Brian Castner

“Don't be scared of the soft sand."

A soldier, decked out in full bomb gear, an 80 pound Kevlar suit, making the “long walk” toward an armed bomb. Is there anything more desolate or terrifying? Brian Castner served three tours in Iraq, as part of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit.
This is the story of two journeys: the adrenaline-fueled, blood-soaked world of the combat soldier and the equally difficult return to a “normal” life.
This is a raw, emotional memoir, filled with show more riveting prose. Castner describes the everyday intensity and horror of a EOD soldier, disarming bombs and cleaning up the aftermath. Collecting “right hands” to count the casualties. Placing a soldier’s personal info in their boots, because feet “pop” off in an explosion.
And then Castner’s long painful recovery back home. The fear, the paranoia. While grocery shopping, he scans the crowd for potential insurgents and targets, clutching a non-existent weapon. Crying, while putting his son’s hockey gear on, which reminds him of donning his bomb suit.
Castner vividly places the reader in each of these situations and has created one of the best books on war, that I have ever read. I cannot recommend it higher. show less

The word that keeps rising to the top when I try to describe Brian Castner's THE LONG WALK: A STORY OF WAR AND THE LIFE THAT FOLLOWS is "frightening." It's not an adequate word, and it could be misleading, because I'm not frightened for me, but for him. I worry about the long-term after-effects of what the Iraq war did to this young man, and, consequently, to his family. Because both parts of that subtitle - "the war", and "life that follows" - are given equal time at center stage in this show more scarifying and often morbidly moving memoir. Castner's damaged mind moves freely between those times - the war and his life after - and often seems to have trouble differentiating between the two. He runs daily up and down the streets near his home in upstate New York, trying to tamp down "the Crazy," often "accompanied" by a former comrade who is dead.

This feeling, this terror, he calls "the Crazy" is manifested by erratic heartbeat, a swelling feeling in his chest, paranoid and uncontrollable strategies and plans to kill people he feels are hemming in him in public places, a constant reaching for his rifle which is no longer there - and more. It is an all-consuming paranoia and crippling fear of dying. It sends him repeatedly to VA hospital emergency rooms and, finally, to the shrinks and PTSD counselors.

Two tours in Iraq with an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) unit exposed Brian Castner and others like him to uncountable blasts and explosions which have left their marks, on his brain and on his psyche. He is not the same young man, the former good Catholic schoolboy, who went off to war, eager to prove himself. Here is how he puts it -

"I died in Iraq. The old me left for Iraq and never came home. The man my wife married never came home. The father of my oldest children never came home. If I didn't die, I don't know what else to call it."

He tells of how "the new me" cries while reading stories to his children or while helping his son into his hockey gear, remembering the blast suit he helped his team members don just before that "Long Walk" down to manually dismantle a particularly troublesome IED that the robots couldn't handle. The old and new "me" of Castner are hopelessly entangled throughout this heartbreaking narrative of war and its aftermath. THE LONG WALK joins what is fast becoming a flood of eloquent and moving memoirs from Iraq and Afghanistan, books like Ben Busch's DUST TO DUST, or Kayla Williams's LOVE MY RIFLE MORE THAN YOU, and others by Chris Coppola, Michael Anthony, Nathaniel Fick, Johnny Rico and Anthony Swofford and Joel Turnipseed. The list continues to grow. Brian Castner is young enough to be my son, could easily be my son. So yes, I was afraid for him, reading his story. Am still afraid for him, having finished reading it. Because the story hasn't ended for him or for his young family. "The Crazy" continues, tamped down by running and by Yoga.

This is a beautiful book, stark, eqolquent and ... Frightening. Yes, that's still the best word I can manage. I can only pray that the telling of his story - writing it all down and putting it into a somewhat structured perspective - has helped; has proved therapeutic. But perhaps the most frightening thing about Castner's book is that his story is only the tip of the iceberg; that he speaks for thousands of others who are unable to articulate what happened to them in Iraq or Afghanistan, young men and women who continue their daily struggle to cope with their own "Crazy." On their behalf, thank you for sharing your story, Brian. Be well. Please. show less

Brian Castner's new book, ALL THE WAYS WE KILL AND DIE, is decidedly different from his first book, THE LONG WALK, the highly successful memoir of his military service in Iraq, and the myriad difficulties of reentry into civilian life. KILL AND DIE is instead a triumph in investigative reporting, as Castner methodically attempted to find the man responsible for the death of his close friend, Matthew Schwartz, who was, like Castner, an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) technician. Schwartz show more was killed in Afghanistan in 2012 when his massive armored vehicle triggered an IED.

Castner's years-long hunt for "the Engineer" who makes those IEDs reads like a murder mystery rolled into a war story, and calls to account the many atrocities and killings committed in the course of these seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other parts of the Mideast. Castner delves into the fields of explosives and bomb-making, drone warfare and its pilots, biometrics, medicine, amputees and prosthetics, and military contractors (including contract killers). He takes you inside the small 'family' of EOD bomb techs, and Special Forces troops, exploring where some of these young men were at the time of 9/11, giving credence to the fact that this global war on terror is indeed being fought, these many years later, by "babies."

Judging from the extensive chapter notes, glossary and bibliography, it is obvious that Castner has done his homework. I have been trying valiantly to keep up with the flood of writing coming out of the current wars, and it was gratifying to find we'd read some of the same books - Doug Stanton's HORSE SOLDIERS; Anand Gopal's NO GOOD MEN AMONG THE LIVING; Elliot Ackerman's GREEN ON BLUE; Adrian Bonenberger's AFGHAN POST and others. But there are some other very intriguing titles in the bib which I have not read. I made a list.

Normally I dog-ear pages, underline key passages, and make note while reading books like this. But the truth is, I found KILL AND DIE such compelling, page-turning stuff, that I forgot to do any of that, so my copy remains pretty pristine. And it's a signed copy, so I'm kind of glad I didn't mark it up. It's a keeper - moving, crystalline prose of the highest order, and well worth revisiting. Very highly recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA show less

A riveting tale of an explosive ordinance disposal officer that is more like two memoirs blended into one harrowing narrative. Castner skillfully recounts the horrors of war during his mission in Iraq. Woven into this tale is his excruciating transition back to civilian life -- and his struggles with crippling psychological hurdles. Folks who enjoy a neat-and-tidy story line might be rattled a bit by the back-and-forth structure. But it works. An added benefit of listening to the audiobook show more is hearing Castner narrate his powerful saga. show less