Scimitar,
In school we used these two books and they are pretty much the defacto college texts:
Alif Baa for Arabic script/writing
http://www.amazon.com/Alif-Baa-Intro...4782482&sr=1-1
Al-Kitaab for grammar and vocab
http://www.amazon.com/Al-Kitaab-fii-...ref=pd_sim_b_5
Al-Kitaab covers everything grammar wise all the way up to Al-Arab which is the Koranic style case endings.
Another book I highly recommend is this one:
Easy Arabic Grammar
http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Arabic-Gr...4782670&sr=1-2
It has everything Al-Kitaab does but it is small enough to fit in your back pocket vs the half telephone book Al-Kitaab. Great reference!
I haven't used this one but it looks good from a SF/mil point of view:
Modern Military Dictionary: English-Arabic/Arabic-English
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Militar...d_bxgy_e_img_b
Here is another straight vocab book that is small and handy....the only downside is that they should have put the English words in alphabetical order. Still a good book though:
The Top 1,000 Words for Understanding Media Arabic
http://www.amazon.com/Top-Words-Unde...4786361&sr=1-2