Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
A heavy read that delved into the mind of the soldier. I've never been to war, am military illiterate but this made so much sense to me. It takes a special person to a soldier let alone a soldier getting into a firefight every day. I get it now and I get them. The adrenaline rush that comes from a life or death situation it's unlike any other.
This is not a pleasant read, but it does, I think paint a striking portrait of the experience of war (or at least of an experience of war). It consistently reminded me of, and gave context to, the famous maxim, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." (3.5/5 stars.)
The most impactful sections of this text are the ones in which Junger is describing life in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan- what it is like for the men he is there with, how they behave, what they talk about. Similarly impactful (and, perhaps, more important) are Junger's explanations and explorations of what it means to be on the front lines in this way- how it affects men, what courage means, and how the lived experience of these men shapes them.
The descriptions are frequently harrowing. I cannot think of a similar text that has described violence in a manner at once so terrible and clear. I think it is (perhaps unsurprisingly) impossible for civilians like me to truly understand the experience of war (even if we work for the Department of Defense, or see the consequences of it after-the-fact), but this text does, at least, draw us a little closer to that experience.
I did not walk away from this text with the impression that the goal here was to valorize or glamorize these men or what they did. It would've been a shame to do that, I think, and significantly weakened the text and the text's purpose. I think the journalistic style of the prose does well by the topic and its subjects, and I think it does a good job of answering a question along the lines of, "What does it mean to send people off to war?"
The text is not without its flaws. Although Junger's discussions of the psychological consequences of what goes on are generally insightful, they sometimes feel as though they stray a bit too far into armchair psychologist territory, and those sections feel like the weakest of the book. Additionally, though he was certainly discussing a very specific place and time, some of his own particular biases seem implicitly quite clear. Things such as masculinity and masculine virtue, as well as the heteronormativity of the text are perhaps understandable in the context, but they are never really acknowledged and certainly never examined.
On the whole, though, this book is an effective- albeit disturbing- read. It is not, I think, a bad thing to complicate peoples' ideas of war and to invite further discussions on how we ought to conduct it (as Americans, as a society, as humans), and an emotional text such as this one (rather than, for example, a dry academic discourse) is not a bad place to start.
The most impactful sections of this text are the ones in which Junger is describing life in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan- what it is like for the men he is there with, how they behave, what they talk about. Similarly impactful (and, perhaps, more important) are Junger's explanations and explorations of what it means to be on the front lines in this way- how it affects men, what courage means, and how the lived experience of these men shapes them.
The descriptions are frequently harrowing. I cannot think of a similar text that has described violence in a manner at once so terrible and clear. I think it is (perhaps unsurprisingly) impossible for civilians like me to truly understand the experience of war (even if we work for the Department of Defense, or see the consequences of it after-the-fact), but this text does, at least, draw us a little closer to that experience.
I did not walk away from this text with the impression that the goal here was to valorize or glamorize these men or what they did. It would've been a shame to do that, I think, and significantly weakened the text and the text's purpose. I think the journalistic style of the prose does well by the topic and its subjects, and I think it does a good job of answering a question along the lines of, "What does it mean to send people off to war?"
The text is not without its flaws. Although Junger's discussions of the psychological consequences of what goes on are generally insightful, they sometimes feel as though they stray a bit too far into armchair psychologist territory, and those sections feel like the weakest of the book. Additionally, though he was certainly discussing a very specific place and time, some of his own particular biases seem implicitly quite clear. Things such as masculinity and masculine virtue, as well as the heteronormativity of the text are perhaps understandable in the context, but they are never really acknowledged and certainly never examined.
On the whole, though, this book is an effective- albeit disturbing- read. It is not, I think, a bad thing to complicate peoples' ideas of war and to invite further discussions on how we ought to conduct it (as Americans, as a society, as humans), and an emotional text such as this one (rather than, for example, a dry academic discourse) is not a bad place to start.
Good through and through. Sebastian Junger is a very gifted writer that has taken some pretty crazy risks to get this book to us. And then there is the research too. Quite moving stuff. Staggering. I feel that I understand more about war and also understand I will never know the most important aspects of war. In total, such a great book, an important book.
Just Say No
Young men have fantasies about being soldiers. But whatever it is they imagine combat to be, it isn’t this - the unremitting discomfort of heat, fleas, and filth; the obvious futility of all their efforts to do a job which is impossible; the unrecognized stress of being a continual target of bullets from the enemy, hate and suspicion from the local populace, and disdain by their superiors; the inevitable incompetence of those in command of a situation which they never comprehend; and the knowledge that the experience of numbness one is undergoing is fundamentally incommunicable to anyone who isn’t sharing it.
