A jacket review of The Good Soldiers avers that "[t]his may be the best book on war since the Iliad." That's quite a claim, considering the thousands of years of history and probably hundreds of thousands of volumes that have since been published on the subject. While I'm not nearly well read enough to be able to make such a boast, The Good Soldiers is easily the best book on any topic I have read in the past 5 or 10 years. Author David Finkel brings his readers into the hearts and minds of an American infantry battalion posted in Baghdad during the 2007 surge, led by Lt Col Ralph Kauzlarich. Kauzlarich initially isn't the most sympathetic character, but within a chapter or so I found myself caring about him, his unit, and their mission. The fact that this takes place amidst nearly indescribable insanity made me ache for the tragedy that is the Iraq war.

Finkel does it all by paying attention to the small details like the seemingly unimportant conversations between characters and the routines they follow when preparing for a patrol, or late at night when they can't sleep. Finkel's effortless prose makes the story compelling, though his lack of presence in the story itself makes me wonder how he (presumably an embedded correspondent) could have possibly captured so many details from so many lives, even when they're home on mid-tour leave or visiting injured comrades at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. He describes the privation of the Iraqis, the frustration of the grunts, and the sacrifices of their families with equal tenderness. Even as the Iraq war appears to be fading from our collective consciousness,the scenes brought to life in The Good Soldiers, whether of combat, doctors struggling to save a patient, or of a soldier's mother and wife caring for their wounded loved one... these will stay with me for a long while.

One of the most poignant books I've ever read. Seeing the soldier's story of this war so well treated is gratifying. Finkel tells it straight without the intensifiers and without resort to the cloying agendas of a political cant. The colonel and his soldiers acted in accord with the Army's expectations, and by showing us that, Finkel is saying a lot for the unit, all its soldiers, and the Army that trained and equipped them. The immensity of the commander's responsibility and his courage as a battle commander deserves the highest respect possible. Importantly, this chronicle of his unit is a tribute to every infantry battalion in the U.S. Army (as well as to the many other units that have effectively become infantry units). The unit mission was far more demanding than anything our commanders have had to face since Vietnam, and because it was all urban combat, it was likely a far tougher 15-month deployment than those deployments the Vietnam era commanders had to face. The Army has a cadre of officers now who have had to deal with the worst realities of war and its aftermath.

I could not put this book down. It was an eye opening experience hearing about the men my age at war. I have recommended this book to all my family members and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know what the surge felt and looked like through the eyes and hearts of our soldiers. I appreciated that the book didn't lean left or right, or tried to justify the war. It was an honest account of the soldiers out there doing the work and risking their lives (and losing them) for a cause (whatever that cause did or did not turn out to be).

An excellent book and frankly any voter should read it since we are the ones electing the people who make the decisions regarding this war.

This is well written book offering true insight into the day-to-day lives of our brave Soldiers (and other service members). War is hard and tragic, not only for them, but for their families as well. They are men and women who serve our country with honor and courage. A revealing story on the war in Iraq and Baghdad, and on the Iraqi people and the local insurgents and foreign terrorists who thrive on hate and chaos. They not only attack us, they slaughter their own.

This is an authentic, insightful look at the experiences of young Americans at war in the Middle East. Very knowledgeable and compassionate. Sometimes very hard to bear.

I picked up The Good Soldiers based on a gushing review in a business magazine. Though the military ops side is accurate, it is incomplete in the sense that the text focused on after action reports and interviews- not the true day to day operations that matter. Every single chapter began with a quote from President Bush that was optimistic concerning the suurge, to be immediately followed by some account from the war that "disproved" it. I have to take exception to Finkel's "A note on source and methods," (at the end of the book) where he declares "...my intent was to document the war, without agenda." If you have to say that- it probably isn't true- and it clearly wasn't. Shakespeare put right "me thinks (you) doth protest too strongly." The surge had an effect in Iraq, beyond all the lost (or "given") limbs, mental anguish, separated families. In this respect, the book was not well balanced. For those looking for an operational account of Iraq, read "House to House."

This book chronicles the experiences of the 2-16 Rangers, deployed during the famous Iraqi "Surge". Author David Finkel, who was embedded with them, does not deal with politics in "The Good Soldiers", he does not deal with rhetoric, he deals with reality -- the reality of what the Surge was for this particular Army unit: a meat grinder, an inferno in which soldiers were dissected by shrapnel, split apart by explosives and disposed of. He paints a picture of war as an absurdist theater where life is so deranged, so detached from normal experience, that no sense or meaning can be made of any of it. Anyone, regardless of their political leanings, or which news sources they consider to be trustworthy, needs to read this account if they expect to have any understanding of what this war has done to those who have fought in it. It's an experience beyond the comprehension of those of us who have watched from afar. While gripping, I was anxious to reach the end. It was simply too overwhelming.

