Generation Kill | Evan Wright

Generation Kill | Evan Wright | Great look into the Clusterf%$k the Iraq war is.

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Generation Kill

	Generation Kill Evan Wright Berkley Trade, 2008 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 175 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In the tradition of Black Hawk Down and Jarhead comes a searing portrait of young men fighting a modern-day war.

A powerhouse work of nonfiction, Generation Kill expands on Evan Wright's acclaimed three-part series that appeared in Rolling Stone during the summer of 2003. His narrative follows the twenty-three marines of First Recon who spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed "First Suicide Battalion," searched out enemy fighters by racing ahead of American battle forces and literally driving into suspected ambush points.

Evan Wright lived on the front lines with this platoon from the opening hours of combat, to the fall of Baghdad, through the start of the guerrilla war. He was welcomed into their ranks, and from this bird's-eye perspective he tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to be ruthless killers. He chronicles the triumphs and horrors-physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual-that these marines endured while achieving victory in a war many questioned before it began. Wright's book is a timely account of war; even more important, it is a timeless description of the human drama taking place on today's battlefields. Written with brutal honesty, raw intensity, and startling intimacy, Generation Kill is destined to become a classic and take its place in the canon of the most captivating and authentic works of war literature.

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Required reading

This book provided wonderful insight into what our troops were and are thinking. Everyone should read this to truly understand the quagmire that is Iraq and the boondoggle created by this administration. Thank you Evan Wright for being there and capturing so eloquently what needed to be brought to light.

Great look into the Clusterf%$k the Iraq war is.

That author did a fantastic job of interviewing the soldiers and getting the truth behind the mistakes and horrible leadership.
It was a great series on HBO and a must read book.

War Reportage

While not as deep and emotional as Micheal Herr's Dispatches, Generation Kill still provides a great look into one facet of America's war in Iraq, the tip of the spear the 1St Marine Recon following the doctrine of maneuver warfare.

However it is one facet and one reporters viewpoint on a highly complicated war, deeper understanding would be found in Fear Up Harsh (intelligence and interrogation) and House to House (Battle of Fallujah) as well as Fiasco: War in Iraq.

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A great few from the frontlines.

This is a must read. I couldn't put it down. It finished it in two days and I've gone back and read it again to make sure I didn't miss out on it since I went through it so quickly. It was great to see the soldier's experience and not the politicians view point. I'm sure there were still a lot of things that were left out due to censorship, but it was still a great read.

A masterful telling of how the U.S. does it today.

***** Combat troops of all branches have, with few exceptions, e.g. Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin, little trust or regard for journalists. Having spent time in both camps, I side with my brothers and sisters at arms and understand why they are leery of these foreign beings spying on them. Therefore, I picked up "Generation Kill" with much skepticism. To my surprise, it wasn't what I had expected.

Evan Wright, a contributor to "Rolling Stone" and other journals, joins a United States Marine Corps Recon (Reconnaissance) Battalion and is attached at the platoon level or lower for their blitzkrieg drive through northern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He endures what they endure and faces what they face with little, if any, more knowledge than they have of their situations. Wright captures the terror, the confusion, the fatigue, the stress, the bonding, the ennui, the bravery, the incompetence, and the soul-searching that are part of combat.

As a read, I found old comrades living on in this younger generation, but the conversations were similar to my generation's and to my father's with only some idiomatic changes. There were the same SNAFUs, FUBARs, REMFs, RAMFs, POGs, and other things that make up the grunt-speak of the various generations. And true today as it has always been, the more specialized and proficient the warrior, and Recon Marines are among the top 1% in the Corps, which puts them among the elite warriors of the world, there is more thoughtfulness about their job and about each mission--mindless drones they are not. A character in a novel once commented, not so tongue-in-cheek, that they should hand out mortarboards instead of berets upon completion of the Army's Special Forces training, except the mortarboards are a pain in a firefight. The ironies of war are not lost on these intelligent young Marines nor are their coping mechanisms ignored or considered particularly unusual...highly paid professional athletes often have quirks, too.

Wright grasps the current socio-political climate quite well, as we see when he recommends "Groundhog Day" as the best film to describe a grunt's view of war. I will wholeheartedly agree with his assessment that, unlike Vietnam, when it comes time to look for those to be held in shame, the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan shall not and must not be among that group. "The Marine Corps is at war. America is at the mall." Or as Wright puts it, "It's the American public for whom the Iraqi war is no more real than a video game" (a reference to a quote in the the book about Grand Theft Auto). In short, war is still war and it is a horrible undertaking...but we still wage it upon each other with all the skill and lethality we can muster. Evan Wright's book is masterful telling of how the U.S. does it today; complete with the warts and flaws for all to see. *****

Reviewed by Dr. Phil Rhyne for Huntress Reviews.

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