By 204 B.C., the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, had been wreaking havoc on the Italian peninsula for 14 years at a cost to Rome and its Italian allies of approximately 100,000 lives. In that year, a young charismatic general from one of Rome’s most aristocratic families, Cornelius Scipio, convinced his elders in the Senate to send him and an expeditionary force by sea to attack the Carthaginian homeland in North Africa. This finally brought Hannibal’s army out of Italy to a battlefield of the Romans’ choosing, to a place called Zama, where one of history’s greatest generals was defeated.

In his new book American Heroes in the Fight Against Radical Islam, Oliver North writes that two weeks after the fall of Baghdad, in the town of Baji, the 66th Armored Regiment came upon one of Sadam Hussein’s enormous ammo dumps. Quickly, the regiment’s commander realized that the insurgents would be coming to steal the ammo. He ordered his troops to set up ambush points along the roads leading into the massive complex. Pitched gun battles erupted nightly. Recapping one night’s fighting, North writes: More »