In the same way that Philip Caputo's "A Rumor of War" is the best book on Vietnam from the soldier's point of view, so is "The Good Soldiers" a harrowing and revealing account of the 2007 Iraq War 'surge' . The author follows a battalion of army infantry soldiers as they attempt to carry out their mission to stabilize a region of Iraq and root out insurgents while dodging IED's, mortars and snipers. The author superbly demonstrates, in a simple but effective writing style, the absurdities and the "normal abnormal" of war; like an Iraqi corpse found floating in a septic tank that the Americans would like to remove but can't, or the dazed soldier who asks, "Is anything sticking out of my head?" after a mortar attack. But the most agonizing parts are the accounts of the injuries and deaths from IEDs. Young men from rural Alabama, or Ohio, or Kansas, are rendered limbless, diapered, brain-damaged and wearing goggles to keep their eyes moist because their eyelids have been burned away. The contrast between the soldiers' everyday routines and the lofty words of President Bush is left to speak for itself. The reader is left with endless empathy for these young men but also great fear for what they face when they come home, mentally and physically. War is hell, and this is why.
It makes you angry and breaks your heart.

I read this book thinking it would be simply a "life and times" story about an infantry unit slogging through their tour of duty in Iraq. What I ended up with is much more. The book follows Lt. Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich and his battalion of soldiers as they fight for their lives in Iraq. The endless Humvee convoys, trying to help Iraqi neighborhoods (building sewers, etc.), dealing with being apart from one's family, worried that THIS trip outside the wire will end in losing a limb(s), seeing the person sitting next to you get cut in half by an IED, being killed, etc. The descriptions of the wounds these brave soldiers suffer from are very graphic.

The author takes opportunities to make President Bush seem like an out of touch idiot with a "gung ho" quote at the beginning of each chapter and I get the feeling throughout that the author does not feel the U.S. should be anywhere near Iraq. Several soldiers are quoted as basically not wanting to be there but apart from the command staff, wasn't at least one soldier available to tell how yes, he was glad and proud to be serving in Iraq? Politics notwithstanding, I would still highly recommend this book.

The scenes at the burn center where several of the soldiers ended up are horrific -- brave soldiers with bandages covering stumps where there used to be limbs, bodies covered head to toe in bandages, etc. The situation and events that led each soldier to be brought here are laid out in great detail. Chilling is the word that comes to mind.

One thing that came to my mind while reading this is why the Army doesn't provide vehicles with IED-resistant armor. It seems like every ride in a Humvee boiled down to a crapshoot on whether or not the passengers would suffer injuries or death.

There is a section of photos at the end of the book that shows headshots of the soldiers who were KIA during the unit's deployment that I didn't notice until I was done reading the book -- I went back to read about how they died.

One complaint I had about the book is that I wish there were more photos of the unit during their lives: in the mess hall, cleaning/testing their weapons, out on patrol, capturing terrorists, etc. There are maybe a dozen or so photos in the book but I would have liked to see more.

Book lacks drama or passion. It keeps repeating injuries and deaths that are sustained as a result of explosions caused by IEDs, over and over again. The problem is that it is told from the perspective of a high level commander and not someone closer to the action. It doesn't even get into military strategies except in a broad sense. Disappointing.

I am still not finished with the book but I am intrigued by the detail and rawness of the book. It's definitely not a book for children with it's graphic descriptions and realistic language.

It's hard not to miss the author's bias against the war, the surge, and President Bush himself. I am currently serving in the Army Reserves and have not yet deployed to either theater. However, the numerous soldiers that I've spoken with who have deployed hold a wide variety of opinions but many do agree that we made and are making a difference over there. Still the pull-out is too soon.

Of all the books on the Iraq War, to date, this is the one that strikes the deepest and most emotional chord. Finkel was embedded with the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Iraq, an Army Battalion that spent their 15 months in Iraq after the "surge". 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. The focus is squarely on their commanding officer, Colonel Kauzarlich and the soldiers under his command. We see their hope to bring order to the chaos as they arrive turn to the hope to survive their last days before ending their deployment. From the inevitable but tragic loss of their first comrade to the subsequent deaths and horrifying injuries of other battalion members, Finkel spares nothing so we understand the sacrifice these men and women make along with consequences.

There is nothing pleasant or redemptive about the war in Iraq to takeaway from this book. Win or lose, thousands of American families have to deal with the awful suffering of their loved ones. War has always been hell and modern warfare has only exacerbated that reality. With incredibly sophisticated weapons and equipment -- and some crude weaponry like EFPs and IEDs -- along with more advanced medical capabilities, the gruesome nature of fighting today is revealed in frightening detail.

