War
Twelve, May 2010
For fifteen months, Sebastian Junger followed a single platoon of American soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. His objective was both simple and ambitious: to convey what soldiers experience – what war actually feels like.
WAR is also the basis for the Academy Award nominated documentary film, Restrepo, which was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Festival. You can learn more about Restrepo at http://www.restrepothemovie.com
Junger’s book offers no grandiose theory of how to combat terrorism. It is a gripping account of how modern warfare is experienced by those who do the fighting, and its focus is that of a laser, not a floodlight. He reaches just one grand conclusion about the nature of war: that in the final analysis, you kill the enemy not because of nationality or ideology, but because if you don’t, the enemy might kill you.
—Eugene Robinson, Op-Ed Columnist, Washington Post
With his narrative gifts and vivid prose — as free, thank God, of literary posturing as it is of war-correspondent chest-thumping — Junger masterfully chronicles the platoon’s 15-month tour of duty….It’s the best writing I’ve seen on the subject since J. Glenn Gray’s 1959 classic, THE WARRIORS: Reflections on Men in Battle….Junger’s sketches of the men are deft, his ear for their quirky speech (aided by video recordings) spot on….This splendid book should help the rest of us understand them — and war itself — a little better.
—Philip Caputo, Washington Post