But young men seem never to get the eternally recurring message: This experience is likely to damage you beyond repair; it will haunt you and be the source of life-long regret. If you survive it with your body intact, your mind will have absorbed not just your own pain and degradation, but that of your friends and perhaps even your enemies. This pain and degradation will not make you a better man; it will make you an invalid. As Junger reports: “By the time the tour was over, half of Battle Company was supposedly on psychiatric meds.”
The further one is from those who are shot at and shoot back to kill, the more fantasy takes hold. Of course, the majority of a military force never actually know what’s going on: “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.” One need not go far up the chain of command to get the point: “It’s only on rear bases that you hear any belligerent talk about patriotism or religion.” Senior officers, faced with the unfamiliar, are at best incompetent and at worst seriously deluded: “...the war also diverged from the textbooks because it was fought in such axle-breaking, helicopter-crashing, spirit-killing, mind-bending terrain that few military plans survive intact for even an hour.”
The laws of unintended consequences constitute the unchanging physics of war. War is the only demonstrable perpetual motion machine as it creates the conditions necessary for its continuance:
Frankly I am exhausted hearing the old shibboleths about war evoking the best human traits of compassion, self-sacrifice, courage, and solidarity. Junger has a familiar anecdote:
Exactly. It is the intense caring for each other by soldiers in combat that makes the whole enterprise of war possible. The entire complex machine of the military has been geared to generate and to exploit this fundamental force of fellow-feeling among men who come largely from the margins of society and who have no clue about the process to which they’re being subjected. Indoctrination is the official term; brainwashing is the more accurate. To me this is at least as obscene as the violence that it permits. This is the open secret of all armies everywhere. It is also a source of immense guilt, regret, and psychosis among those who are its product. By distorting and intensifying the natural sympathy among men, the military creates zombies who are emotionally neither dead nor alive.
Is it too much to hope that, despite their hormonal disturbances, someday young men who are encouraged to wage war will tell the old men who insist on war to fuck off?
Young men have fantasies about being soldiers. But whatever it is they imagine combat to be, it isn’t this - the unremitting discomfort of heat, fleas, and filth; the obvious futility of all their efforts to do a job which is impossible; the unrecognized stress of being a continual target of bullets from the enemy, hate and suspicion from the local populace, and disdain by their superiors; the inevitable incompetence of those in command of a situation which they never comprehend; and the knowledge that the experience of numbness one is undergoing is fundamentally incommunicable to anyone who isn’t sharing it.
But young men seem never to get the eternally recurring message: This experience is likely to damage you beyond repair; it will haunt you and be the source of life-long regret. If you survive it with your body intact, your mind will have absorbed not just your own pain and degradation, but that of your friends and perhaps even your enemies. This pain and degradation will not make you a better man; it will make you an invalid. As Junger reports: “By the time the tour was over, half of Battle Company was supposedly on psychiatric meds.”
The further one is from those who are shot at and shoot back to kill, the more fantasy takes hold. Of course, the majority of a military force never actually know what’s going on: “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.” One need not go far up the chain of command to get the point: “It’s only on rear bases that you hear any belligerent talk about patriotism or religion.” Senior officers, faced with the unfamiliar, are at best incompetent and at worst seriously deluded: “...the war also diverged from the textbooks because it was fought in such axle-breaking, helicopter-crashing, spirit-killing, mind-bending terrain that few military plans survive intact for even an hour.”
The laws of unintended consequences constitute the unchanging physics of war. War is the only demonstrable perpetual motion machine as it creates the conditions necessary for its continuance:
“...war came to the Korengal when timber traders from a northern faction of the Safi tribe allied themselves with the first U.S. Special Forces that came through the area in early 2002. When the Americans tried to enter the Korengal they met resistance from local timber cutters who realized that the northern Safis were poised to take over their operation... For both sides, the battle for the Korengal developed a logic of its own that sucked in more and more resources and lives until neither side could afford to walk away.”
Frankly I am exhausted hearing the old shibboleths about war evoking the best human traits of compassion, self-sacrifice, courage, and solidarity. Junger has a familiar anecdote:
“Moreno put his hands on him and started to pull him out of the gunfire. A Third Squad team leader named Hijar ran forward to help, and he and Moreno managed to drag Guttie behind cover before anyone got hit. By that time the medic, Doc Old, had gotten to them and was kneeling in the dirt trying to figure out how badly Guttie was hurt. Later I asked Hijar whether he had felt any hesitation before running out there. ‘No,’ Hijar said, ‘he’d do that for me. Knowing that is the only thing that makes any of this possible.’”