Towards the end of the book, Finkel provides the most touching and harrowing story. Kauzarlich is on leave and visits some of his former troops who are recovering in one of the Army's best medical centers in Texas. While there are quite a few physically and mentally disabled veterans, none is in worse condition than Duncan Crookston Duncan's injuries are incomprehensible and his doctor's are amazed he survived as long as he has due to the extreme nature of his injuries (I won't share the specifics). His mother and wife (married just before his deployment) have spent every day in Texas (from Colorado) to be by his bedside. Finkel is masterful in dealing with this situation --- we are close enough to shed some tears (I'd challenge anyone to read this section and not become teary eyed), however we are not the family or related, and like his commander Kauz, we eventually depart to face what is next, in this case Kauz heading back for his final months in Iraq.

Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not (I was against invading Iraq), you have to admire the brave men and women who have risked their lives to fight for their country. This book deserves to be read so everyone can fully understand the day to day reality in Iraq more than any 2 minute news clip or single article in the paper could provide. This book is a very important part of the Iraq War canon and should be mandatory reading for any adult in the US.

Stephen King has nothing on David Finkel. This is one of the darkest, most disturbing books I've ever read. The black cover, with its title in crimson red (usually reserved for gothic fiction) is therefore absolutely appropriate for this book which chronicles the 15-month deployment of the the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Iraq. The truth is I am haunted by this book and having a hard time putting it behind me. The real horror stories are never fictional; they are, like this one, true.

The book is not ostensibly anti-war, but in it one can find nothing of value in the war in Iraq, nothing to compensate for the sacrifices of our soldiers--and they are many. After 15 months in Iraq none of the men deployed will be the same, and I think this could be said for the reader as well. After reading this book, s/he will not be the same. Finkel will probably get another Pulitzer for this one, and if he doesn't, well, he deserves to.

Nietzsche reminds us that all art is selective, and that is equally true in journalism as it is in memoir writing. To be sure, Finkel's book tends to focus on the victims of this war: soldiers who are killed in action, become multiple amputees, or are sent home with PTSD--shocked, depressed, suicidal. "Good Soldiers" caught up in a bad war; soldiers trained for combat but responsible for counter-insurgency (a very different task); soldiers who arrive in Iraq with verve and optimism, and leave hopeless and confused.

That said, it also seems that Finkel would be hard-pressed to find anything else. Even the highest ranking of the officers--the battalion commander, his XO--are broken, disenchanted men by the end of their tour. The film analogy mentioned is "Groundhog Day," that is what it feels like. The myth would be that of Sisyphus. They go out on patrol, they are ambushed by roadside bombs or snipers, they get lucky or they are killed and maimed. Positive thinking is the order of the day, but Finkel spares no details with regards to the victims, physical or psychological.

If there is one book our new president and every representative should read, it is this. That they might do so, well, that is the only hope this book offers us.

This is a moving and beautifully written book about the everyday soldier and not the general staff. I only wish that president Obama read this book instead of or in addition to the book "Lessons in disaster" if he had and if he had waited just a little longer until we had all the news from Yemen, maybe he would have fully realized the futility of escalating in Afghanistan.
David Finkel is a great writer.

From the moment I started to read this book, at the bookstore, I was impressed. The opening presentation lines are so original and unusual that I sat down and went into the Third Chapter before I bought it!
And, the cover photo is a "grabber" as all good jacket cover images SHOULD be!
Don't miss this book!

Regardless of your personal position on the war in Iraq there is no denying that is happening, and this book gives you the story of what our troops are going through. We are all eager to say we support them. No better way to understand them than reading this book.
It is well told story. Sometimes so well told images become so real and disturbing you will be uncomfortable, you will be confused. You must consider that what David Finkel conjurs up in words are real life for our sons and grand sons.

I have read about ten books on the Iraq war and this is the best. It is very disturbing, as it should be. Thank you to the author, who I am sure risked his life to tell the truth. Thank you to the soldiers. A sad book. A sad war. Beautiful human beings.

Do not expect a conventional plot. This is an episodic portrait of a single platoon during the 2007-2008 "Surge" in the Iraq War. We come to understand the random and brutal dangers of modern warfare, as well as the discouraging disconnect between the mission of "aiding" a country at the risk of being killed there. Finkel writes in a dispassionate style without an agenda. Consequently, we take away a series of images rather than a story with a complete throughline.

David Finkel's The Good Soldiers is a book I feel everyone should read, regardless of whether you're for, against or ambivalent about the war in Iraq. Finkel's account of the experiences of one particular battalion, the 2-16, stationed in one of the more dangerous parts of Baghdad during the Surge, lets the reader see in vivid detail what our soldiers experienced in that time and place during the war.

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. Finkel becomes something of a kaleidescopic camera, with each turn bringing something new into view - a patrol going through their first IED attack, a soldier dealing with a family of Iraqi refugees living in a shed inside a gutted building the unit wants to make into an outpost, another soldier dealing with red tape as he tries to get the body of a dead Iraqi removed from a septic tank, soldiers prepping for the Soldier of the Month award by learning rote answers to questions irrelevant to the reality they live with, another soldier racing against time to get help for the daughter of an Iraqi interpreter injured by a bombing, soldiers back in the states in army hospitals learning to live without the legs, arms and eyes they've lost, the superstitious rituals individual soldiers perform before going out on patrol, a soldier home on leave who cannot look at his eight-year-old daughter without remembering an Iraqi girl of the same age who saw him shoot an armed insurgent in the head in her home - and many, many others. But all the while, Finkel never inserts himself into the scene. The soldiers, their families, and the Iraqis they deal with speak for themselves while Finkel remains silent, never commenting, never explaining, only acting as a silent witness to events as they unfold.

