The book Black Hearts begins by painting a gruesome picture of a crime scene that was reported to 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd 101st Airborne Division. Soldiers sent to investigate discover that an entire family has been murdered, the daughter has been raped, and someone has tried to set the house on fire. The entire family was killed in an apparently brutal execution. While investigating one of the NCOs found a shotgun shell which he found strange as most Iraqis do not use shotguns. He compiled the evidence to send it to a higher level and they considered him as another Iraqi on the Iraqi sectarian execution. Then the book takes us before all of this happened, the book focuses on a battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, led by Lt. Col. Kunk, he ruled with an iron fist and was very harsh with his subordinates. Within the battalion, the book focuses primarily on Bravo Company, led by Cpt. Goodwin. Goodwin was a capable leader but Ltc. Kunk had a reputation for being very harsh on his company commanders and having very little confidence in their abilities. Before deployment, while at JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center), he would explode at his commanders and tell them they were doing everything wrong, criticizing and demeaning them. This exhausted his commanders and especially Goodwin, Goodwin began to question his decisions, making him less effective as a leader and making him make more mistakes than before, this would make Kunk even more upset and he would berate him even more than before. 'Before. he would do it in the first place. The battalion would be deployed in the “Triangle of Death”, an area south of Baghdad. He was traveling along one of the main highways leading to Bag... middle of paper ... the patrols and his men had very little confidence in him because he would not do anything he asked them to do. . He was, however, a good leader in that he did not abandon his men like SFC Gallagher did. He had a plan to deal with the situation and didn't let his inexperience sidetrack him. He knew the platoon he was going to was a problem platoon and he accepted the challenge and attacked it head on. He held men to higher standards than in the past and tried to pick them up and dust them off. He helped 1LT Norton revive the 1st platoon and boost morale. They were just getting back on their feet when the incident at JSB occurred in which two soldiers went missing and then the rape and murder were investigated, effectively ending the deployment of 1st Platoon, but nonetheless SFC Fenlason was there through it all and stayed with his platoon.