
Combat and Other Shenanigans
Tales of the Absurd from a Deployment to Iraq
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Corey M. Snow
-
By:
-
Piers Platt
About this listen
War is hell...but sometimes it's also funny as hell.
Combat and Other Shenanigans is Lieutenant Piers Platt's firsthand account of his year as a cavalry platoon leader in Iraq. Wry, action-packed, and poignant, Combat and Other Shenanigans is the absurd-but-true story of the antics the world's finest soldiers get up to when no one high-ranking is watching. ©2014 Piers Platt (P)2014 Piers PlattListeners also enjoyed...
-
Echo in Ramadi
- The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City
- By: Scott A. Huesing
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.
-
-
Combat is Combat
- By Calvin Guthrie on 05-21-18
By: Scott A. Huesing
-
New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah
- By: Richard S. Lowry
- Narrated by: Derek Dunbar
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fallujah. Few names conjure up as many images of blood, sacrifice, and valor as does this ancient city in Al Anbar province 40 miles west of Baghdad. This sprawling concrete jungle was the scene of two major US combat operations in 2004. The first was Operation Vigilant Resolve, an aborted effort that April by US Marines intent on punishing the city’s insurgents. The second, Operation Phantom Fury, was launched seven months later. Richard Lowry’s New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah is the first comprehensive history of this fighting.
-
-
DarkHorse "Get Some"
- By Disgruntled on 02-11-25
By: Richard S. Lowry
-
Outlaw Platoon
- Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
- By: Sean Parnell, John Bruning
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.
-
-
Great book...Everyone should listen to this book!!
- By Chris on 04-09-12
By: Sean Parnell, and others
-
When the Killer Man Comes
- Eliminating Terrorists as a Special Operations Sniper
- By: Paul Martinez, George Galdorisi - contributor
- Narrated by: Paul Martinez, Nicholas Irving - foreword
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America has one force with the single mission of direct action to capture or kill the enemy. That force is the 75th Ranger Regiment. Staff Sergeant Paul Martinez was a Ranger Sniper with the 75th Rangers during the desperate fighting in Afghanistan in 2011 when the United States made the decision to try to withdraw from Afghanistan. It was never going to be easy. There were still a large number of senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists in secure locations throughout that country.
-
-
Didn't finish.
- By Keenan on 11-12-18
By: Paul Martinez, and others
-
Red Platoon
- A True Story of American Valor
- By: Clinton Romesha
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Clinton Romesha
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009 Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after Keating's construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: It was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend.
-
-
Must Read for Comfortable, Non-combatant Americans
- By Rum Runner on 11-21-18
By: Clinton Romesha
-
Dog Company
- A True Story of American Soldiers Abandoned by Their High Command
- By: Roger Hill, Lynn Vincent
- Narrated by: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The army does not want you to listen to this book. It does not want to advertise its detention system that coddles enemy fighters while putting American soldiers at risk. It does not want to reveal the new lawyered-up Pentagon war ethic that prosecutes US soldiers and marines while setting free spies who kill Americans. This very system ambushed Captain Roger Hill and his men.
-
-
Hard truth.
- By D on 04-17-17
By: Roger Hill, and others
-
Echo in Ramadi
- The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City
- By: Scott A. Huesing
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.
-
-
Combat is Combat
- By Calvin Guthrie on 05-21-18
By: Scott A. Huesing
-
New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah
- By: Richard S. Lowry
- Narrated by: Derek Dunbar
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fallujah. Few names conjure up as many images of blood, sacrifice, and valor as does this ancient city in Al Anbar province 40 miles west of Baghdad. This sprawling concrete jungle was the scene of two major US combat operations in 2004. The first was Operation Vigilant Resolve, an aborted effort that April by US Marines intent on punishing the city’s insurgents. The second, Operation Phantom Fury, was launched seven months later. Richard Lowry’s New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah is the first comprehensive history of this fighting.