It really is hard to convey just how much there is to experience in this book, how much it takes you into the lives and experiences of the soldiers you get to know, their families, and others like the Iraqi interpreters who work with them, the Iraqi military and civilian authories they sometimes interact with, and the ordinary Iraqi civilians they encounter. This is one of those books it is almost impossible to put down. I learned a lot from this book, but in particular three things: (1) There is an enormous disconnect between how the war is perceived here and how it is experienced by the soldiers who are actually over there. (2) Nothing in Iraq - absolutely nothing - is simple. And (3) IED and EFP attacks are nothing like the way they seem in the news.

And above all Finkel makes the people in this book - the soldiers, their families, the Iraqis they deal with - real, and the reader comes to empathize or at least understand them in ways that makes reading what they go through have much more impact:

"This was the 'we got what we got' army that Kauzlarich got. The result, for the army, was enough soldiers to fight a war, but for Kauzlarich it meant that he spent a lot of time that year weeding out soldiers, such as the one who was arrested for aiming a handgun at a man who turned out to be an undercover police officer. And one who drank too much and couldn't stop crying and talked all the time about all the ways he wished to hurt himself, a level of sadness too destructive for even the army.
--Most of the soldiers he got weren't that way. A lot of them were great, some were brilliant, and almost all were unquestionably courageous: Sergeant Gietz, who was being nominated for a Bronze Star Medal with Valor for what he had done in June. Adam Schumann, who had carried Sergeant Emory on his back. The list went on and on. Every company. Every platoon. Every soldier, really, because now, in July, as the explosions kept coming, and coming, the daily act of them jumping into Humvees to go out of the wire and straight into what they knew was waiting for them began to seem the very definition of bravery. 'Stupid f[u]ckers,' someone watching them might think, but it was in a prayerful, lump-in-the-throat way. 'Here we go,' Kauzlarich, who had now been in three near-misses with EFP's, would say, and there they would go, without hesitation, protecting their hands, lining up their feet, and keeping private their fears, sometimes by listening in silence to the soothing clangs that came from deep inside the frames of the Humvees that sounded like drowsy cow bells, and other times by playing a game of what they wanted their last words to be.
--'Kill 'em all.'
--'F[u]ck Nine-eleven.'
--'Tell my wife I really didn't love her.'
--They were vulgar. They were macho. ('At no time did he scream. Strong kid.' was the compliment given a soldier who was severly hurt by an EFP.) They were funny (A conversation between two sergeants: 'No matter where you are, kids are kids.' 'Kids are the future.' 'But I saw a video this morning on the news of a kid, thirteen or fourteen years old, maybe here or in Afghanistan, about to cut off a guy's head with a knife. What was that kid thinking?' 'Probably thinking about cutting that guy's head off') With only a few exceptions, Kauzlarich was enormously proud of the battalion they had become, but what had been essential was his getting rid of roughly 10 percent of them before they deployed. They were the 10 percent he never should have gotten in the first place, a percentage that could have been higher except for his penchant for second chances. 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'? He got a second chance and turned out to be a good soldier. The goofball who spilled gasoline on his boots and decided the best way to clean them was to light the gasoline on fire and ended up with leg burns because he didn't think to take the boots off? He got a second chance, too, as did a soldier who was arrested for driving under the influence as he tried to drive onto Fort Riley, and then insisted to his sergeant that someone else had been at the whell and the guards at the gate were lying. 'Hey, Craig, you know there's a video camera there, right?' his sergeant had said, and so Andre Craig, Jr., backed down and took responsibility and got to go to Iraq, where on June 25 he was killed by an EFP.
--Another second-chancer: a soldier they called Private Teflon because he was always in the vicinity of bad things, from fights to a rumored drive-by shooting, but was never implicated. So he got to go to Iraq, too, and when his friend Cameron Payne was killed, he delivered a eulogy so overflowing with hurt it was like listening to the exact moment of someone being transformed by hearbreak. Which of course is what wars did, in every way imagineable, bad and good."

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in what the war in Iraq means for the soldiers we send over there. It does not pretend to be more than it is - it is only what one particular battalion went through in one part of Baghdad during one tour that occurred during the Surge - but it will most definitely leave you feeling differently about just what the real costs of the war are for everyone involved. No matter what your views on the war are, this book will bring home just how much we ask of the troops we send, and how much we owe them. Truly unforgettable.

One Hell of a book, that's all I can say, one Hell of a book.

