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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
I'm not a big war fan. I get too anxious to play Call of Duty. That said, I liked War way more than I expected.
Sebastian Junger is a journalist, and judging by this book, a damn good one. He spent several month-long stints at one of the most dangerous US military bases in Afghanistan in 2007-2008. He lived on the front lines, accompanied soldiers on patrols, took cover during firefights, and even survived an IED explosion. That's crazy. Also, that's dedication to his craft. He wrote this book from his experiences and hundreds of hours of footage and interviews. He also made a documentary, Restrepo, which seems to have the same tone.
The only real basis of comparison I have is [b:The Things They Carried|133518|The Things They Carried|Tim O'Brien|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297915473s/133518.jpg|1235619], which was more about the psychological effect than the experience itself. In contrast, the combat in War is vivid, and appropriately horrifying and random. Disorienting firefights punctuate the reader's growing relationship with the men of Battle Company, and we share their lack of understanding or concern about the big picture "War on Terror." All they can focus on is not dying and eliminating those who would kill them.
War is about far more than just combat. The soldiers are real, and their personalities and relationships come through in the writing. Junger addresses every possible aspect of war from the front lines: psychology of fear, sacrifice, and courage; the love of the soldiers for each other; the bullying between them; the absurdity and horror of war; the addiction to the high of combat; the beauty of Afghanistan, and the beauty of the weapons used to destroy it.
War is a remarkably honest and affecting book. It is neither critical of war nor blind to its faults. It is just a profile of some of its soldiers, and leaves any judgment to the reader.
Sebastian Junger is a journalist, and judging by this book, a damn good one. He spent several month-long stints at one of the most dangerous US military bases in Afghanistan in 2007-2008. He lived on the front lines, accompanied soldiers on patrols, took cover during firefights, and even survived an IED explosion. That's crazy. Also, that's dedication to his craft. He wrote this book from his experiences and hundreds of hours of footage and interviews. He also made a documentary, Restrepo, which seems to have the same tone.
The only real basis of comparison I have is [b:The Things They Carried|133518|The Things They Carried|Tim O'Brien|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1297915473s/133518.jpg|1235619], which was more about the psychological effect than the experience itself. In contrast, the combat in War is vivid, and appropriately horrifying and random. Disorienting firefights punctuate the reader's growing relationship with the men of Battle Company, and we share their lack of understanding or concern about the big picture "War on Terror." All they can focus on is not dying and eliminating those who would kill them.
War is about far more than just combat. The soldiers are real, and their personalities and relationships come through in the writing. Junger addresses every possible aspect of war from the front lines: psychology of fear, sacrifice, and courage; the love of the soldiers for each other; the bullying between them; the absurdity and horror of war; the addiction to the high of combat; the beauty of Afghanistan, and the beauty of the weapons used to destroy it.
War is a remarkably honest and affecting book. It is neither critical of war nor blind to its faults. It is just a profile of some of its soldiers, and leaves any judgment to the reader.
Fascinating, heartbreaking, terrifying, and overall excellent. The distinction between friendship and brotherhood is important and explained well. Highly recommended, even if you aren't interested in the military.
I discovered I already have TRIBE on my kindle, so I'm going straight into that next.
I discovered I already have TRIBE on my kindle, so I'm going straight into that next.
Junger offers a compelling and thoughtful consideration of war, as construct and lived experience, through the lens of his time in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Very powerful reflection on the things men do and why they do them.
Pretty brutal read. Junger reports while embedded on what the soldiers go through and how they live day to day. Not a commentary on the why's of the war or in agreement or disagreement, just a snapshot into the young men who serve our country. Lot's of language.
An interesting look at the war in Afghanistan. The boredom and the fear that comes with war. It's an interesting read, I've also seen Restrepo too which was good. This has been the only book I've read about the situation in Afghanistan, and whilst it doesn't go into the history of why the US Army are based there, it details the trivialities of day to day warfare and the horrendous impact it has on it's soldiers.
Occasionally a well-meaning person will ask me “what was it like in the Marines?” In an expansive mood, I’ll usually ramble something about toxic masculinity, the 95:5 ratio of tedium to adrenaline, or the petty tyranny of bureaucracy. But this book (and Generation Kill) are the truest voices of my experiences in sum. The soldiers in WAR - including the journalist author - endured or inflicted orders of magnitude more trauma than I experienced, but their motivations, bonds, aggression, and coping methods are rawly universal. What follows is mostly favorite quotes, to minimize the same misplaced and insufficient rambling I’ve done about my own experiences.
It was worth reading if only for its colorful summaries of combat psychology:
“The idea that you’re not allowed to experience something as human as exhaustion is outrageous anywhere but combat. Good leaders know that exhaustion is partly a state of mind, though, and that the men who succumb to it have on some level decided to put themselves above everyone else.”
