In this memoir, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel reflects on his difficult childhood, his service in the Middle East, and fatherhood. As a child, Bill Riley was raised in an unstable and violent home by a mother struggling with mental illness. An absent father with a firm belief in tough love left him with only his sister to understand or comfort him as they faced a home full of … they faced a home full of harshness, resentment, and physical abuse.
As a man, he braved the war-torn landscapes of Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Having learned early from his father that only the strong survive, he enlisted in the Air Force after high school and began an impressive military career in intelligence analysis, communications, and supporting special operations, meeting incredible individuals along the way.
Baghdaddy is Bill Riley’s journey through a turbulent youth and into a challenging adulthood. This very human account of living in some of the least humane environments shows that no matter how different we may seem, we are all trying to make the best of life and learn how to be the best versions of ourselves.
Praise for Baghdaddy
“Riley’s prose is exact and features moments of unexpected beauty… As much an account of America’s involvement in Kuwait and Iraq as it is a personal narrative, the book provides a humanizing insight into the individuals who fight the nation’s wars, and the deeper motivations that explain why they do so. A compelling and well-crafted combination of history and autobiography.” —Kirkus Reviews
“An amusing, often exciting war memoir that readers of the genre will enjoy.” —Publishers Weekly
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The mark of a mature and robust human being is the ability to learn from experience and to grow in adversity.
In BAGHDADDY, Bill Riley details the key moments as he matured from an abused child into an upstanding officer, husband and father against odds that were stacked against him from the beginning.
The one rule that Bill Riley draws from the experiences of a dysfunctional family, exploits in support of covert operations in the Middle East, and the challenges of marriage and fatherhood is: Your word is your bond. You do what you promise to do, no matter what the cost.
Standing up straight with his shoulders back, Bill Riley shows us how he accepted the terrible responsibility of life – one that we all face to a greater or lesser extent — with his eyes and his heart wide open.
All strength to him! A fascinating insight into one good man’s victory.
Bill Riley I haven’t the words to adequately describe how much I loved reading this, and how I hated coming to the blank page. I closed the back cover with a sense of heaviness, and I lay awake contemplating the many facets of this remarkable account. Yes, it is heavy. It is heartwarming, heartbreaking, tragic, and wonderful. It is all of these things and more–a truly brilliant work of literature!
This is NOT your typical military biographical book. I do enjoy those too–all the stories of Navy SEALs, Rangers, Marines, and assorted heroes, chronicles of the heroic actions of our many brave men and women of the military. But this book is very different from the others. Dare I say much deeper? With all due respect to the others, this book has far more layers and greater depth. It is a brutally honest exposé, a full-circle journey of the author’s esoteric life. It is about a boy, about a man, a leader, a warrior, a father, a husband, and a friend. It is a story about tormented people living in a faraway, war-torn place, enduring challenges most of us could never imagine, and the relationships the author built with some of them.
The author reveals his very troubled, chaotic childhood in order to demonstrate, in part–for better or worse–what shaped him to become the man that he is. The almost unbelievable childhood alone could be a book. But in this story, those recollections are but the foundation, elements of a much bigger story that are masterfully woven into the life of a compassionate and caring man who served his country with pride, determination, and a commitment to help those in dire circumstances, perhaps because of his childhood–or in spite of it.
This book, the first to be published by this author, has won numerous awards and has been recognized with honors by the military community it represents. It is no wonder. There are many who are able to tell their stories of life and death and war and peace, but few do so as masterfully as Mr. Riley has done in BAGHDADDY.
I was privileged to meet Lt. Col. Bill Riley at a writer’s conference earlier this year and I’m proud to now call him a friend. I am thankful for his service to our country and grateful that when he set down his weapons, he picked up a pen, for his writing is truly a literary blessing to us all.
A War Memoir with a difference. Raw and Powerful.
From a difficult childhood to Lieutenant Colonel in the US Air Force, this is a remarkable story of fortitude and survival on several levels. We learn not just about the intricacies of the military presence in Kuwait and Iraq, but also about the author’s childhood, growing up and surviving in an abusive family situation. His attention to detail, both in his military training and work, but also in his ability to describe and remember smaller details of his childhood, really bring this memoir to life. Ultimately this is a message of hope in adversity, reconciliation in a time of war, and peace during conflict.