This book gave me the best insight into the vast differences between what we see, hear & read from the popular media, and what was really happening during "The Surge" in Iraq. The author uses a unique vehicle to tell the story. At the start of each chapter, he quotes President Bush's words from a news briefing, and then follows with what the Battalion commander and his good soldiers were actually seeing ... on-the-ground ... in Bagdad at that very same period in time.

A very sad period of deception.

Possibly greater than the reasons used for our entry into Iraq in the beginning.

Thank a Soldier tomorrow, they're all Good.

The book seems to present a rather distorted picture of the operational life of 2-16 and the surge. Most of the author's operational reporting focuses on accounts of soldier's getting wounded or killed in action. Beyond this there is virtually no description of the unit's tactical or operational experiences. Even the reporting on those wounded or killed is often done with no context as to their missions, personal backgrounds or other factors that gives the reader a meaningful connection to the soldiers. Beyond this the author seems to wear his political views on sleeve by giving the reader the clearly false sense that security failed to improve during the 2007/2008 time-frame of the surge.

I believe that, from Mark Twain on, the best writers began as reporters. Reporters don't try to be "artistic," and they don't resort to a pretentious academic style. Their job is to present the facts clearly and succinctly, and David Finkel of The Washington Post is no exception, as "The Good Soldiers" is written in English stripped to its naked necessities. It's devoid of artifice and cliché, and that makes the story he has to tell all the more gripping.

It's the story of decent men in the worst hell imaginable. One horrific event followed by another, week after week, for one year. It's a wonder that they bear it at all, but in fact, many do not. Being ordered to regularly drive down roads where bombs will, with certainty, be ripping through their vehicles and flesh, leaves them maimed, mentally as well as physically. After each dismay-inducing chapter, Finkel has little to add but such simple and cogent comments as, "[He] woke up a few hours later with the sinking feeling a person gets when he realizes that nothing has changed while he was asleep, that all of it is still true."

The one thing that goes unexplained, and what I can't understand, is that none of them, not the privates, not Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich nor General David Petraeus, seem to understand the reason for the violence and hatred the Iraqis display toward their American liberators. Throughout the book every soldier expresses the belief that they are there for the benefit of Iraq; that the USA is there to improve Iraqi lives with better sanitation, American-style democracy, enlightened education, to liberate their women, yet in return we are met with hostility and unimaginable violence.

I've gone through every page of this book, but nowhere does anyone get the idea that the people there simply don't want invaders from an alien culture in their land. It never occurs to anyone that, had Iraq instead invaded and conquered, say, Texas, imposing the great benefits of strict Sharia law, the Texans would (I would hope) likewise be detonating bombs under Iraqi vehicles. The soldiers seem to have good intentions, and they are trying their best to rebuild Iraq, but not one person in this book has grasped that concept.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finkel tells it like it is and leaves no stone unturned. It helps to understand the lives of our soldiers in any war, but in particular the one we are in now. Their good work, their sacrifices, and their need for our support, especially when they come home. So many atrocities that they see and participate in, and so much need for many good things to offset those atrocities when they come home. Fantastic book. Kauzlarich and Cummings, and all the men in Rangers 1 are true heros.

If you think Finkel's book is good then you should read Black Hearts by TIME's Jim Frederick out in February, 2010. (I read an early copy and have just pre-ordered a couple.) No offence to Mr. Finkel who has written a good book which I am reading now but Black Hearts, in my opinion, is in a different league. Those who rave about GS will be even more impressed by Black Hearts. It's the most extraordinary work of nonfiction. Jim Frederick tells the story of the entire deployment of a group of soldiers in the Triangle of Death who suffered the most terrible losses and were under attack almost every day. They lived outside the wire in "the most dangerous place at the most dangerous time" in Iraq. Black Hearts is not just for those who like war books, it's a book for anyone who wants to read about characters, about human character, how it is tested, about how war really is (some passages are difficult to read, so raw and real), how humans interact, how they behave under the kind of pressure most of us will never have to suffer. This book is for anyone who wants to read a beautifully crafted tale, sensitively and fairly handled. You feel as if you were there, watching the soldiers the whole time, willing them to step back two inches, a step that would spare the insurgent a clean shot; urging leaders to choose this course of action, not the one that results in yet more losses, with little overall gain; urging those who ended up committing the worst crimes of the war to hold back, to dig deeper, fine the good in their character, to spare the innocent Iraqis their lives, their brothers-in-arms the ineveitable tainted-by-association. Black Hearts is about leadership, about friendship, about the extraordinary tests on the character of a person, why those who endure the same things cope, or don't. It's about why some people choose to behave the way they do. (The chapter on the rape of the girl and murder of her family by 4 soldiers --all now in gaol in the US -- is extremely difficult to stomach.) There's nothing Hollywood -- though it would make the most incredible movie actually -- or sanitized about Black Hearts, so real are the characters and images conveyed. We need to know this is what war is without, thankfully, not debating the been-there-done-that pros and cons of going into this particular war. This is the best and most emotive book, not just war book but book, I have read in years. Some scenes made me weep openly. It has changed the way I think about men at war, about character, good and bad, right and wrong, how not every leader is a good one, not every soldier is a hero -- a point Frederick makes very well -- mostly because soldiers and leaders are human, too. But it also makes you realize how our army needs to sort those who can lead from those who obviously cannot, that is those whose errors in judgment have catastrophic consequences, those whose orders decide whether people live or die and, for those that live, how they live, how they cope, how they work within the larger group, how they rebuild their lives outside the wire, inside, if they're lucky enough, and how they deal when they return home. This is stuff we need to know and think about. It would be an amazing book were it fiction. The fact it is not makes it all the more riveting and shocking. Frederick is an extremely talented writer and has dug deep. I absolutely recommend Black Hearts to all Amazon customers.

