Strong stuff. I've been a fan of Junger's work since Perfect Storm and Fire, but this is my favorite so far. It's a tough read because of its raw, unblinking portrayal of time spent with US infantry in Afghanistan. Whether you consider the US presence a conflict, occupation, or war doesn't really matter. Junger takes no political side, and makes it clear the soldier's don't either; they're just trying to survive. The book is a powerful mix of respect, fear, and character study. I also recommend the documentary Junger helped produce, Restropo, that shows vividly what inspired this book, including footage captured inside an armored transport that ran over an IED.

Junger, a journalist and filmmaker, embedded with an American platoon for a 15-month tour of duty in Afghanistan. His subjects became friends. Many of them died. He almost died.

In the process, he wrote a minor masterpiece on a few different topics: How it feels to be surrounded by death, how it feels to be surrounded by people who would die for you, and how bonds develop as a result of both conditions.

There have been better books written about earlier wars, and there may be better books written about the early-21st-century American wars, but I’d find it hard to believe that many better books were written this close to the action. There’s something about being shot at regularly that leaves a mark on a writer’s prose, and Sebastian Junger puts that je ne sais quoi on almost every page.

I love books that are packed with real conversations and weird little details about things that don’t matter in a big-picture sense, and War is exactly that. Junger is perfectly willing to spend a couple of pages discussing which soldiers resemble which household appliances, or an incident where the Army accidentally barbecued someone’s cow — but on any page, at any moment, combat might start up again. In that sense, reading the book feels a little bit like war is supposed to feel. War attempts to get us closer to the mental state of the people we’ve asked to live inside that feeling.

(While the book isn’t political, or “solutions-oriented”, Junger never loses sight of the fact that much of what we did in Afghanistan was stupid and terrible. The plans of our enemies were also stupid and terrible. Sometimes, there aren’t any good solutions.)

I read this after coming back from Afghanistan. This was one of the best, if not THE best writing on the "personal" aspect of the war at that time. Honestly I think this should be a must-read. It's not a story on killing and loss, though it indirectly deals in those subjects. It's more like the actual act of being there. It's a fact you have to deal with and understand, but not the real reason you're there. Very well written.

I probably would have liked it more if I had read it instead of listened. The author/narrator was so monotone that there were several periods of listening when I realized that I had zoned out completely and had to rewind. Or didn't bother rewinding.

There were some very intense scenes and I got the point of the book and mostly enjoyed it. This is one of those audio books where the author shouldn't have done the reading.

While listening to this book, I remembered listening to another book from a very different perspective, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, and the vast gap between the two approaches to Afghanistan, its people, and its culture. Where TCoT was abot peace and inter-cultural understanding, Junger's book is all about American soldiers at war, and the impact the war has on them. It includes very interesting and telling findings from studies done during various wars and how negatively they affect those involved in the fighting. Why, then, do we not pay attention to these findings, and stop all the fighting? Perhaps because working toward peace seems like more effort than fighting to win. Very sad story.