War

Written by embedded journalist Sebastian Junger, I have found this a profoundly interesting insight into the actions and more importantly in my opinion the reactions of men in second platoon of Battle Company while in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. Vaguely thematic through each of the books (chapters) I found myself absorbed in trying to understand how soldiers under the pressure of war in the most dangerous part of Afghanistan dealt with not only, as the book headings suggest, fear, killing and what Junger called love, the bonding they had with their fellow platoon members.

Highly recommended.

Book One. Fear.
New York City Six. Months later.
I came to think of O'Byrne as a stand-in for the entire platoon, a way to understand a group of men who I don't think entirely understood themselves.


Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, Spring 2007.
There was only one rock to hide behind, and Vendenberge was using it, so O'Byrne got behind him. ‘Fuck, I can't believe they just shot at me' he yelled. Vendenberge was a huge blond man who spoke slowly and was very, very smart. ‘Well' he said ‘I don't know if they were shooting at you......' ‘Okay' O'Byrne said ‘shooting at us.....'

I can see incoming rounds sparking off the top of the wall. I keep trying to stand up and shoot video, but psychologically it's almost impossible; my head feels vulnerable as an eggshell. All I want to do is protect it.

“I guarantee you, half of First Platoon is going to be divorced by the time this is over,” Kearney told me early on in the tour. The cook started talking to a finger puppet as a way of coping, but that unnerved the other men so much that one of them finally destroyed it.

One species of bird sounds exactly like incoming rocket propelled grenades; the men call them “RPG birds” and can't keep themselves from flinching whenever they hear them.

As a civilian among solders I was aware that a failure of nerve by me could put other men at risk, and that idea was almost as mortifying as the very real dangers up there. The problem with fear, though, is that it isn't any one thing. Fear has a whole taxonomy – anxiety, panic, foreboding - and you could be braced for one form and completely fall apart facing another.

The men sleep as much as they can, every chance they get, far beyond the needs of the human body. “If you sleep twelve hours a day it's only a seven month deployment” one soldier explained.

Book Two. Killing.

Five people are dead in Yaka Chine, along with ten wounded, and the elders declare jihad against every American in the valley.

“I worry about the rest of the guys” Raeon says. “Some of them are takin' it real bad, kind of blamin' themselves because we couldn't push over the top. But the thing they got to understand is that he was dead instantly – there's just nothin' we could do to get there”
Raeon lights his cigarette and exhales.
“I go on leave in two weeks” he says, “it's not how I wanted to go though”

Brennan doesn't survive surgery. Medoza is dead before he even leaves the ridge. Five more men are wounded. Then there's Rougle from the day before, as well as Rice and Vandenberge. It's been a costly week that makes the people back home think that maybe we're losing the war.

“And Mendoza's a fuckin hero, right?” he said. “He's an American Hero, right?” “Yeah, he's a hero” “And Brennan was dead. Right?” O'Byrne said. “I mean they weren't dragging him out alive, were they?” I wasn't sure what to say. Soldiers can seem pretty accepting of the idea that they might die in combat, but being taken alive is a different matter. “No, he didn't die until later,” I said. “He was alive at the time.”

I concentrate on running the camera. That is the easiest way to avoid thinking about the fact that what you're filming could kill you. “All right, you stay in there” Captain Thyng tells the gunner. “We're going to pull up around the corner —-“
And that as far as it gets.

They have a huge shoulder fired rocket called a Javelin, for example, that can be steered into the window of a speeding car half a mile away. Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.

“It's like crack” he yelled, “you can't get a better high.” I asked him how he was ever going to go back to civilian life. “He shook his head. “I have no idea”

A few minutes later it happens again. No one knows what it is but later I find out they were sniper rounds fired from way down-valley – off-target but still boring fiercely through the darkness bearing their tiny load of death.

Book Three. Love

A new private nicknamed Spanky overreached a bit and tattooed his left arm with a face that was half angel, half devil. When sergeant Mac saw it he demanded to know what the fuck in meant. “It represents the angels and the devils I have to wake up to every morning, sar'n.” Spanky said. After the laughter died down Mac told him he was better off saying he got really fucked up one night and doesn't remember getting it. “Now repeat that a few times so it sounds believable” he said.

It's a foolish and embarrassing thought but worth owning up to. Perfectly sane, good men have been drawn back to combat over and over again, and anyone interested in the idea of world peace would do well to know what they're looking for. Not killing, necessarily — that couldn't have been clearer in my mind — but the other side of the equation: protecting. The defence of the tribe is an insanely compelling idea, and once you've been exposed to it, there's almost nothing else you'd rather do.

He had thick limbs and crazy farmhand strength and when he teamed up with Jones — which was most of the time — you'd need half a squad to defend yourself. Ultimately, it made me think that if you deprive men of the company of women for too long, and then turn off the steady adrenaline drip of heavy combat, it may not turn sexual, but it's certainly going to turn weird.

I once asked Cortez whether he would risk his life for other men in the platoon. “I'd actually throw myself on the hand grenade for them,” he said. I asked him why. “Because I actually love my brothers,” he said. “I mean, it's a brotherhood. Being able to save their life so they can live, I think is rewarding. Any of them would do it for me.”

The men are looking down and avoiding each other's gazes. Many are smoking cigarettes and others look close to tears. Kearney repeats the information he has — nine dead, nine wounded — and then tells them that one of the dead is Abad. “I guarantee you that if he hadn't been doing his job when he died, there'd probably be more soldiers out there dead right now,” Kearney says. “So take honor in the fact that you guys trained up one hell of a fucking soldier.”
Battle will not go out of the valley with one last monster firefight. Most of the men seem relieved. A few are clearly disappointed. Someone who was probably going to get shot will now be going home alive and whole.

Vicenza, Italy. Three Months Later.
We get up to go and O'Byrne turns to me as we walk out the door. “See?” he says. “See why I hate the Army?” The Army that saved O'Byrne from himself is now destroying the very man it created — or at least that's how it seems to O'Byrne.