Deadly terrain

Photo: Reuters

US troops on patrol near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

War, Sebastian Junger, Fourth Estate/HarperCollins, $34.99

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A reporter's direct account of war in Afghanistan finds soldiers focused on survival rather than politics or morality. 

SEBASTIAN JUNGER went to Afghanistan three years ago and found himself in a maelstrom of human violence as terrifying as the hurricane he wrote about in 1997's The Perfect Storm.

Searching for answers about the nature of war and the men who fight it, he joins soldiers from Battle Company of the US Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in the rugged Korengal Valley near the border with Pakistan.

The result is a powerful and disturbing account of America's present-day Vietnam, seen largely through the eyes of grunts of Battle Company's 2nd Platoon. During five trips to the Korengal, from June 2007 to June 2008, Junger is with the men when they are wounded, when they die, when they grieve, and when they leave.

He is no stranger to danger, having previously experienced conflict in Africa and Afghanistan, but finds himself "utterly unprepared for the level of violence" that greets him. There are 70,000 troops in Afghanistan, and one-fifth of the combat is being fought in the Korengal by 150 men.

The company commander tells Junger he is "blown away by the insurgents' ability to continue fighting", despite the effort America devotes to killing them.

The Korengal's mountainous terrain dominates the narrative. It is perfect ambush country – insurgents can tie up the entire company by taking pot shots at their outposts, then disappearing over a ridge or into a local village.

The human terrain is not nearly as clear. "The enemy" is a ghost: a muzzle flash on a hill; a dark shape glimpsed through night-vision goggles; the villagers with hateful stares who are "obviously" Taliban.

They are Afghan, Pakistani and Arab fighters, killed in close-quarter combat though more often by US airpower, their bodies seldom found. Their voices are heard on radio intercepts but they remain "the other", their lives and thoughts inaccessible.

This is scarcely Junger's fault – attempting to interview insurgents can be hazardous to one's health. Yet the complexity of the Korengal insurgency, and his inability to provide much more than an outline of it, tells us much about America's failure in Afghanistan.

The soldiers discuss the insurgents and, occasionally, their motives (why, asks one, do they want to kill us?), although they focus on survival, not politics or morality. They trudge through the Hindu Kush weighed down by body armour and ammunition, hoping to ambush the enemy and avoid being ambushed.

As Junger shows us, their loyalty is first and foremost to each other, yet this naturally extends to their country. The trauma they suffer (and inflict on others) is a reminder, if any were needed, of the ghastly consequences of war – and the need for deep reflection before a nation sends its young men into battle.

Some of the firefights are like scenes from Apocalypse Now. Rocket-propelled grenades take off soldiers' limbs, and so much dust is thrown up that weapons jam and men spit into the breeches to clear their weapons.

Junger paints this craziness in primary colours. His narrative is interspersed with meditations on the nature of bravery and cowardice as well as information on ballistics and physiological responses to danger.

It is not the behavioural research or technical data that works best, of course, nor even the adrenalin-pumping passages of gritty realism. What impresses is Junger's eye and ear for telling detail and dialogue, his ability to capture what one soldier calls "the sheer weirdness of this war".

He has a neat turn of phrase – 2nd Platoon's outpost is "one of the smallest, most fragile capillaries in a vascular system that pumps American influence around the world" – and insights into his subject that are possible only with copious amounts of time and access.

The access comes by "embedding", with Junger "entirely dependent on the US military for food, shelter, security and transportation". He says he was never asked to alter his reporting, but this is somewhat disingenuous – the danger is that reporters get too close to the soldiers they are with and lose any semblance of objectivity.

Junger says it is impossible to write objectively about people who are shooting at you or those protecting you, but "possible to write honestly about the very personal and distorting experiences of war".

The evidence tends to support him. While War is sympathetic to the troops and their plight, it is certainly far from uncritical.

His book could not have come at a better time. There are many battles in Afghanistan, but Junger's account of the Korengal conflict is a great place to start if you want to know why America's adventure there is doomed.

Jon Stephenson has reported on the Afghanistan conflict since the US-led war began in 2001.

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