I have never agreed with the Iraq war, and feel that one reason to keep Gitmo open is to send Cheney, Bush, and two dozen other top staffers there for a nice five-year vacation, but I will say that Finkel's book awakened me to the heroism that goes on in Iraq every day among our troops in a way that listening to D.C. "experts" drone on about "casualties" never could. Duncan Crookston's story will stay with me longest, I think, the unbelievable courage he displayed just in staying alive when he was reduced to the collected shards of a human being. One of the most impressive things about this book is how Finkel never brings himself into the narrative, a temptation toward what Peggy Noonan calls "I, I--ay yi yi" in Obama's speeches. Finkel is the master behind the curtain, spinning direct observation and firsthand reporting of others into a seamless experience that makes the book almost impossible to put down. I read it in one day and felt humbled by the men and women of our armed services.

This should be required reading for all the armchair pundits and war-mongerers who are so eager to send our best out in harms way without knowing how thoroughly it destroys ones life, even if they end up living and not blown away by an IED.

Very engrossing and touching read!

I would not normally be interested in a military type book, but I read this because it was a gift and it had gotten numerous excellent reviews. I believe this is the best book I have read all year! I learned so much I didn't know about the war in Iraq and especially from the perspective of the soldiers right there in the middle of it. This book had a profound effect on me and I developed new-found respect for our soldiers in Iraq. I had no idea how difficult every single day is over there. The best thing about this book is it is extremely readable and is hard to put down once you start it! It will give you so much to think about and be grateful for!

David Finkel's depiction of everyday life for U.S. soldiers in Iraq is as strong a deterrent for war as anything I've read. In his own way Finkel is a war hero. And a peace activist. Simultaneously. By risking his life to spend eight months in an Iraq war zone he is able to show us in vivid narrative the humanity and depravity of war, e.g., its often youthful, naive recruits and its overall disregard for "enemy" life.

Finkel's book reads in 3D by putting flesh on war statistics that we non-military long ago relegated to the back of our minds and the inside pages of our newspapers. His last Pulitzer was for feature writing. His next should be for public service. "The Good Soldiers" is a book that I'll someday give to my young sons to make sure they know the full story of war before they ever think about visiting a recruiter's office.

The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

Scribe Publications Pty Ltd ISBN: 9781921640063 [...]

David Finkel is an editor, journalist with The Washington Post and the author of The Good Soldiers. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner for his explanatory reporting in 2006 for a series of stories about U.S. funded democracy efforts in Yemen.

Finkel was embedded with the 2-16th Infantry Battalion based in Baghdad. They were to be part of President George W. Bush's "surge" in 2007. Finkel's account of the new strategy of the war in Iraq is told through his eight month involvement with the 2-16 Battalion soldiers, in the U.S. and the highly volatile and unpredictable roadside bombs of Baghdad.

He captures the feelings of the pre deployed soldiers with their ideals of hope, honor, love of their country and winning the war. Finkel grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck with his no holds barred description of events that change these soldier's lives forever. Actions that occur in Baghdad which the newspapers report as horrific, is the normal day to day routine for these soldiers. This is due to their crazy environment they now live in. Finkel describes how these young men are robbed of their youth as they learn very early on in Baghdad about death, fear and destruction.

Finkel was able to capture the heartache and difficulties that the families and soldiers faced when they returned home. As one soldier wrote in his last journal entry, `I've lost all hope. I feel the end is near for me, very, very near. Day by day my misery grows like a storm, ready to swallow me whole and take me to the unknown. Yet all I can fear is the unknown'. His wife mentioned `that he was turning into a zombie and their marriage was dying'.

The Good Soldiers is beautifully written and is difficult to put down. This book is not just for soldiers. Families that have had family members deployed to Iraq would find Finkel's book to be an inroad to the minds of their loved ones. Like this comment on how his soldiers felt, "They're angry. Very angry," he said of the platoon, which of course included himself. "How can anybody kill and function normally afterward? It's not the humane response."

