I Dislike Reading, I Liked This Book (But I Didn't Write a Critical Essay)

By Zack T.

Sebastian Junger put himself in the shoes of your average American Marine serving in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan in WAR. He followed these soldiers' footprints for 15 months while they were deployed. The idea of the book, which he mentions early on, was to give average Joe's like you and I some insight on what it means to serve your country. There were times throughout the book where he made friends only to watch them die later that day in an ambush.

I personally loved the idea of this book. The title WAR sounds interesting enough at first glimpse, but the idea of gathering insight from real soldiers while they're actually deployed versus 50 years later is brilliant. Obviously the author of this book took an incredible risk going out with these guys but it proved to be worth it. There is a lot of dialogue throughout the book which I enjoyed because it gives the public a glimpse at life as a soldier (something we don't see every day).

                There were complaints about how detailed Junger got about some of the brutal combat scenes but I'm all for it. In the first 10 years of the 2000's, Afghanistan hosted some of the most explicit gun fighting ever seen. With that being said, I can't imagine how Junger could've written the book any differently without blatantly lying. Overall, the book was very genuine and raw, not to mention original. I would absolutely recommend the book to anybody who supports our military. And those who don't. Because they suck.