In the fall of 1983, arguably the coldest year of the decades-long Cold War, the world’s greatest superpower invaded Grenada, a Marxist-led Caribbean nation the size of Atlanta. Why and how this unlikely 1-week war was waged was shrouded in secrecy at the time — and has remained so ever since.
This book is an overdue reconsideration of Operation Urgent Fury, based on historical evidence that only recently has been revealed in declassified documents, oral history interviews and memoir accounts. This chronological narrative emphasises the human dimension of a sudden crisis now regarded as the greatest foreign policy challenge of President Ronald Reagan’s first term. Because the American intervention was hastily drafted, many snafus and accidents marked the chaotic initial days of the operation. Inevitably it fell to individual soldiers, aviators and sailors to perform heroic acts to make up for faulty intelligence, inadequate communication or poor coordination.
This work recounts their inspiring, underreported stories in filling out a more complete portrait of Operation Urgent Fury. The final chapter recounts the invasion’s aftereffects, especially the unexpected role it played in Congressional reform of the military for future combat in the Middle East.
Philip Kukielski is a career journalist who worked as a writer and, later, a managing editor of the Providence Journal in Rhode Island over the course of 4 decades. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.
McFarland
As the author of this book, I can say what’s new about my account of the invasion and its aftermath comes from the participants themselves. it’s mostly based on interviews conducted by me or military historians, memoir accounts or recently declassified documents. My purpose was to weave all these individual strands into one coherent narrative, not to pursue any ideological agenda either for or against the invasion. Nobody under the age of 38 was even alive when these events happened. This history needs to be objectively memorialized before all living memory is gone in both in Grenada and the U.S.
Did not read the book too expensive. OUF was a rescue mission, I was there with the Mighty 118th. I would be very surprise if any new information is in the book.
That’s BS. The vast majority of Grenada population supported the invasion. Without a we would have been subjected to years of a chaotic murderous reign by Coard and his cohorts. Again, I’m grateful for the liberation that war brought. Whatever some armchair liberal has to say now does not detract from the necessity of and the gratitude for the war. Its commemorated each year as Thanksgiving day in Grenada.
As an American I can state that this book and its contents are long overdue. We here in the US have long believed that this “war” was a “manhood exercise” for President Reagan, much like his firing of our Air Traffic Controllers. That firing was done, as we knew, because in the patrician class to which Reagan aspired, it was believed that you weren’t a man if you hadn’t broken a union. The “war” we visited upon Grenada as much the same.NO real reason behind it; no real plan on how to accomplish whatever the stated (and unstated) goals it purported to forward; no compensation to Grenada for the reckless destruction caused; and just one more footnote for the US, unlike the disaster that was left behind.
As an American, how long did you live in Grenada?