I'll apologize right off for the rambling/incoherent nature of this post. It's going to serve double-duty. Because in the span of a week I got to educate myself on the war in Afghanistan in two ways, both profound in their own right.It started with reading Sebastian Junger's new book, War. Those who know my reading tastes know I have an affinity for his work. Beyond his fantastic writing for Vanity Fair and other magazines, I've thoroughly enjoyed his books The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. He creates a narrative and storyline that make it impossible to put the book down, and gives such vivid descriptions of scenes and people its as if you know them personally by the time you are done.
It's this excellence that makes War such a unique book. For one year he embedded with one platoon in the Korengal Valley, by all measures the most dangerous fighting location on the planet. He hangs in there as the soldiers are getting shot at, no kidding, every single day. Now, over time things improve and the platoon goes maybe a week or two without contact, but when things hit its intense and crazy. Let's just say the way he tries to cover all the angles of a firefight quickly resemble the firefight itself: information from all directions, confusion, misdirection, massive amounts of ammunition laid down, and then the amazing quiet and shock of quiet when it's all over.
The book stands as an efficient exploration into the modern soldier; what they go through mentally, physically and whatever other descriptor you case to use. It blows my mind reading the sequences when the commanders try to relate to the local elders in the Valley. The scenes go beyond the Beltway bullshit we hear about on cable TV or radio or newspapers. Here, you read how something as simple as a cow can destroy months of "boots on the ground" work. Chapters after reading about how superhuman these platoon members are thought of as being, you turn the page and remember the reality of what a bullet can do. It's heartbreaking and emotional and real in a way that takes that bullshit TV you watch on Bravo or MTV and shames you. Or, at the very least, it should shame you. Because as much as I hate guns and I hate war, I can't deny the reality that this is happening and there are guys who are shooting into mountains at the same age that I was attending keggers and bitching about statistics classes. When Junger layers the on-the-ground scenes with military studies on the concept of bravery, and it's extraordinary stuff. In re-reading this review I can tell this sounds preachy, but screw it, I can't explain it better, this book is just powerful stuff.
Then Monday came the companion piece, Restrepo.
I got to attend a special screening at National Geographic where they showed the film to a limited audience. It was mainly Vietnam and other Iraq/Afghanistan vets, and some other VIPs. Don't ask me how I got in. Let's just say, the power of Facebook is strong. What makes it such a critical piece to the story is that it gives you the visuals that help bring the book's depth to life. After reading about these soldiers for 300 pages, you now see their faces, and know that the reality that will hit them later in the doc is all-too real and not some novel you buy on the sale rack at Borders.
Plus, because like the book the political discussions of whether this war is right or wrong are never addressed; you find yourself plunged right into the platoon and live their life as best you can from your theater seat. And once you start watching you remember that the politics and the nonsensical talking and jostling back in Washington doesn't mean shit in there, and they don't know nor care what is taking place outside of the outpost they are defending.
The event had an awesome Q&A afterward with Junger, and two of the soldiers who completed their deployment in the Korengal, a place that is so much smaller in size and compact than I realized when seeing it on film than on the page. And you could hear it in their voices how much they struggled to come to grips with the situations they encountered or the frustrations they ran into.
I realize this is not the most eloquent of reviews. I'm just impressed by the book and the film and I wish more subject matters were tackled in such a manner. Another, better critic than myself said it best: "We owe the men in 'Restrepo,' at the very least, 90 minutes or so of our attention. If nothing else, this film, in showing how much they care about one another, demands the same of us."
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