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The Good Soldiers - War in Iraq
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List Price: $26.00
Our Price: $17.16
Your Save: $ 8.84 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.70443420973
EAN: 9780374165734
ISBN: 0374165734
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: 2009-09-15
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: 2009-09-15
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Reviews:
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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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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Real Cost of War
Comment: This book is not a polemic about whether we should have gone to war, or whether a war was lost or won, or even whether it was well run. It is a technicolor account of the terrible human price of modern war. As a physician who has spent many years trying to put people back together again, I can only feel anguish about the unspeakable damage done. It ought to be required reading for all members of the administration involved in making decisions to go to war. (I expect military leaders are already very much aware of the price.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Comment: I expected this to be an anti-war polemic. It was in the way that The Iliad was. In a way it did not live up to its promise, in a way it far surpassed it. With its juxtaposition of Bush quotes with the reality of the soldiers it promised to be left-wing anti-war propaganda. It never made it there. I really wanted to hate this book, I couldn't. It tells the absolute worst about war, the pain, the death, the politics, but it never leaves you with easy answers. One section of this book is set in the army hospital where a number of men were sent to recover. The book points out that the staff is careful not to talk of a soldier who 'lost a leg' or 'lost an arm' but only 'gave a leg' or 'gave an arm'. It is so easy to think of that as a pile of BS. But it is obvious that David Finkle really thinks of these men as men who gave. Even if many times these men had no kind words for the mess that they were in, they gave. Finkle seemed to appreciate this. Even if this war has divided this nation, as wars normally do, this time most Americans can appreciate that behind the horror is men, giving more than they should be asked for. Giving what young men have been asked to give since before Agamemnon.
If you can read the chapter with the men on leave without crying, you have serious problems.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Numbing Catalog of Casualties
Comment: I put this book down at about the halfway point. Long before that it became clear that this was a political anti war and anti Bush screed with the constant juxtaposition of positive quotations from Bush followed by details of casualty after casualty.I had hoped that some context or overview would emerge...NOT!...The effect was not only numbing but mindless. Of course ,that was obviously the literary strategy. Little or no recognition of strategic or for that matter tactical overview to even minimally recognize these individual tragedies in context.
In retrospect,a trivial literary strategy,when one can imagine the same technique of quotes from FDR followed by a corresponding list of deaths at Iwo Jima or Salerno,by Truman at Pusan or the Chosin reservoir,by Johnson at Hue . As a simplistic anti-war statement ,I suppose it succeeds,if one is seeking simplistic explanations in complex situations,a talent excelled in by this and so many other reporters.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Be Prepared for Reality
Comment: I spent 20 years in the military and have been deployed to many places. Ironically I went to Iraq AFTER I retired as a civilian contractor(during the 2007 surge coincidentaly). I stayed inside "the wire" the whole time (REMF)with one exceptional eye opening experience to an SF base in Tikrit. Incoming was minimal on base so I really never knew the daily grind for the soldiers who spent the majority of the time outside the "wire" but always wondered.....now I know.
I read this book in one unbelievable, emotion filled sitting. I cried, laughed, empathized, screamed and then cried some more. This is such a well written book it could almost be fiction...but of course it is not. It is very real and very up front.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Good Soldiers
Comment: Should be required reading for all Presidents and Polititions. I thank them all for their sacrafice! One of the most inspiring and difficult to read.
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