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First Platoon
A Story of Modern War in the Age of Identity Dominance
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Narrated by:
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Annie Jacobsen
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By:
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Annie Jacobsen
About this listen
A powerful story of war in our time, of love of country, the experience of tragedy, and a platoon at the center of it all.
This is a story that starts off close and goes very big. The initial part of the story might sound familiar at first: it is about a platoon of mostly 19-year-old boys sent to Afghanistan, and an experience that ends abruptly in catastrophe. Their part of the story folds into the next: inexorably linked to those soldiers and never comprehensively reported before is the US Department of Defense’s quest to build the world’s most powerful biometrics database, with the ability to identify, monitor, catalog, and police people all over the world.
First Platoon is an American saga that illuminates a transformation of society made possible by this new technology. Part war story, part legal drama, it is about identity in the age of identification. About humanity - physical bravery, trauma, PTSD, a yearning to do right and good - in the age of biometrics, which reduce people to iris scans, fingerprint scans, voice patterning, detection by odor, gait, and more. And about the power of point of view in a burgeoning surveillance state.
Based on hundreds of formerly classified documents, FOIA requests, and exclusive interviews, First Platoon is an investigative exposé by a master chronicler of government secrets. First Platoon reveals a post-9/11 Pentagon whose identification machines have grown more capable than the humans who must make sense of them. A Pentagon so powerful it can cover up its own internal mistakes in pursuit of endless wars. And a people at its mercy, in its last moments before a fundamental change so complete it might be impossible to take back.
©2021 Annie Jacobsen (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
One of Houston Chronicle's "10 Books That Brought a Little Magic to Their Genres" in 2021
One of Science for the People's "Best Science Books of the Year"
On The Octavian's 2021 Book List
“Jacobsen brings empathy, compassion, compelling writing and some truly dogged reporting.” (The Washington Post)
“Jacobsen follows the lives of Americans told to gather that data in Afghanistan - and she questions what the U.S. government means to do with it all.” (NPR)
“A deeply researched book about modern warfare. A startling prompt to stop worrying about fabricated conspiracy theories and to consider for a moment actual threats to privacy.” (Houston Chronicle)
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By: James Kitfield
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Mayhem
- Unanswered Questions About the Tsarnaev Brothers, the US Government and the Boston Marathon Bombing
- By: Michele R. McPhee
- Narrated by: Devon Sorvari
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Mayhem goes a long way toward answering questions that still linger about the notorious Boston Marathon bombing, such as: Where were the bombs made? And what had been Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relationship to the FBI? This engaging narrative casts a spotlight on the US government's relationship with the older Tsarnaev brother as his younger brother, Dzhokhar, continues his efforts to have his death sentence commuted.
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Tough to follow
- By Angela Leone on 11-06-20
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Eagle Down
- The Last Special Forces Fighting the Forever War
- By: Jessica Donati
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A Wall Street Journal national security reporter takes listeners into the lives of US Special Forces on the front lines against the Taliban and Islamic State, where a new and covert war is keeping Afghanistan from collapse.
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Excellent depiction of the non tactical battle.
- By Paddy on 11-16-21
By: Jessica Donati
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Code over Country
- The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six
- By: Matthew Cole
- Narrated by: Braden Wright
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Investigative journalist Matthew Cole tells the story of the most lauded unit, SEAL Team 6, revealing a troubling pattern of war crimes and the deep moral rot beneath authorized narratives. From their origins in World War II, the SEALs have trained to be specialized killers with short missions. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan became the endless War on Terror, their violence spiraled out of control. Code Over Country details the high-level decisions that unleashed the SEALs’ carnage and the coverups that prevented their crimes from coming to light.
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chip on the author's shoulder
- By Ted on 03-07-22
By: Matthew Cole
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Civilian Warriors
- The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror
- By: Erik Prince
- Narrated by: Jeff Gurner
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Blackwater is one of the most misunderstood companies of our time. As Erik Prince, its founder and former CEO, writes: "Hundreds of American citizens employed by private military contractors, or PMCs, would lose their lives helping our government wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, only to have their memory tarnished by the unfair and/or ignorant depiction of PMCs as profiteers, jackbooted thugs, or worse."
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A different look a Security Contractors
- By Ryan on 01-20-14
By: Erik Prince
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The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
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Scientia Est Potentia/Knowledge is Power
- By Cynthia on 10-08-15
By: Annie Jacobsen
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The Targeter
- My Life in the CIA, Hunting Terrorists and Challenging the White House
- By: Nada Bakos, Davin Coburn
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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In 1999, 30-year-old Nada Bakos moved from her lifelong home in Montana to Washington, DC, to join the CIA. Quickly realizing her affinity for intelligence work, Nada was determined to rise through the ranks of the agency first as an analyst and then as a Targeting Officer, eventually finding herself on the frontline of America's War against Islamic extremists. In this role, Nada was charged with determining if Iraq had a relationship with 9/11 and Al-Qaida, and finding the mastermind behind this terrorist activity: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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Terrible book. Feminazi Propaganda
- By Dan Wells on 08-24-19
By: Nada Bakos, and others
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The Hardest Place
- The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley
- By: Wesley Morgan
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 21 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of America’s two-decade-long Afghan war.
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A walk through time
- By Brandon Kennedy on 04-12-21
By: Wesley Morgan
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First Casualty
- The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11
- By: Toby Harnden
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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This dramatic true story reveals the secret mission of the eight members of the CIA’s Team Alpha, the first Americans to be dropped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan after 9/11.