-
-
DarkHorse "Get Some"
- By Disgruntled on 02-11-25
By: Richard S. Lowry
-
Outlaw Platoon
- Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan
- By: Sean Parnell, John Bruning
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At 24 years of age, U.S. Army Ranger Sean Parnell was named commander of a forty-man elite infantry platoon - a unit that came to be known as the Outlaws - and was tasked with rooting out Pakistan-based insurgents from a mountain valley along Afghanistan's eastern frontier. Parnell and his men assumed they would be facing a ragtag bunch of civilians, but in May 2006 what started out as a routine patrol through the lower mountains of the Hindu Kush became a brutal ambush.
-
-
Great book...Everyone should listen to this book!!
- By Chris on 04-09-12
By: Sean Parnell, and others
-
When the Killer Man Comes
- Eliminating Terrorists as a Special Operations Sniper
- By: Paul Martinez, George Galdorisi - contributor
- Narrated by: Paul Martinez, Nicholas Irving - foreword
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
America has one force with the single mission of direct action to capture or kill the enemy. That force is the 75th Ranger Regiment. Staff Sergeant Paul Martinez was a Ranger Sniper with the 75th Rangers during the desperate fighting in Afghanistan in 2011 when the United States made the decision to try to withdraw from Afghanistan. It was never going to be easy. There were still a large number of senior Taliban and al Qaeda leaders and other terrorists in secure locations throughout that country.
-
-
Didn't finish.
- By Keenan on 11-12-18
By: Paul Martinez, and others
-
Red Platoon
- A True Story of American Valor
- By: Clinton Romesha
- Narrated by: Will Damron, Clinton Romesha
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2009 Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after Keating's construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: It was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend.
-
-
Must Read for Comfortable, Non-combatant Americans
- By Rum Runner on 11-21-18
By: Clinton Romesha
-
Dog Company
- A True Story of American Soldiers Abandoned by Their High Command
- By: Roger Hill, Lynn Vincent
- Narrated by: Christopher Ryan Grant
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The army does not want you to listen to this book. It does not want to advertise its detention system that coddles enemy fighters while putting American soldiers at risk. It does not want to reveal the new lawyered-up Pentagon war ethic that prosecutes US soldiers and marines while setting free spies who kill Americans. This very system ambushed Captain Roger Hill and his men.
-
-
Hard truth.
- By D on 04-17-17
By: Roger Hill, and others
-
Level Zero Heroes
- The Story of U.S. Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan
- By: Michael Golembesky, John R. Bruning
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Level Zero Heroes, Michael Golembesky follows the members of U.S. Marine Special Operations Team 8222 on their assignment to the remote and isolated Taliban stronghold known as Bala Murghab as they conduct special operations in an effort to break the Taliban's grip on the Valley. What started out as a routine mission changed when two 82nd Airborne Paratroopers tragically drowned in the Bala Murghab River while trying to retrieve vital supplies from an air drop that had gone terribly wrong.
-
-
Worst narrator ever
- By Bob M on 07-03-15
By: Michael Golembesky, and others
-
Joker One
- A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood
- By: Donovan Campbell
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands.
-
-
Terrible Narration Hurts Good Story
- By Chris on 01-29-10
By: Donovan Campbell
-
The Operator
- Firing the Shots That Killed Osama Bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior
- By: Robert O'Neill
- Narrated by: Robert O'Neill
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Stirringly evocative, thought provoking, and often jaw dropping, The Operator ranges across SEAL Team Operator Robert O'Neill's awe-inspiring 400-mission career that included his involvement in attempts to rescue "Lone Survivor" Marcus Luttrell and abducted-by-Somali-pirates Captain Richard Phillips and culminated in those famous three shots that dispatched the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.
