WAR by Sebastian Junger.
Kindle Edition, 297 pages Published May 11th 2010 by Twelve (first published 2010) ASIN B0035II95C
Sebastian Junger’s WAR is the best encapsulation of America’s wars at the dawn of the 21st century from the soldier’s point of view. Period. I never experienced the sort of intense, sustained, infantry combat that Battle Company fought in the Korengal, but I saw enough to hear the ring of truth. Junger did what so few are willing to do–he patrolled, ate, slept, crapped, and smoked with infantry privates and sergeants, on the ground, in the worst place on earth for a year. Long enough that they trusted him. Long enough that he learned their language. Long enough that he began to understand their stir craziness, fear, love, anger, and apparent derangement that was really sanity.
Junger’s prose is perfect for the story he’s telling–simple and unadorned. Sentences like these boil the infantry war down to its essence: “Wars are fought with very heavy machinery that works best on top of the biggest hill in the area and used against men who are lower down. That, in a nutshell, is military tactics, and it means that an enormous amount of war-fighting simply consists of carrying heavy loads uphill.”
In portraying the attitudes of Battle Company’s soldiers, Junger captures the combined political ambivalence and personal camaraderie that so confuses and angers observers back home. War supporters want veterans committed to the abstract goals of war and willing to sing the neoconservative siren song. War opponents want victims, duped into a stupid war and used up as cannon fodder. Neither is satisfied. Junger captures the reflexive support for fighting common among frontline soldiers. How can you continue to fight for a lie when you’ve seen your brother ripped to pieces by an RPG? At the same time, soldiers on the ground have little patience for the political posturing of the world’s Dick Cheneys. They know exactly how badly things are going on the ground. They know that “turning the corner” generally means walking into a well-laid ambush. They know that support for the government is not rising among remote villagers who may not even know there IS a government. Junger refers to Vietnam moments: “A Vietnam moment was one in which you weren’t so much getting misled as getting asked to participate in a kind of collective wishful thinking.” Explaining why men continue to fight when they have no deep commitment to the cause, Junger writes, “collective defense can be so compelling — so addictive, in fact — that eventually it becomes the rationale for why the group exists in the first place.”
That, in the end, is the horror of war. It takes people from a wealthy, comfortable, civilized country and debases them to tribal warriors living in squalor so they can dominate and control tribal warriors who were born into squalor. Just as the Afghan mujahideen have adapted ancient methods of warfare to incorporate RPGs and rockets and cell phones, American soldiers with all their technological marvels still become primitive beings, driven by deeply rooted instincts that evolved to protect itinerant hunter gatherers. Technology does not civilize war–if the fight is serious enough, even enough to threaten both sides, then it will inevitably devolve into a kicking, biting, scratching melee in which no one is any more civilized or merciful than any other.
Junger does not so much capture new insights about war as brilliantly tell them in the context of the Afghan war. We have known throughout history that soldiers fought for their brothers beside them, that fear of showing weakness or letting down the tribe drives courage more than ideological commitment. We have known for millennia that small bands of determined guerillas can stop an army in its tracks. Junger captures the most recent version of these eternal truths in a tightly packed love letter that should be consumed by every aspiring second lieutenant and every gung-ho politician itching to send someone else’s sons and daughters to a fight. This is what you’re signing up for. There is nobility in the fighting, and sometimes it has to be done, but do not embark on it with a light heart. Do not believe that the men and women who do the hard, dirty work in distant valleys will come home unscathed. Do not convince yourself that every death will be noble and every sacrifice justified by the outcome. Junger does as good a job of telling the soldier’s story as any other author.
Read this book.
James W. Vizzard 