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Deeply researched
- By Jason G on 09-08-21
By: Toby Harnden
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The Cell
- Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It
- By: John Miller, Michael Stone, Chris Mitchell
- Narrated by: John Miller
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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The Cell provides the first complete treatment to piece together what led to the events of 9/11, ultimately delivering the disturbing answer to the question: why, with all the information the intelligence community had, was no one able to stop the September 11 attacks? It also includes a first-person account of John Miller's face-to-face meeting with Osama bin Laden.
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What led up to 9/11?
- By Richard on 12-31-03
By: John Miller, and others
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Eyes in the Sky
- The Secret Rise of Gorgon Stare and How It Will Watch Us All
- By: Arthur Holland Michel
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Eyes in the Sky is the authoritative account of how the Pentagon secretly developed a godlike surveillance system for monitoring America's enemies overseas, and how it is now being used to watch us in our own backyards. Whereas a regular aerial camera can only capture a small patch of ground at any given time, this system - and its most powerful iteration, Gorgon Stare - allow operators to track thousands of moving targets at once, both forwards and backwards in time, across whole city-sized areas.
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Excellent Read! I learned a lot!
- By Donald Hill on 03-11-20
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Kill Anything That Moves
- The Real American War in Vietnam
- By: Nick Turse
- Narrated by: Don Lee
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Americans have long been taught that events such as the notorious My Lai massacre were "isolated incidents" in the Vietnam War, carried out by a few "bad apples." However, as award-winning journalist and historian Nick Turse demonstrates in this pioneering investigation, violence against Vietnamese civilians was not at all exceptional. Rather, it was pervasive and systematic, the predictable consequence of official orders to "kill anything that moves."
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A book that shakes you to your core
- By Gary Yevelev on 04-26-15
By: Nick Turse
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SEAL Target Geronimo
- The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden
- By: Chuck Pfarrer
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. a satellite uplink was sent from Pakistan crackling into the situation room of the White House: "Geronimo, Echo, KIA." These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, ended Osama bin Laden's reign of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Neptune's Spear from the men who were there. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details in an exclusive account of what happened as he takes listeners inside the walls of Bin Laden's compound.
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Marcinko’s Legacy….his pain, their gain.
- By James on 11-10-11
By: Chuck Pfarrer
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The Osenberg list
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In the 1850s, the young Frederick Law Olmsted was adrift, a restless farmer and dreamer in search of a mission. He found it as an undercover correspondent in the South for the up-and-coming New York Times. For the Connecticut Yankee, pen name "Yeoman", the South was alien, often hostile territory. Yet Olmsted traveled for 14 months, by horseback, steamboat, and stagecoach, seeking dialogue and common ground. Tony Horwitz rediscovers Yeoman Olmsted amidst the discord and polarization of our own time. Is America still one country?
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Great final story from a talented author
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Area 51
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It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere s75 miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the US government - but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, 32 of whom lived and worked there for extended periods.
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Disappointing
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What listeners say about First Platoon
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- RL
- 01-18-21
Narration
I thought the writer narrating he own work would be better than average. In this case, not so much. She pauses in the middle of sentences, as you do, but the places she choses to stop are weird. Right from the beginning of the book, her speech patterns took me right out of the story. The material is compelling, and I enjoyed it immensely. Just wish I had not done this book as "audio".
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- Mary Pierson
- 03-25-24
Her knowledge
Very interesting and will make you think (perhaps worry) about the current state of technological
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- Kimberly Kocak
- 02-07-21
very interesting overall
excellent narrator. story is very intertwined and pertinent to the direction of military. raises important points about surveillance
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- Jonathan Bonar
- 09-10-21
THIS IS NON-FICTION
All I have to say is this is more scary than science fiction. Everyone should understand the gravity of the situation that Annie is reporting on. This is the kind of reporting and book writing we need more of. I highly recommend you read this book if you consider it. Laws cannot keep up with technology, and we need help regulating the people that are supposed to be writing the laws. Feels more like 1984 after reading this book.
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- S Jackson
- 09-13-22
Another great investigative book by Annie Jacobson
Annie brings a complete history and story to organizations and systems that are not well known or documented. This is an enlightening book an American should read and know about it.
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- Zman
- 05-29-23
Eye opening
Wasnt sure about this book at first but had read or listened to everything else Annie Jacobsen has out… like the other books this did not disappoint. Completely underestimated the capabilities of some of these systems. Hard to believe its not in play here at home.
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- Jason
- 04-15-21
Incredible Journalism
Annie paints a picture of a dystopian future driven by DNA, future crime prediction, and the reduction of a human to a digital, probabilistic value. Incredible research and storytelling has this prescient book sitting extraordinarily well in the spirit of the age.
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- Home Care Admin
- 04-19-24
Big brother is already stalking us
A fascinating story of broken promises and broken lives on both sides of the Afghan conflict. A troubling view into emerging biometric and data analysis technologies that imply our government is close to achieving some of the goals the goals of Total Information Awareness through persistent surveillance systems. A warning we should heed!
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- Robert C.
- 06-19-23
Great listen
It was really interesting hearing the story. Since I was on the same deployment as First platoon. 2012 was a crazy year.
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- Zac Walton
- 05-17-24
Great connection with the author and her passion on biometrics.
I valued the sad stories about veterans who killed themselves. It’s difficult to hear about but I’m glad Annie Jacobson shared their stories in an honorable way.
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