The Good Soldiers is the best book I have read on the Iraq War.

Reviewed by Gordon Traill
Australian Iraq Veteran
Editor: www.peacekeepers.asn.au

This past week the Army announced the number of suicides among Iraqi veterans is higher than ever before. I've wondered about this statistic for some time. Are soldiers today not as mentally tough as they used to be? Surely Vietnam vets experienced some horrific traumas yet the Iraqi vets were having more problems adjusting to post war life. Now, having read this book it is understandable why so many Iraqi vets are struggling. Their experience was the more horrific because they were under strain every minute of every day.

Even though you only get to know a couple of the soldiers in any depth, the reality and suffering portrayed in this book will probably make you cry more than once. Cry, then remember the suffering these brave men and the innocent Iraqis endured the next time a president sends our national treasure into harm's way.

I have read many books about the situation in the Middle East to try and understand it a little better from a soldier's perspective. This book is a great narrative on the challenges of the environment, combat, leadership, boredom, fear that are a part of the every day experience of the soldiers in Iraq. We are asking a great deal of our service members and David Finkel's story provides a great deal of insight into their lives in country and what they must confront. It certainly provides some eye opening information about how difficult life can be in Iraq, for all involved. But you are also given an opportunity to appreciate the bonds that can be created there.

I've read 3 other books on the Iraq war but this is by far the best! Here you'll see the war the way the 2-16 soldiers see it. It's difficult to put down once you start reading. These kids are the bravest generation.

Excellent book.It gives en insight into the daily life of combat troops in IRAQ better than I have ever seen.With 4 grandsons in the army this book was very informative.I have never read or viewed any thing like this in the mainstreem press

They say, "The surge worked!" Read this book to find out at what cost the surge worked. The book follows one Battalion's deployment to Iraq until its return home. Excellent writing entirely in the third person, detailed gut wrenching descriptions of day-to-day ground operations. First book I have finished in years.

Better title would have been Broken Soldiers. Page after page of vivid wounds, horrific death, and depression. Running juxtaposition of rosy Bush statements and soldiers' suffering made me think this book was more about the politics of the Iraq War than the soldiers of the 2-16. Missing was the part of the story how these soldiers' day-to-day suffering and courageous actions contributed to the success of the Surge. I wonder what the soldiers of the 2-16 think of "their" story?

This book, The Good Soldiers is a great book about the war. Th human side. This journalist lived with a batallion in Iraq for eight months, I think. I was moved. I have written a review of the book on my blog: [...]

All Americans who want to know the price of war should read this book. I found it a profoundly moving story of men tested to the limit. There is no glory here, only survival.

This was an excellent book and the price was right too. I know it was based on the truth because my son was a member of the 2-16 IN during the time the book was written. Kuddos to the author for getting it right.

There must be as many books covering the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as there have been hours wasted debating our options. I have read a considerable number now I am an old and retired coffin dodger. The one which gave me the best impression of being there was Good Soldier. David Finkel was an embed but was determined to be more than just a ride-along passenger. He got himself into the troops trust and that almost secret society which goes with service in a good unit.
He tells what happens when a high velocity bullet meets soft tissue. He goes into the homeland hospitals to show what war does to brains and make up of men. Men who were once warm and human but now reduced to hulks. Not for those of nervous or sensitive mind - what you read will lead you down some very dark paths.
Highly recommended. Sell the wife and buy copies to give to your friends.

This is a compelling true story of our troops in Afghanistan. Day after day facing what often is an invisible enemy. Also it is the very human tale of the interrelationship of the men on duty and the officers in charge. We are also given a feel for the people in this region. Some are the the enemy, some are friendly, and many are just people trying to stay alive. Well worth reading.

Thus David Finkel quotes a soldier stationed in Baghdad as part of the surge. That soldier goes on to say: "They say on TV that soldiers want to be here? I can't speak for every soldier....but there ain't nobody that wants to be here, because there's no point. What are we getting out of [bleeping] being here? Nothing."

This is Mr. Finkel's view of the situation, too, as revealed in this Apocalypse Now-meets Baghdad view of the war, in which the U.S. troops he befriended are largely depicted as nasty, murderous, foul-mouthed, beer-swilling, porn-watching, God-loving hicks.

The worst of them all is the evil Kauzlarich, battalion commander, depicted as a mindless fool in way over his head who nevertheless knows how to lie to Congress about the situation: "One leadership lesson he'd absorbed well was the importance of knowing what to leave out of a conversation." His men hate him, of course; as one says, "I don't ever want to see that mother[bleeper] again."

Just to be sure we're getting it, Finkel starts each chapter with a quotation from that boob Bush, showing how out of touch he was with how things really were--in complete disarray, with meaningless death piled upon meaningless death. Indeed, that's the whole of the book, relentless death in the service of stupidity.

If that's your kind of thing, enjoy! I found the book to be 273 pages dedicated to the proposition that war is hell, all described in prose oozing with moral condescension.

