Vivian H. Gembara

Deborah A. Gembara

A judge advocate general officer chronicles her experiences working as a lawyer for the US Army overseas in the Iraq War from 2003 to 2004.

Several people are waiting to greet Captain Vivian Gembara when she returns home after a year-long tour of duty in Iraq—her grateful fiancé and two officers dispatched from headquarters to retrieve "the file." Certainly not the homecoming she expected, but such is life when you are in the business of soldiers behaving badly.

As a lawyer for the US Army, Vivian counsels them, investigates them, and when necessary, prosecutes them. When an Iraqi teenager's body is found floating in the Tigris River and US soldiers are believed to have been involved, she knows she has a case on her hands. What she doesn't realize is just how much that case will reveal about the Army's conduct at war.

Drowning in the Desert:A JAG's Search for Justice in Iraq is both a legal thriller and a searing account of the savagery that occurs when commanders place "the fight" above all else.

Praise for Drowning in the Desert

"This is an honest account of one officer struggling to return with honor from early in the Iraq war when the U.S. Army didn't understand how to fight it." —Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

"A fascinating true story with all the intrigue of a bestselling mystery novel." —Donald P. Bellisario, creator of the hit TV series JAG and NCIS

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