-
-
One of the best
- By Tim on 04-28-17
By: Robert O'Neill
-
Things I'll Never Forget
- Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam
- By: James M. Dixon
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Things I’ll Never Forget is the story of a young high school graduate in 1965 who faces being drafted into the Army or volunteering for the Marine Corps. These are his memories of funny times, disgusting times and deadly times. The author kept a journal for an entire year; therefore many of the dates, times and places are accurate. The rest is based on memories that are forever tattooed on his brain. This is not a pro-war book, nor is it anti-war. It is the true story of what the Marine Corps was like in the late 1960’s.
-
-
Accurate Description
- By USMC VIETVET on 07-02-19
By: James M. Dixon
-
The Chosen Few
- A Company of Paratroopers and Its Heroic Struggle to Survive in the Mountains of Afghanistan
- By: Gregg Zoroya, William H. McRaven - foreward
- Narrated by: Gregg Zoroya
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A single company of US paratroopers—calling themselves the "Chosen Few"—arrived in eastern Afghanistan in late 2007 hoping to win the hearts and minds of the remote mountain people and extend the Afghan government's reach into this wilderness. Instead, they spent the next fifteen months in a desperate struggle, living under almost continuous attack, forced into a slow and grinding withdrawal, and always outnumbered by Taliban fighters descending on them from all sides.
-
-
Wow! What an amazing group of men!
- By Myla on 06-22-18
By: Gregg Zoroya, and others
-
A Night in the Pech Valley
- A Memoir of a Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment in the Global War on Terrorism
- By: Grant McGarry
- Narrated by: Corey M. Snow
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A Night in the Pech Valley is Grant McGarry's account of what it takes to become an Army Ranger and what life is like in the 75th Ranger Regiment. More importantly, it is about an operation in the most dangerous terrain for US forces anywhere in the world. The Pech Valley is surrounded by Taliban-filled mountains on the Pakistan border in the Kunar Province, where the mountain peaks push 10,000 feet.
-
-
RANGER UP! Then buy this book
- By THE NOBLE MARRIAGE on 03-08-17
By: Grant McGarry
-
Alone at Dawn
- Medal of Honor Recipient John Chapman and the Untold Story of the World's Deadliest Special Operations Force
- By: Dan Schilling, Lori Longfritz
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel, Betsy Foldes Meiman
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the predawn hours of March 4, 2002, just below the 10,000-foot peak of a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, a fierce battle raged. Outnumbered by Al Qaeda fighters, Air Force Combat Controller John Chapman and a handful of SEALs struggled to take the summit in a desperate bid to find a lost teammate. Chapman, leading the charge, was gravely wounded in the initial assault. Believing he was dead, his SEAL leader ordered a retreat. Chapman regained consciousness, alone with the enemy closing in on three sides, beginning the most difficult and exceptional fight of his life.
-
-
Wasted chance to honor a hero.
- By Scott on 07-11-19
By: Dan Schilling, and others
-
Black Hearts
- One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death
- By: Jim Frederick
- Narrated by: Corey Snow
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the story of a small group of soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's fabled 502nd Infantry Regiment - a unit known as the Black Heart Brigade. Deployed in late 2005 to Iraq's so-called Triangle of Death, a veritable meat grinder just south of Baghdad, the Black Hearts found themselves in arguably the country's most dangerous location at its most dangerous time.
-
-
Sadness
- By Richard on 04-02-19
By: Jim Frederick
-
WAR
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Sebastian Junger
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat - the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
-
-
Why we fight re-visited
- By J on 09-20-10
By: Sebastian Junger
-
Lions of Kandahar
- The Story of a Fight Against All Odds
- By: Major Rusty Bradley, Kevin Maurer
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Southern Afghanistan was slipping away. That was clear to then-Captain Rusty Bradley as he began his third tour of duty there in 2006. The Taliban and their allies were infiltrating everywhere, poised to reclaim Kandahar Province, their strategically vital onetime capital. To stop them, the NATO coalition launched Operation Medusa, the largest offensive in its history. The battlefield was the Panjwayi Valley, a densely packed warren of walled compounds that doubled neatly as enemy bunkers.
-
-
'Merica!
