Synopsis
In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created "a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat--the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.
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About the Author
Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism. He lives in New York City.
Reviews
In his harrowing portrait of U.S. soldiers abroad, Junger doesn't discuss the theoretical nature of war or analyze current congressional policies. Instead, Junger's goal is to get at war's gory, brutal essence as experienced by "grunts" and to examine the nature of courage. He describes the grunts' diversions and deprivations so convincingly that readers become immersed in their world, and his searing exploration of the soldiers' thoughts and emotions elevates War above the genre. Critics praised Junger's remarkable reporting and vivid prose, though the New York Times Book Review expressed frustration that there was "too much telling, not enough showing," and the Minneapolis Star Tribune agreed that the author should have used more ink on the men of Battle Company and less on himself. However, most reviewers agreed that War makes for fascinating reading.
Starred Review. War is insanely exciting.... Don't underestimate the power of that revelation, warns bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributing editor Junger (The Perfect Storm). The war in Afghanistan contains brutal trauma but also transcendent purpose in this riveting combat narrative. Junger spent 14 months in 2007–2008 intermittently embedded with a platoon of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, one of the bloodiest corners of the conflict. The soldiers are a scruffy, warped lot, with unkempt uniforms—they sometimes do battle in shorts and flip-flops—and a ritual of administering friendly beatings to new arrivals, but Junger finds them to be superlative soldiers. Junger experiences everything they do—nerve-racking patrols, terrifying roadside bombings and ambushes, stultifying weeks in camp when they long for a firefight to relieve the tedium. Despite the stress and the grief when buddies die, the author finds war to be something of an exalted state: soldiers experience an almost sexual thrill in the excitement of a firefight—a response Junger struggles to understand—and a profound sense of commitment to subordinating their self-interests to the good of the unit. Junger mixes visceral combat scenes—raptly aware of his own fear and exhaustion—with quieter reportage and insightful discussions of the physiology, social psychology, and even genetics of soldiering. The result is an unforgettable portrait of men under fire. (May 11)
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Over the course of a year, Junger (The Perfect Storm, 1997) embedded himself with Second Platoon, Battle Company, operating out of the Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan, an inhospitable terrain inhabited by people inhospitable to American forces, where some of the heaviest combat has been fought. Junger took five trips to the valley in 2007 and 2008 to follow Second Platoon through much of their 15-month deployment. He experiences combat firsthand; witnesses firefights, ambushes, and casualties; and survives an IED that blew up the Humvee he was riding in. Second Platoon, considered “the best-trained and . . . worst-disciplined,” is known for their brawling as much as for their bravery. Junger examines the mind-set of the soldiers who exist on “the tip of the spear,” the nearly superhuman traits they embody, the challenges they face when they engage with the enemy and interact with locals, the boredom between battles, and the difficulties they have when they return to civilian life. For these young men, war, although costly, is an opportunity to truly live life to its fullest (and carry and fire weapons); the thrill of war by far trumps fear and sorrow and the drudgeries of civilian life. “As a soldier, the thing you were most scared of was failing your brothers”; in combat, “everything is important and nothing is taken for granted,” where “men don’t feel the most alive . . . but the most utilized.” While with Second Platoon, Junger, along with photojournalist Tim Hetherington, took hours of videotape, some of which became part of a feature-length documentary called Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize this year at Sundance. --Ben Segedin
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