No other book I've read but "War" by Sebastian Junger has captured the stark day-to-day lives of the American frontline soldiers in the War in Afghanistan with such high fidelity for me. It's an uncompromisingly intense look into these young men's lives. He puts your right there in the Korengal Valley with them. You live through their triumphs and tragedies vicariously through Junger himself, who was embedded right there in the front line with them.
This was a fascinating book for me because I find the psychology of warfare and of the people who wage it interesting. In "War," you get to know these front-line soldiers, before, during, and after their time in Afghanistan. Aspects of them, like personality traits, change over the narrative, but others don't change at all but just harden from combat experience.
There is always this mystique involving stories written about warfare that almost every soldier repeats. You can't really ever understand it entirely unless you were there. That's probably true of even this book, but I feel it does define the borders of that unknown country of understanding for us civilians. Knowing what you don't know isn't exactly knowledge, but it's better than ignorance.
If you'd like my full review you can read it here.
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Author's Website: http://www.sebastianjunger.com/
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