Fontenot, former director of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, details US Army operations during the Second Gulf War, drawing on official records and work carried out by the Army's Operation Iraqi Freedom Study Group. The first part of the book reviews the evolution of the Army since the First Gulf War.

Here is the first official U.S. Army history of Army operations in the Second Iraq War. From preparation, mobilization, and deployment to the fighting at Talil and As Samawah, from the Battle of An Najaf to the final fight for Baghdad, this is the Army's story of the Army's major role in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In addition to the detailed operational analysis it offers, the book also looks at the evolution in Army weaponry and doctrine from the First to the Second Gulf Wars. Like Scales's "Certain Victory (the official U.S. Army history of Gulf War I), "On Point will be of everlasting value to future researchers as a "first draft of history."