The Good Soldiers (2009)

I want the President and every elected federal official, as well as the Secretaries of State and Defense to read this book. Finkel simply portrays the reality of war from the place of the soldiers who fight it and their families. Devastating, and the best argument against war I have read in a long time. ( )

Journalist David Finkel spent eight of the fifteen months during which the 2-16 Infantry Batallion were deployed in Baghdad. This was January 2007 through April 2008, the Surge. The writing reminds me a lot of Tom Wolfe's nonfiction, particularly in "The Right Stuff". Looking at the events chronicled here, it's hard to see this as a "war" in the way most of us understand the concept. The assignment is basically to tame and reclaim a rundown neighborhood on the eastern wing of the city. On the sides of the roads are sewage trenches wide and deep enough to swallow a humvee. (And they do). The soldiers are set to restore order and morale to a place that has become lawless. Fourteen American deaths occur during the deployment, and numerous grisly injuries that would leave a lot of folks wishing for death. The soldiers are decent Americans who have a hard time understanding why the improvements they try to build (schools, sewage systems, swimming pools) keep getting sabotaged by the insurgent element. You can almost hear the voice of a parent saying, "This is why we can't have nice things". If this book makes one point, it is that, whether or not you agree with the United States being in Iraq at all, our troops are representing us humanely and well. ( )

Again, another war story that had me smiling and tearing up the whole way through. This book brings home the reality of what our soldiers are putting on the line everyday for us, and the reality of what they have to live with when they come home. It makes me want to thank every soldier every time I see one! ( )

Brutal. Stunning. I can't rave about it enough. ( )

An extraordinary view of the American soldier in Iraq during the surge. Finkel captures the war in vivid colors--its strains, pressures and depressions. The young turn old; the strong, painfully resigned to inevitable defeat. His is the single best book that has come out of the war to date. Required reading if we hope to begin to understand the consequences of our middle eastern strategy. ( )