Exactly. It is the intense caring for each other by soldiers in combat that makes the whole enterprise of war possible. The entire complex machine of the military has been geared to generate and to exploit this fundamental force of fellow-feeling among men who come largely from the margins of society and who have no clue about the process to which they’re being subjected. Indoctrination is the official term; brainwashing is the more accurate. To me this is at least as obscene as the violence that it permits. This is the open secret of all armies everywhere. It is also a source of immense guilt, regret, and psychosis among those who are its product. By distorting and intensifying the natural sympathy among men, the military creates zombies who are emotionally neither dead nor alive.
Is it too much to hope that, despite their hormonal disturbances, someday young men who are encouraged to wage war will tell the old men who insist on war to fuck off?
I found this a less appealing narrative than Junger's masterful The Perfect Storm. The stories seemed a little choppy and the order was sometimes confusing. However, it is a rare inside glimpse of what modern combat is really like. The men serving in Afghanistan crave action, feel fear and primarily suffer from crushing boredom. I'm glad I read this and generally would recommend to fans of action/adventure non-fiction.
A close-up description of life in a single platoon during the conflict in Afghanistan. The author was an embedded journalist and his approach is really interesting. He focuses less on the cause and effect of the war than he does on the psychological toll it takes - and the changes it makes - in the young soldiers around him. There's an impressive list of psychological studies in the back of the book, and he refers to these throughout in trying to explain the effects that war has on the individual soldier, and on small groups of such.
It's kind of a depressing read, in that I ended wondering just how any of these men could possibly integrate back into society once they left the military - but they're wondering too, and not at all confident of their ability to do so.
It's kind of a depressing read, in that I ended wondering just how any of these men could possibly integrate back into society once they left the military - but they're wondering too, and not at all confident of their ability to do so.
Read for Book Riot's 2017 Read Harder Challenge
This is one of those books that I enjoyed reading while I was reading it, but seemed tough to pick up after putting it down. The stories and personal interaction bits were fascinating, as well as the psychology of combat, etc.
The parts that lost me were the actual combat descriptions. Mainly because I know so little about weapons, military strategy and the lingo.
However, Junger does an admirable job explaining things. I will give some of his other books a try in the future. The fact that I'm considering watching Restrepo (his companion documentary to this book), is high praise and I am going to round up a star.
This is one of those books that I enjoyed reading while I was reading it, but seemed tough to pick up after putting it down. The stories and personal interaction bits were fascinating, as well as the psychology of combat, etc.
The parts that lost me were the actual combat descriptions. Mainly because I know so little about weapons, military strategy and the lingo.
However, Junger does an admirable job explaining things. I will give some of his other books a try in the future. The fact that I'm considering watching Restrepo (his companion documentary to this book), is high praise and I am going to round up a star.
Obviously this story itself is incredible but the part I enjoyed the most was the break down of what war provides for men. I don't have any intentions of shaking my life up in my mid 30's and joining the military but it definitely made me think deeper about how to make my life more meaningful and fulfilling. Is there a way I can live my life here that makes me feel "utilized, necessary, clear, certain, and purposeful"?
Definitely not a book I would pick up other than for book group, but like many book group selections, I am so glad that I read it.
p. 120 - "The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what's best for him, but on what's best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat."
p. 214 - "It's a foolish and embarrassing thought but worth owning up to. 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."
p. 233 - "Civilians balk at recognizing that one of the most traumatic things about combat is having to give it up. War is so obviously evil and wrong that the idea there could be anything good to it almost feels like a profanity. And yet throughout history, men like Mac and Rice and O'Byrne have come home to find themselves desperately missing what should have been the worst experience of their lives"
p. 234 - "War is a big and sprawling word that brings a lot of human suffering into the conversation, but combat is a different matter. Combat is the smaller game that young men fall in love with, and any solution to the human problem of war will have to take into account the psyches of these young men."
p. 120 - "The choreography always requires that each man make decisions based not on what's best for him, but on what's best for the group. If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat."
p. 214 - "It's a foolish and embarrassing thought but worth owning up to. 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."
p. 233 - "Civilians balk at recognizing that one of the most traumatic things about combat is having to give it up. War is so obviously evil and wrong that the idea there could be anything good to it almost feels like a profanity. And yet throughout history, men like Mac and Rice and O'Byrne have come home to find themselves desperately missing what should have been the worst experience of their lives"
p. 234 - "War is a big and sprawling word that brings a lot of human suffering into the conversation, but combat is a different matter. Combat is the smaller game that young men fall in love with, and any solution to the human problem of war will have to take into account the psyches of these young men."