- By NKeene on 03-07-15
By: Major Rusty Bradley, and others
-
Hogs in the Sand
- A Gulf War A-10 Pilot's Combat Journal
- By: Buck Wyndham
- Narrated by: Jim Seybert
- Length: 15 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.
-
-
Weak
- By KL on 12-29-22
By: Buck Wyndham
-
They Called Us ""Lucky""
- The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit
- By: Ruben Gallego, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Ruben Gallego, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At first, they were “Lucky Lima”. Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in Lima Company—3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, young men drawn from blue-collar towns, immigrant households, Navajo reservations—returned unscathed on patrol after patrol through the increasingly violent al Anbar region of Iraq, looking for weapons caches and insurgents trying to destabilize the nascent Iraqi government. After two months in Iraq, Lima didn't have a casualty, not a single Purple Heart, no injury worse than a blister. Lucky Lima.
-
-
My perspective as a 3/25 insider...
- By R-N on 06-25-22
By: Ruben Gallego, and others
What listeners say about Combat and Other Shenanigans
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 1SG Milo, US Army, (Ret.)
- 01-19-20
Been there done that
Light hearted tale of soldiers being soldiers when not in combat. Matched my fifteen months of having the best time of my life .
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mary
- 01-05-25
Just as I remember it!
Great tale with great humor from the author. Exactly right from the stupid and funny things to the frightening and heroic things.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jocko Johnson
- 03-29-17
Excellent
Great listen. The authors advice & comments in the epilogue is something to think about.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Russell Phillips
- 12-11-14
Leading tank and M3 Bradley platoons
Combat and Other Shenanigans by Piers Platt
This is a memoir of an American lieutenant in a cavalry unit, covering his year in Iraq in 2004. It's available in paperback, ebook, and audio book editions. I bought the audio book and Kindle versions, and switched between them. The audio book narration is very good.
The author states at the start that he has been asked what it was like to serve in Iraq. He eventually wrote the book as a way of answering these questions. Platt initially deployed to Iraq in charge of an M1 tank platoon, and was subsequently moved to an M3 Bradley platoon.
The book has plenty of anecdotes as well as descriptions of combat. For anyone interested in armoured warfare, it's a good source of odd little details, such as why towing a tank with a thrown track will cause the wheels to catch fire. It's written in an easy to read style, with plenty of humour.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 🎧Johnny🎧
- 04-16-19
Honest memoir
Loved this!! Not your typical military memoir full of exaggerated battles. Definitely recommend it to everyone looking for a military memoir that's honest and funny.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kingsley
- 06-23-14
Great insight into the day-to-day of the Iraq war
Early on in the book the author, Platt, mentioned that people would often ask him "what it was like in Iraq?" and giving answers was often difficult. He hoped this book would provide a better answer and a better idea of what it was like. Does it reach this difficult goal? Yes and no. Mostly yes.
Platt gives a wonderful, detailed explanation of what he and his platoon did over in Iraq, Through this you get an understanding of what it was like and what he and his fellow US Army guys went through. He shows the excitement when things go well, the anxiety when things do not. The boredom when not much is going on. The pride of having helped with and been involved in ensuring the democratic election in Iraq.
Platt doesn't delve into the politics of the war, which is good - that's not what this book is for, but gives a straight up account of "the man on the ground'. Only in his quick reflections post-war is the politics slightly mentioned and even then it seems a mix of pride for what he was involved in and confusion/annoyance at the US having been involved at all.
The book is humourous at times. It reminded me in places of Catch-22 in terms of the absurdity (order spare parts but moving base all the time thus you part are always one base behind you) although, thankfully, not quite so insane. There is a disconnect between the 'ideal' as expected by the military superiors at base and the reality of those on the ground. It is not just with the military this disconnect exists, but with the military it is so much scarier as it is a high risk environment.
The narrator, Snow, does a good job of conveying the various emotions and humour. A solid performance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brandon Jones
- 04-26-16
funny and real
I absolutely loved this book. although short it is definitely worth the buy.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!