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A review by ctgt
War by Sebastian Junger
4.0
I have read quite a few books of this type, either embed or first person accounts including
[b:No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah|206895|No True Glory A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah|Francis J. West Jr.|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320538268s/206895.jpg|200245], [b:Generation Kill|543103|Generation Kill|Evan Wright|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309283182s/543103.jpg|908023], [b:Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad|55324|Thunder Run The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad|David Zucchino|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319158343s/55324.jpg|53918] (all highly recommended). Here's the thing, I find these books informative and fascinating but it's kind of like seeing pictures of The Grand Canyon, it's just not the same as being there. So I'm not going to attempt to review this book. I'll just post some sections that spoke to me personally.
Battle Company is taking the most contact of the battalion, and the battalion is taking the most contact-by far-of any in the U.S. military. Nearly a fifth of the combat experienced by the 70,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan is being fought by the 150 men of Battle Company. Seventy percent of the bombs dropped in Afghanistan are dropped in and around the Korengal Valley.
"It was the first time I'd seen one of ours like that," Sergeant Mac told me. "Besides Padilla, it was the first time I'd seen one of ours jacked up. When I helped get him into the truck I could see the life was gone. To move a body around that's just not moving was really odd. He was almost....foreign. That kind of thing gets put someplace deep, to be dealt with later."
In the civilian world almost nothing has lasting consequences, so you can blunder through life in a kind of daze. You never have to take inventory of the things in your possession and you never have to calculate the ways in which mundane circumstances can play out-can, in fact, kill you. As a result, you lose the importance of things, the gravity of things.
Perfectly sane, good men have been drawn back to combat over and over again, and anyone interested in the idea of world peace would do well to know what they're looking for. Not killing, necessarily-that couldn't have been clearer in my mind-but the other side of the equation:protecting. The defense of the tribe is an insanely compelling idea, and once you've been exposed to it, there's almost nothing else you'd rather do. The only reason anyone was alive at Restrepo-or at Aranas or at Ranch House or, later, at Wanat-was because every man up there was willing to die defending it.
When men say they miss combat, it's not that they actually miss getting shot at-you'd have to be deranged-it's that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted. They miss being in a world where human relations are entirely governed by whether you can trust the other person with your life.
The thing that existed at Restrepo but was virtually impossible to find back home wasn't so much combat as brotherhood. As defined by soldiers, brotherhood is the willingness to sacrifice one's life for the group.
The only thing left to say is, thanks. Thanks to those of you that have served and are currently serving.
[b:No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah|206895|No True Glory A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah|Francis J. West Jr.|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320538268s/206895.jpg|200245], [b:Generation Kill|543103|Generation Kill|Evan Wright|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1309283182s/543103.jpg|908023], [b:Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad|55324|Thunder Run The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad|David Zucchino|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1319158343s/55324.jpg|53918] (all highly recommended). Here's the thing, I find these books informative and fascinating but it's kind of like seeing pictures of The Grand Canyon, it's just not the same as being there. So I'm not going to attempt to review this book. I'll just post some sections that spoke to me personally.
Battle Company is taking the most contact of the battalion, and the battalion is taking the most contact-by far-of any in the U.S. military. Nearly a fifth of the combat experienced by the 70,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan is being fought by the 150 men of Battle Company. Seventy percent of the bombs dropped in Afghanistan are dropped in and around the Korengal Valley.
"It was the first time I'd seen one of ours like that," Sergeant Mac told me. "Besides Padilla, it was the first time I'd seen one of ours jacked up. When I helped get him into the truck I could see the life was gone. To move a body around that's just not moving was really odd. He was almost....foreign. That kind of thing gets put someplace deep, to be dealt with later."
In the civilian world almost nothing has lasting consequences, so you can blunder through life in a kind of daze. You never have to take inventory of the things in your possession and you never have to calculate the ways in which mundane circumstances can play out-can, in fact, kill you. As a result, you lose the importance of things, the gravity of things.
Perfectly sane, good men have been drawn back to combat over and over again, and anyone interested in the idea of world peace would do well to know what they're looking for. Not killing, necessarily-that couldn't have been clearer in my mind-but the other side of the equation:protecting. The defense of the tribe is an insanely compelling idea, and once you've been exposed to it, there's almost nothing else you'd rather do. The only reason anyone was alive at Restrepo-or at Aranas or at Ranch House or, later, at Wanat-was because every man up there was willing to die defending it.
When men say they miss combat, it's not that they actually miss getting shot at-you'd have to be deranged-it's that they miss being in a world where everything is important and nothing is taken for granted. They miss being in a world where human relations are entirely governed by whether you can trust the other person with your life.
The thing that existed at Restrepo but was virtually impossible to find back home wasn't so much combat as brotherhood. As defined by soldiers, brotherhood is the willingness to sacrifice one's life for the group.
The only thing left to say is, thanks. Thanks to those of you that have served and are currently serving.