War

War
Sebastian Junger

From the author of The Perfect Storm, a gripping book about Sebastian Junger's almost-fatal year with the 2nd battalion of the American Army.They were known as "The Rock." For one year, in 2007-2008, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the storied 2nd battalion of the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he can count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. His relationship with these soldiers grew so close that they considered him part of the platoon, and he enjoyed an access and a candidness that few, if any, journalists ever attain.War is a narrative about combat: the fear of dying, the trauma of killing and the love between platoon-mates who would rather die than let each other down.Gripping, honest, intense, War explores the neurological, psychological and social elements of combat, and the incredible bonds that form between these small groups of men. This is not a book about Afghanistan or the 'War on Terror'; it is a book about the universal truth of all men, in all wars. Junger set out to answer what he thought of as the 'hand grenade question': why would a man throw himself on a hand grenade to save other men he has probably known for only a few months? The answer elusive but profound, and goes to the heart of what it means not just to be a soldier, but to be human.

War

Sebastian Junger

To my wife, Daniela

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u408ce3a6-80a5-5e7e-ab4a-b2e781011043)

Title Page (#u39c76310-67f8-59c9-b2ca-f370a58e19a5)

Dedication (#uf749ac56-9cf4-56b0-802e-6028b80e0e82)

Map (#u07cfdc4b-3478-55a8-ac4b-32de0d414dc7)

AUTHOR’S NOTE (#u0d90f59e-f62e-535e-bdc2-ebee825424db)

BOOK ONE FEAR (#u8aa59405-9593-5f43-b164-33add8c867c0)

1 KORENGAL VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN Spring 2007 (#ud6050e9a-bf05-5f78-b3e0-096d61b380fd)

2 (#u1b63b623-5a2e-544c-aa5f-eb1883f1bc89)

3 (#uff3d6352-0923-5af9-9a1d-faad28781a1f)

4 (#ub029343e-be21-5de3-bab2-ba922f1e254b)

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BOOK TWO KILLING (#litres_trial_promo)

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BOOK THREE LOVE (#litres_trial_promo)

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VICENZA, ITALY Three Months Later (#litres_trial_promo)

SELECTED SOURCES AND REFERENCES (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Other Books By (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Map (#ulink_f5cb1f23-b646-58b6-a571-1b799d462f16)

AUTHOR’S NOTE (#ulink_963cbc84-511d-5f3a-97c1-14905c683251)

THIS BOOK WAS THE RESULT OF FIVE TRIPS TO THE Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan that I took between June 2007 and June 2008 for Vanity Fair magazine. I was an “embedded” reporter and entirely dependent on the U.S. military for food, shelter, security, and transportation. That said, I was never asked—directly or indirectly—to alter my reporting in any way or to show the contents of my notebooks or my cameras. I worked with a photojournalist named Tim Hetherington, who also made five trips to the Korengal, sometimes with me and sometimes on his own. Our longest trips lasted a month. Tim and I shot roughly 150 hours of videotape, and that material was aired in brief form on ABC News and then became the basis of a featurelength documentary, produced and directed by Tim and me, called Restrepo.

Many scenes in this book were captured on videotape, and wherever possible I have used that tape to check the accuracy of my reporting. Dialogue or statements that appear in double quotations marks (“…”) were recorded directly on camera or in my notebook while the person was speaking, or soon thereafter. Dialogue recalled by someone later is indicated by single quotation marks (‘…’). Some scenes that I was not present for were entirely reconstructed from interviews and videotape. Many scenes in this book are personal in nature, and I have shared those sections with the men involved to make sure they are comfortable with what I wrote. I hired an independent fact-checker to help me combat the inevitable errors of journalism, and a bibliography of sources that were consulted appears at the back of the book. In many cases I have shortened quotes from interviews and texts in order to ease the burden on the reader.

BOOK ONE FEAR (#ulink_1723d30e-8a1c-5a53-befa-fd53e2075b60)

By cowardice I do not mean fear. Cowardice…is a label we reserve for something a man does. What passes through his mind is his own affair.

—Lord Moran, The Anatomy of Courage

NEW YORK CITY

Six Months Later

O’Byrne is standing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and 36th Street with a to-go cup in each hand and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. It’s six in the morning and very cold. He’s put on twenty pounds since I last saw him and could be a laborer waiting for the gate to open at the construction site across the street. Now that he’s out of the Army I’m supposed to call him Brendan, but I’m finding that almost impossible to do. We shake hands and he gives me one of the coffees and we go to get my car. The gash across his forehead is mostly healed, though I can still see where the stitches were. One of his front teeth is chipped and looks like a fang. He had a rough time when he got back to Italy; in some ways he was in more danger there than in combat.