The good soldiers david finkel review. David Finkel's 'The Good Soldiers' 2022-10-19
The good soldiers david finkel review Rating:
6,2/10
305
reviews
The Good Soldiers, written by David Finkel, is a powerful and thought-provoking account of the experiences of a group of soldiers serving in the U.S. military during the Iraq War. The book follows the 2-16 Infantry Battalion, known as the "Rangers," as they are deployed to Baghdad in 2007. Finkel, a journalist, embeds himself with the unit and provides a firsthand, on-the-ground perspective of the challenges and experiences faced by the soldiers.
One of the most striking aspects of The Good Soldiers is the way in which Finkel humanizes the soldiers, depicting them not as faceless warriors but as complex individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, and struggles. He provides insight into the mental and emotional toll that war takes on these young men and women, showing the difficulty of adjusting to life back home after experiencing the horrors of combat.
The book also provides a detailed and nuanced portrayal of the challenges faced by the soldiers in Iraq. Finkel vividly describes the dangers of patrolling the streets of Baghdad, the constant threat of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and the difficulties of interacting with a population that is often hostile or mistrusting. He also discusses the high stakes of the "surge" strategy, in which the Rangers were tasked with bringing stability to some of the most violent neighborhoods in the city.
Ultimately, The Good Soldiers is a poignant and moving tribute to the courage and sacrifice of the soldiers who serve in the military. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the realities of war and the impact it has on the lives of those who fight it.
webapi.bu.edu:Customer reviews: The Good Soldiers
All of the awesome firepower, Marine preparation and pride, and hollow words of encouragement from leaders back home are nothing in the face of the realty of day-to-day Iraq. Dexter Filkins' "The Forever War," had been my most respected book about Iraq, but this surpasses it only because it focuses so closely on an individual unit and the men doing the job. They did all this, they were told, and they believed, mostly, and repeated back to anyone who asked, for freedom. Would the mortar attacks on the base ever stop? Explosive devices propelling a flattened metal disk at such velocity that it can -- and does -- slice a man's body in half. It was a particular form of hell born out of a political gesture which got entirely carried away with its own momentum and which had never developed the least notion of an exit strategy or definable objective, except to use the infantry as human lightning conductors, focusing all the energies of the jihadis, until such time as the good Iraqis could get their own political and military institutions together — a holding operation, in other words, which was considered worth doing at the cost of 50 to 60 American lives per month. 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.
As well, Finkel too often relies on repetition to convey the anguish and futility of the mission in Iraq, writing at one point, "The situation: That was the situation. Finkel has an innate ability to put you in the midst of this battalion while maintaining enough of a personal distance adds to the brilliance of this book. Media Reviews "Starred Review. Like many journalists doing this kind of work, this author obviously developed a sentimental attachment to these soldiers, and so criticisms, questions, and challenges about the war as a whole are scarce. Col of a temporarily happy time when giving soccerballs to Iraqi children brought smiles to their parents followed by counterattacking Iraqi fighters and following them into a house where parents and a little girl are injured or killed.
There is nothing pleasant or redemptive about the war in Iraq to takeaway from this book. There isn't a polemical sentence in it. He is a true warrior, a true believer as it were. As the action grows, as emotions tighten with resolve and hurt, the dialogue grows evermore raw. How do you patrol an area when your vehicles are constantly being blown up by IEDs and other deadly devices? James Harrelson burns to death in a Humvee after it is blown up by an IED. But he quickly develops an utter hatred for them, based on his consistent experiences with their corruption locals not making a construction project work , incompetence the Iraqi army and police were particularly poor, as usual , and the non-stop attacks that caused devastating casualties, conducted by insurgents that neither he nor anyone in the 2-16 could discern from the local populace. Some of his greener soldiers, a few as young as 17, demonstrate breathtaking maturity.
