War, by Sebastian Junger
Generation after generation, our society is willing, albeit with great reluctance, to send forth our young men to fight, die, or return physically or emotionally traumatized by war in other countries. No one else is able to perform the physical tasks that war requires. What do we really know about the experience of war, the actual reality of war? Sebastian Junger embedded as a journalist with Second Platoon of Battle Company, of 173rd Airborne Brigade, Army soldiers in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008. Korengal was the route taken by Taliban fighters coming from Pakistan into Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous areas of the war. Junger witnessed daily firefights, survived an IED attack, and lived the day to day life of the infantry soldier in an area where attack and death were all too familiar.
Junger does an excellent job of reporting on the details of daily life for the soldiers, eating, killing time, joking around, absolutely bored waiting for something to happen. He also faithfully records the experience of a firefight, how men react and engage, perceptions and responses, and most importantly, the way a platoon functions, which is the core of combat:
““Stripped to its essence, combat is a series of quick decisions and rather precise actions carried out in concert with ten or twelve other men. In that sense it’s much more like football than, say, like a gang fight. The unit that choreographs their actions best usually wins. They might take casualties, but they win. That choreography—you lay down fire while I run forward, then I cover you while you move your team up—is so powerful that it can overcome enormous tactical deficits. There is choreography for storming Omaha Beach, for taking out a pillbox bunker, and for surviving an L-shaped ambush at night on the Gatigal. 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.””
Junger makes the men of this platoon very real for us, guys any of us know. There is nothing specifically extraordinary about them, although their circumstances are certainly extraordinary, and life altering. What makes war possible is that each individual of a platoon bonds to the extent that they lay their lives down for each other everyday. As Junger writes, courage is in essence love— you may not like a guy, but you will die for that guy.
““The Army might screw you and your girlfriend might dump you and the enemy might kill you, but the shared commitment to safeguard one another’s lives is unnegotiable and only deepens with time. The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire, and the experience of it changes a person profoundly.””
Readers of this blog know that I do not quote from the books I review very often. Junger’s writing is so clear, concise, and elegant, that I cannot attempt to describe it, I must simply give you a taste of his precise observations. The importance of this book is best described here:
““Society can give its young men almost any job and they’ll figure how to do it. They’ll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders.””
Now that the last act of the Afghanistan War is completed, this book is an important one for understanding what human price we paid, to achieve what end. This book stands as part of the history of that war, and important to read before we choose to embark on sending our precious, irreplaceable young men into such life-altering circumstances that they often will not survive. Important reading for all.