“Civilians understand soldiers to have a kind of baseline duty, and that everything above that is considered ‘bravery.’ Soldiers see it the other way around: either you’re doing your duty or you’re a coward. There’s no other place to go.”
“What the Army sociologists…slowly came to understand was that courage was love. In war, neither could exist without the other, and that in a sense they were just different ways of saying the same thing.”
"[Afghanistan is] where the men feel not most alive – that you can get skydiving – but the most utilized. The most necessary. The most clear and certain and purposeful. If young men could get that feeling at home, no one would ever want to go to war again, but they can’t. So here sits Sergeant Brendan O’Byrne, one month before the end of deployment, seriously contemplating signing back up.”
“War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”
“Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.”
But the book’s real substance lies in Junger’s unsparing and minute documentation of the men he was embedded with. The peculiarities of in-group/out-group dynamics of young men in a lethal environment are uniquely intense (and some of my fondest memories).
“The guys are experts, of a sort, at being funny, and they seem to go out of their way to be. Maybe it’s the only way to stay sane up there. Not because of the combat – you’re never saner than when your survival is in question – but because of the unbelievable, screaming boredom.”
“…if you deprive men of the company of women for too long, and then turn off the steady adrenaline drip of heavy combat, it may not turn sexual, but it’s certainly going to turn weird.”
“The only thing that matters is your level of dedication to the rest of the group, and that is almost impossible to fake. That is why the men say such impossibly vulgar things about each other’s sisters and mothers. It’s one more way to prove nothing can break the bond between them…"
“Not all the humor involved gutting your friend’s personal dignity. Donoho would pretend to see obstacles on night patrols and climb over them so he could watch the next guy in line try to do the same thing. Money ate a two-pound bag of tuna in one sitting just to see what would happen. O’Byrne and Sergeant Al fashioned a tarantula out of pipe cleaners to slip in my sleeping bag.”
The book is much more substantial than the above quotes, but those, for better and worse, made my memories vivid in his retelling. This helped me deeply remember why I enlisted, and why I left.
It was worth reading if only for its colorful summaries of combat psychology:
“The idea that you’re not allowed to experience something as human as exhaustion is outrageous anywhere but combat. Good leaders know that exhaustion is partly a state of mind, though, and that the men who succumb to it have on some level decided to put themselves above everyone else.”
“Civilians understand soldiers to have a kind of baseline duty, and that everything above that is considered ‘bravery.’ Soldiers see it the other way around: either you’re doing your duty or you’re a coward. There’s no other place to go.”
“What the Army sociologists…slowly came to understand was that courage was love. In war, neither could exist without the other, and that in a sense they were just different ways of saying the same thing.”
"[Afghanistan is] where the men feel not most alive – that you can get skydiving – but the most utilized. The most necessary. The most clear and certain and purposeful. If young men could get that feeling at home, no one would ever want to go to war again, but they can’t. So here sits Sergeant Brendan O’Byrne, one month before the end of deployment, seriously contemplating signing back up.”
“War is supposed to feel bad because undeniably bad things happen in it, but for a nineteen-year-old at the working end of a .50 cal during a firefight that everyone comes out of okay, war is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of.”
“Maybe the ultimate wound is the one that makes you miss the war you got it in.”
But the book’s real substance lies in Junger’s unsparing and minute documentation of the men he was embedded with. The peculiarities of in-group/out-group dynamics of young men in a lethal environment are uniquely intense (and some of my fondest memories).
“The guys are experts, of a sort, at being funny, and they seem to go out of their way to be. Maybe it’s the only way to stay sane up there. Not because of the combat – you’re never saner than when your survival is in question – but because of the unbelievable, screaming boredom.”
“…if you deprive men of the company of women for too long, and then turn off the steady adrenaline drip of heavy combat, it may not turn sexual, but it’s certainly going to turn weird.”
“The only thing that matters is your level of dedication to the rest of the group, and that is almost impossible to fake. That is why the men say such impossibly vulgar things about each other’s sisters and mothers. It’s one more way to prove nothing can break the bond between them…"
“Not all the humor involved gutting your friend’s personal dignity. Donoho would pretend to see obstacles on night patrols and climb over them so he could watch the next guy in line try to do the same thing. Money ate a two-pound bag of tuna in one sitting just to see what would happen. O’Byrne and Sergeant Al fashioned a tarantula out of pipe cleaners to slip in my sleeping bag.”
The book is much more substantial than the above quotes, but those, for better and worse, made my memories vivid in his retelling. This helped me deeply remember why I enlisted, and why I left.
Only book I have read so far about the actual war in Afghanistan. Nothing to do with politics here, its the actual troops on the ground and what the face on a daily basis. Definitely eye-opening. It is not all lone gunmen and/or suicide vests. The author speant a good deal of time embedded with the troops. Recommended for anyone looking for info on the type of fighting going on and how the troops deal with it.