Author of the immensely successful A Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger’s War narrates the experiences of the journalist cum writer’s on-again off-again year long sojourn with US soldiers in the height of the Afghan conflict in what many analysts said was the remotest and most dangerous part of the Afghan war; the Korengal Valley.Here soldiers are on alert on a daily basis for enemy sniper fire and every patrol into the dust ridden mountain could mean instant death. Junger attempts to give a holistic idea of what it means to be at war but his ‘war’ is more ‘battle’ than war. He only talks about the situation of a platoon of soldiers who are apparently unaware of the sweeping developments in the bigger picture. They are fighting machines, equipped with the brawn and the intelligence necessary to cope with an environment of severe and unpredictable gunfights interspersed with long periods of boredom. Ultimately, the ones with the most blood lust survive.
His soldier is a person unaware of the reasons why the conflict is taking place, and fights the war for a cause completely different to those of his government. The soldier is a being who has ended up in the army for various reasons, and only few of them are there because of a deep sense of patriotism. The word patriot, in fact, is barely mentioned in the whole book. They fight for their ‘brothers’ or ‘platoon-mates’ and sacrifice their lives not for the American cause but to save the lives of their fellow soldiers.
Read moreWar gives them the exhilaration and ‘high’ they know they will never get from anywhere else whilst also slowly tearing them apart psychologically. It appears that the lack of a non superficial overriding cause to fight, slowly tears them up on the inside. They question God, and everything else and ask ‘why?’ But can’t answer the question when one of their ‘brothers’ die. It is kill or be killed in the Korengal valley, nothing else matters.
This is, needless to say, a disturbing state for a soldier. Junger spent 15 months among them and his love and compassion for the soldiers is apparent.
This love also tears away the veneer of ‘objectivism’ that you may think such a ‘journalistic’ attempt should maintain, he gets up close and personal with the whole experience.
But objective and journalistic is what this book is mostly not, but that doesn’t mean to say it completely isn’t these things either.
The book is just objective enough to present everything in a way that you can draw your own conclusions, and just about journalistic enough to be a calm narrative with a sufficiently high intellectual hand to give you enough material for analysis. Overall well written (I especially like how Junger has adopted the jargon ridden military to his language), it may not be a book you will like for the reasons you think you are supposed to like it for. But its humaneness is sure to shed on you some plane of understanding.
Overall a great read, as a point of view of the Afghan conflict itself, it is somewhat claustrophobic and restricted.
To be fair to the author he has not taken an overall bias to the US’ cause in the book so readers looking for a balanced perspective will not be disappointed. It seems that the intention of the book is not to give you an overall perspective of the conflict, it is to dissect and analyse the relationship between man and war itself and in this, Junger is remarkably successful.
The Sunday Leader - By Abdul H. Azeez
