Baghdaddy: How Saddam Hussein Taught Me to Be a Better Father

Military Writers Society of America Multiple Award-Winner:
Founder’s Award for Standout Book of 2019
Gold Medal Award for Memoir category

For readers of Educated and The Glass Castle, comes a moving new memoir about survival, family, and a humanizing insight into the individuals who fight the nation’s wars.

As a child, he 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 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 memoir: an honest and colorful depiction of his journey through a turbulent youth and into a challenging adulthood. This very human account of living in some of the least humane environments delivers the message that no matter how different we seem, we are all trying to make the best of life and learn how to be the best versions of ourselves.