One soldier, Sergeant Michael Emory, is shot in the back of the head by a sniper in Kamaliyah in May, 2007, and somehow survives. . Finkel takes the reader into the points-of-view of all levels of this battalion's experiences and context. Daily life, meanwhile, is devoid of all the things that make life fun to live. The blur was the linear becoming the circular. This poses obvious difficulties for a reporter. It's incredible that so many avoided physical injury and are still young men trying to deal with post traumatic stress disorder! This is a central theme of the book.
The trouble is, declaring victory and bringing everybody home right this second which is what Finkel clearly advocates, is not a strategically intelligent choice. He wore a short sleeve shirt to show off the zigzag scars along his arms. That last challenge seems to be why so many re-enlist. By moving, almost inevitably, towards the novelistic. Really wanted to give it 5. And she watched me shoot somebody pp 122. One reviewer compared this book to the work of Ernie Pyle — the famous World War II writer who also described life at the grass-roots level of the American soldier.
Summary and reviews of The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
He called it the surge. He tells it straight and without a lot of florid adjectives and overwriting. Now here is a book that will turn your hair white. There is no other book about the Iraq War that has given us such a full-color spectrum of soldiers living and fighting, dying and being horribly wounded day to day, month to month during their entire tour of duty. Michael Emory is shot in the head on the roof of a building. This book will help you understand.
It was imperative that I start at the beginning. That all logic, good, and meaning had been suspended and everyone was just trying to get by, fighting his own war, counting the days until his leave and the end of his tour, only going outside the wire because his buddies were doing the same and he did not want to be a coward, and certainly did not want a dishonorable discharge, but a situation in which someone who actually believed in the mission — or cared for the Iraqis in any way — was so rare that such a person was mocked incessantly unless it was an officer of course? Certain familiar factors must be considered when deciding what, if any, perspective on the American way of war the book falls under. It was the last-chance moment of the war. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose. The list went on and on. The ones who were killed and As much as I liked this book, I hated it, too. So I wasn't looking forward to reading this novel by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, because I figured it would be another liberal take on why war is bad.
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It's incredible that most if the soldiers in this story are aged between 19 and 22 years of age! I was heaving, it was such an emotional passage. Instead, it leaves the reader with the uncomfortable sense that the author knows how horrible it all is and feels compelled to speak - but has nothing more to add. They think they do, but they don't. Before my husband deployed, I was given a disk with the photos of all his soldiers. Oh yes--I remember now. This is one of the finest pieces of war journalism I have ever read.
Because, really, what can be said? And was it really a success? Of course, that depended in large part on the relationships trust and visible-improvements in the infrastructure of a given area. The knucklehead who got in a fistfight at Fort Riley because he kept eating the French fries of someone who kept warning him, 'Don't eat my French fries'? Seeing them clean their weapons with gasoline and WD-40 this corrodes the weapons and renders them ineffective. This is not to say that they do not feel stress — indeed, they do — but merely that they do not show it or at least try not to. Until this book, I could never imagine what that entailed. They were most certainly The Good Soldiers. He too starts out cautiously optimistic, a result of his original motivations for joining the army, which included a love for the United States and a desire to defend his admittedly sentimental version of it pp 43.
Was there ever a war that seemed like a success? Bin Laden was on record saying very unflattering things about Saddam. One of the best things about Finkel's account is that he himself is invisible as he relates the things the soldiers of the 2-16 see, say and do, from the time they learn they are to be deployed from their home base of Fort Riley, Kansas, to the winding down of their last days in Baghdad when their fifteen-month tour finally comes to an end. With humility and respect for his subjects, Finkel lets the unbelievable details, language of the soldiers, and the perspective and thoughts of Ralph Kauzlarich speak for themselves. However, again through no fault of their own, their lack of cultural knowledge or empathy toward the civilian population caused them to constantly offend and scare that population, in doing everything from ransacking houses to destroying infrastructure during firefights. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. One part I wish he had told more about: the role of contractors in the work of this battalion.
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