David Finkel has written a superb book, that is also troubling to read. The author was an embedded journalist with the 2-16 Ranger battalion for a year of the Baghdad surge in 2007. It is an unvarnished, firsthand account of what 800 infantrymen experienced trying to bring order to one of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad.

The sector assigned to the 2-16 had no working sewers or trash systems since the war began and it was a disgusting mess. Rivers of raw sewage ran down the sides of the streets. The entire place was chaos. Some of the soldiers were hit with as many as a dozen IED explosions during their tour. The battalion was constantly harassed by rockets, mortars, sniper fire, IEDs, ambushes, and "lob bombs". Lob bombs were propane canisters wrapped in ball bearings with a rocket booster attached to the bottom. A nearby truck is used to launch them into the forward operating base and wreak havoc on everything.

Some of the book was deeply disturbing, some of it is just sad, some of it was funny. If you decide to read this book keep in mind, it doesn't hold back in anything. The language is Army real, which is to say completely profane. And the descriptions of the wounded soldiers trying to recover are heart-breaking. It is a tough book to read, but the reward is in getting a better understanding of what is really required of the American soldier today and the human cost of war.

Buying this book was very easy. I received it quickly and
it was in perfect shape. Now I just need time to read it.
Thank you.

I was very impressed at how well David Finkel captured the emotion of this deployment that I was a part of. The frustration, contradiction, and common humanity he describes brought back quite a few memories and put them into words with freshness and bluntness.

And while I appreciate his powerful listening skills, representing the viewpoints of the soldiers, perhaps the author overplays his cards. The angle he seems to be coming at it with is that these fourteen months in Iraq were so intense that nobody else could understand it other than those who were there. To a degree, that may be true, but if there was not enough common emotion between soldiers and civilians, then the book itself would be pointless.

Those who have never been to war may not understand the soul-shattering depths of combat, but the assumption that soldiers cannot relate to civilians, in my estimation, leads to many of the tragedies that occur after soldiers return from war. We as soldiers are told that noone can understand us, so many turn to new cars, video games, and alcohol to drown away our memories... and that does not work.

Soldiers may not be able to explain everything they feel to those who haven't been there, but if people take the time to listen to what we choose to share instead of instantly saying "thank you for your service" before driving away in a car with a "support the troops" sticker, then a bridge begins to form. These surface-level signs of support build more barriers (again, in my estimation) than tear down.

And despite seeming to realize all this, Finkel overplays the isolation. He illustrates the absurdity of the pain and death in this war and then scoffs off peacemakers trying to make these connections to the population back in America that is usually only connected to the war by "updates" on the bottom of their cable tv screens. There are some activists that create even more divisiveness, but since being back, I have found that the overwhelming number that I have met are seeking to serve the troops and reconcile the pain that this country--at home and abroad--has experienced. As I type this, I am working with a community peace group who is working to learn as much as they can about the needs of returning veterans because a national guard unit in their town is coming home in a few months. I have found that most of the time those who are quickest to say "support the troops" are also the quickest to create an atmosphere where soldiers feel they cannot share how they really feel.

As a listener, Finkel is superb. And while capturing the emotion, he leaves out many of the things that created such intense emotion. Perhaps unaware, perhaps trying to be non-controversial, the book doesn't describe events like when Bravo Co. moved into the factory in Kamaliyah, how the local community came out to nonviolently protest our prescence in their neighborhood. He doesn't mention any of the reasons why 2-16 was regularly under investigation. There is nothing about the list of informants that we lost out on patrol, many of whom wound up dead or that many times, when Iraqis did risk their lives to help us and wound up dead in the back of an Iraqi Police truck, American soldiers would poke at the bodies and take pictures. There was so much confusion and contradiction there, but many of the reasons behind it were left out.

He also leaves out many less than "humanitarian" descriptions about Kauzlarich... probably because he wasn't there for most this, but a more complete picture of the man would include things like calling my one African-American friend "my little tar-baby", or telling another friend that he was on his list of "bad soldiers" and "20% of the names on that list are no longer living". While the book mentions the compassion he shows to Sgt. Emory when visiting him in the hospital, it doesn't tell about what he said behind his back; we had a picture on our wall of Sgt. Emory in the hospital, wearing a helmet to hold his head together... "oh! there's Sgt. Emory and his duh-duh-duh helmet" Kauzlarich said as the soldiers in the room had to restrain themselves from unleashing their anger on him. And the most important thing Kauzlarich said that was left out was his policy (not an uncommon one) that whenever an IED went off, we were authorized to shoot anyone in the area. This policy was one of the hugest contributors to the emotion that Finkel captured so well in his book.

Overall it is a very powerful read. I realized he had limited space and knowledge about some of the things that went on, but on an emotional, gut level, if you really read between the lines, this book will help you understand a little bit of the isolation and absurdity that so many soldiers experience.