six months to have an adequate battle pass when preparing to take control of an AO from another unit. To compound this problem, the entire time the 502nd was in pre-deployment training, they were preparing for the rigors of urban combat. In reality, they were given six weeks to recapture their new area of ​​responsibility and would go on a heaven-made campaign for guerrilla warfare. As Colonel Ebel said in the book: “It won't be an easy road. They're not even sure what they have in the area. I just feel bad. We can expect a real battle." The book summarizes the difficulties that Bravo Company faced from the beginning, even before deployment. The unit was initially sent to the JRTC at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and made many tactical errors during the rotation. The 1st Platoon had many individuals captured early on and the leadership automatically decided that Captain Goodwin would be incompetent for the next deployment while LTC Kunk would be difficult to work with for the next year. Once out of the JRTC, Bravo Company and Charlie Company were assigned the most difficult missions. Bravo Company was assigned to the most dangerous AO in the so-called triangle or...... middle of paper...... book to characters from other novels, we begin to see the leadership styles used and the effectiveness they can have on a person's character and ability to carry out a mission. I feel that if a consistent leadership style that followed the necessary standard had been imposed from the beginning of their deployment, then the soldiers would not have been able to commit the crimes they committed during their deployment. On the flip side, I think if there had been more competent leaders during the tumultuous time of the deployment, they would have been able to adapt to the situation and control the soldiers they were responsible for, no matter how difficult the deployment had become. Despite the fact that 11 of the 33 original 1st Platoon leaders were removed by the end of the deployment, a strong leadership duo could have prevented the actions that took place.