
So, here you are. You’re Sebastian Junger and you want to write a book about war. You’re a reporter who’s long since proven he has the guts and the physical stamina to outlast most people, and now you’ve decided to tell the story of the war in Afghanistan — the story of all wars, really — through the eyes of soldiers on the front line. So, you pick the fightingest company in the most actively engaged battalion in the whole goddam U.S. Army. In fact:
“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,” where the company is stationed, close to the Pakistan border. And, as if that isn’t enough, you decide to embed yourself with Second Platoon, Battle Company’s toughest and most combat-hardened unit. And you spend 15 months with these guys, on and off, until their deployment is up and the survivors depart the country.
War by Sebastian Junger ★★★★☆
War is much more than the honest, unvarnished account of men in battle that I was expecting. From time to time, Junger turns from straight reporting to analysis, relating the findings of his research into the psychology of combat, the psyche of the ideal soldier, and the psychic consequences of experiencing combat. It turns out, Junger reports, that some of the “behavioral determinants” that are typical of an effective soldier “– like a willingness to take risks — seem to figure disproportionately in the characters of young men. They are killed in accidents and homicides at a rate of 106 per 100,000 per year, roughly five times the rate of young women.
Statistically, it’s six times as dangerous to spend a year as a young man in America than as a cop or fireman, and vastly more dangerous than a one-year deployment at a big military base in Afghanistan. You’d have to go to a remote firebase . . . to find a level of risk that surpasses that of simply being an adolescent male back home.”
Previously, Sebastian Junger was best known as the author of The Perfect Storm. During the writing of War, he also shot footage that became the documentary Restrepo, a film that won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
For related reading
I’ve also reviewed The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock (The lies they told us about the Afghanistan War).
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Hi Mal – another Mal here.
I enjoyed your review of WAR. I like that you have focused more on the larger issues at play regarding combat than most of the reviews of the book. Much of the interviews and reviews have covered the hardships and danger of the platoon, but not much on the forces at play that enable such environments to develop. To me, Junger spends a great deal of time describing the men as people that can only find completion in a combat role; that they are wired for combat and cannot function fully as members of society outside of that environment. It makes you wonder if war is a constant and inevitable function of our kind. I have tried to interview Sebastian Junger to accompany my review on my site, The Current Reader, but he has been quite busy promoting the book and now the documentary, plus, I hear he is a rather private person. If you like WAR, his book, Fire is another great example of meta-journalism. I can’t wait to see RESTREPO. It opens July 2 in Boston.
Great subject, Mal! Keep posting!
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Mal. I had some of the same thoughts about the inevitability of war as I read Junger’s book. I’m waiting for Restrepo, too.
Hi Mal — I finally got a Q&A with Sebastian Junger on The Current Reader! It is short, but I did get some of the questions that I wanted to ask him included. Now that I have had time to think, there are so many other, better questions I would have loved to ask him, but hind sight…
Here is the link, if you want to check it out: http://thecurrentreader.com/?p=269
Keep posting!
-the other Mal
Well done, namesake! Thanks for staying in touch.