WAR
By Sebastian Junger
Hachette Book Group
$26.99, hard cover, 287 pages, 978-0-446-55624-8 (2010)
Most folks in
For this book, Junger spent fifteen months in a single platoon based in the
Junger describes where he was embedded this way:
The
Junger’s outpost provided minimal comforts.
The base was called the Korengal Outpost – the KOP – and was considered one of the most dangerous postings in
Because of the large amount of time he spent in
The enemy was waiting for them. They opened fire from 300 yards away with machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. A private named Ted Donoho dropped prone and was low crawling to cover when he saw a line of bullets stitching toward him in the dirt. He rolled to one side and wound up near PFC Vimoto. Both men began returning fire, bullets kicking up dirt all around them, and at one point Donoho saw Vimoto open his mouth as if he were about to yell something. No sound came out, though; instead, his head jerked back and then tipped forward. He didn’t move again.
Donoho started shouting for the platoon medic, but there was so much gunfire that no one could hear him. It didn’t matter anyway; the bullet had gone through Vimoto’s head and killed him instantly. One moment he was in the first firefight of his life, the next moment he was dead. Donoho shot through all twelve magazines he carried and then pulled more out of his dead friends ammo rack. There was so much gunfire that the only way the men could move without getting hit was to low-crawl. They were on a steep ridge at night getting raked by machine-gun fire, and everyone knew the MEDEVAC helicopters would never dare attempt a landing in those conditions; they were going to have to get Vimoto and another man named Pecsek down to the road to get picked up. Pecsek had been shot through the shoulder but seemed able to walk. A staff sergeant named Kevin Rice hoisted Vimoto onto his back, and the men started down the steep, rocky slopes of 1705 in the darkness and the rain.
Junger’s talent is allowing the reader to feel what the soldiers are experiencing.
Summer grinds on: a hundred degrees every day and tarantulas invading the living quarters to get out of the heat. Some of the men are terrified of them and can only sleep in mesh pup tents, and others pick them up with pliers and light them on fire. The timber bunkers at
bird sounds exactly like incoming rocket-propelled grenades; the men called them “RPG birds” and can’t keep themselves from flinching whenever they hear them.
This is a look at war up-close and personal. Junger pulls no punches and the reader feels an intimacy with soldiers who face mortal danger on a daily basis as they defend themselves and protect their brothers.
Buy it on Amazon here.
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