Iraq..The Surge | The Good Soldiers

Read this book so you know what IEDs do to our GIs | The Good Soldiers | David Finkel

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	• The Good Soldiers David Finkel Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 46 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

less of a review but more thoughts provoked by reading this book...

This book will give one temporary secondary PTSD by its description of the reality of war. An interesting glimpse into soldiers' and commanding officers' psyche and experience on the frontline. but to my mind - it mostly illuminates how senseless fighting is on all levels. it takes so much deceit and denial to the self and to others for all involved to force some common sense into it, to justify all that is senseless. i don't know what possible solutions there are, but my view is that where there are humans, there'll be conflicts. and just like anything else in life, whether on a small or large scale, (personal, familial, national or global) there will never be a perfect, total solution and that's just the way it is. it is both short-sighted and impractical to employ the seemingly fastest and most direct way to resolve conflicts. using violence to annihilate oppositions is one of them. (that is why it is important to have statesmen who are humanists instead of mere politicians to make intelligent and wise decisions.) one sees the inevitable violation to humanity in war here - not just the physical and emotional casualties - but an ultimate violation to our basic humanity, to what and who we should and aspire to be. war defies intelligence and logic. it is chaos without meaning. it venerates all that is base. it debases us as human beings.

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Iraq..The Surge

This is about the surge in Iraq early 2007. It is about a battalion of soldiers brought into a hellstorm violence, death and destruction. The mission..to bring sustained peace, infrastructure development and governance to a region known for just the opposite. The soldiers are led by a first time in a combat situation LTC, who like other battalion commanders makes life and death decision every day.

The story of the soldiers in 2-16 IN are much life other soldiers who did their time in Iraq. The lost of members of the battalion take a heavy toll...all the time with the strategic goal to "win" or "buy" the hearts and minds of the locals. The real story is the day to day trauma of life in an infantry unit..leaving the confines of inside the wire to the filthy and very deadly roads in an around 2-16's AOR. It is the individual soldiers who ultimately pay the price for the decisions of the commander and above. Keep in mind each soldier is a volunteer in the Army and selected the MOS 11B (Infantry) as his career field of endeavor. These are the real heros...the young kids from backwater towns who thought the way out to a better life was in Army...for the college fund..for the historical significance. These are the kinds of guys who will always "step forward" to do their country's bidding...right or wrong. We will miss them all as a true band of brothers for now and forever.

I have read a number of reviews..some good and some less. The comment by the commander of 2-16 IN. LTC K relative to the death of CPL Pat Tillman in Khost Province in 2004 gives me pause. This comment will haunt LTC K for some years. It was just plain wrong..

The surge of some 4 years after the initial invasion was designed to provide more forces....forces that were held back after the initial invasion by the Bush people..even though many believed a heavier footprint would of been more decisive. Coupled with the disbandment of the complete Iraqi Army..who was ready to augment the security for the country..or some 400,000. We have yet to find out who gave that faithful order, because this singular decision cost us thousands of lives..and billions of dollars.

To the men of 2-16 IN...of those who served and to those who did not return. We shall never forget...and in the end, we shall all meet again.

Afghanistan/2003; Iraq/2005; HOA: 2002-2007-8

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Read this book so you know what IEDs do to our GIs

It'll show you what you won't hear on the evening news.

Finkle beguns by introducing us us to some 19 year old soldiers, eager and naive, and then shows us what happens to them as they fight this war. The physical wounds are graphic and disturbing, but the shattered lives are even more acute. I'l never forget the soldier in the hospital with no legs, one arm, no hand on his remaining arm, no ears, one eyelid... cared for by his mother and his young wife. Horrible.

A great, gut wrenching book.

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The Good Soldiers

A tremendous work ~ I would give it ten stars if I could ~ reads like a novel. A must read for all of us who "support the troops."

Could be perceived as "anti-war" by some; but really it seems an indictment of the policy-makers who seem terribly disconnected from what is happening on the ground.

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Difficult to Read

Not that it was less than an outstanding book, but because I wondered that after reading this how could anybody think or even consider this Iraq war worth it. So many young lives destroyed. It's been said that the "surge" defeated the insurgent and stabilized the country. Tell that to the men of the 2-16 Infantry.

It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. ?Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,? he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.

Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way.

What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden?s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O?Brien?s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale?not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

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