Book Review of “War” by Sebastian Junger.
Sebastian Junger, the author best known for “The Perfect Storm,” spent a total of five-months embedded with a platoon of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, one of the most violent fronts in the War on Terror, in order to write a book about combat from the point of view of the common soldier.
So during a 14-month period, Junger sporadically joined the platoon to experience first hand the laborious patrols, the fierce firefights and the long tedious periods between combat. Junger witnessed combat fatalities, ambushes, and even survived a roadside bombing of a military Humvee transporting him.
These action scenes – filled with real-life emotion and drama – are the most effective parts of “War.” There are sections of the book that are difficult to read, especially when soldiers are killed or injured. The book also contains some real insights into how combat effects soldiers. How they deal with killing. How they experience fear.
Yet, oddly, despite Junger’s goal of humanizing the experience of combat, he fails to humanize the very soldiers he’s chronicling. Even worse, the reader can sense Junger’s detachment from them. He keeps them at a distance and as a result they don’t feel fully realized. In fact, the platoon seems ready ordered from central casting: The Abused Kid Making Good, Minority with a Chip on His Shoulder, and the Crude, Misunderstood Redneck.
It’s a weird miss for Junger, who captured the life of Massachusetts fishermen so masterfully in “The Perfect Storm.” One wonders if Junger’s own coping mechanisms forced him to remain disconnected from his subjects because getting too close would be painful for him if they were shot or killed.
Or maybe the soldiers didn’t feel comfortable opening up to a journalist.
Junger was also shooting a documentary with the late photographer Tim Hetherington (killed in Libya last month) at the same time (released as “Restrepo” – which I have not seen). So perhaps double duty writing and filming hampered the writing part.
This flaw is then compounded by the lack of context and perspective about the United States’ war in Afghanistan. Junger seems to assume that most readers have more knowledge about the conflict than they actually do. As a result, the book provides names, dates and actions that don’t have a broader explanation.
I wanted to know more about the war. How many soldiers are there? How do the average Afghans react to the fighting? I also wanted more of a flavor of life over there – outside of the platoon. I never got a sense of Afghanistan – the nation or its culture.
As a result of these flaws, “War” feels too small, too detached to be the book it could have been. Which is a shame because I can’t remember wanting to like a book as much as I wanted to like “War.”
