Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company's 1st Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, found itself in Fallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house, hand-to-hand urban combat since World War II. In the city's bloody streets, they came face-to-face with the enemy-radical insurgents high on adrenaline, fighting to a martyr's death, and suicide bombers approaching from every corner. award-winning author and historian Patrick O'Donnell stood shoulder to shoulder with this modern band of brothers as they marched and fought through the streets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualties mounted.

Patrick O'Donnell was the first "embedded" author to go into combat in Iraq with his unit, fighting side-by-side with the men of the 1st Platoon. They were the first unit into Fallujah - considered the most important battle in the war in Iraq - where civilians were used as human shields, suicide bombers approached from any street corner, and insurgents, high on injected adrenaline, fought to the death. The Marines of the 1st (and Patrick O'Donnell with them) saw the worst of it; by the end of the battle only 14 of the original 49 were left standing. In "We Were One", O'Donnell captures not only the sights, sounds and smells of the battles, but the human drama of the young men from a close-knit platoon fighting and dying side-by-side.