Veterans

Comment by FATBRAD on May 19, 2010 at 2:17am

I'm glad to see someone represent combat (not neccessarily war) for what it is, putting aside all the self-loathing whining and 'feel sorry for them' shit. This book shows it to be a violent, unfathomably epic event that brings the absolute best out of men and reinforces it's addictiveness. Outstanding read, I am eager to see the movie. The only thing that would taint it's purity is if the proceeds didn't go to a warrior foundation of some sort or at least to the families of the fallen.

Comment by CHRISTOPHER C. HENES on July 2, 2010 at 2:21pm

Sam: Sadly after we dimantled the Taliban and declared victory in 2001, we focused all of our resources on the other theater leaving minimal troops in Afghanistan.

Result was that the bad guys retooled and got back into the game.

The efforts of you and your fellow members of 'the Herd" are greatly appreciated.

Comment by Wayne Redick on July 6, 2010 at 11:21pm

I hope this movie refocuses attention onto U.S. and Allies efforts in Afghanistan and the unique War that it is.

Comment by Jeffrey Brook Worthington on July 16, 2010 at 9:24am

Just checking in. Finished reading "WAR" and still pumped up. 20 year vet with no combat experience, but support combat veterans getting ALL their medical benefits.
John Q Public has "forgot" that there are two wars still going on. We're "outsourcing" the military by the countries who want to get quick citizen status. I don't think that this is "wrong",it just keeps the horror's of war on the backburner.

Comment by Michael Patrick McDowell on August 19, 2010 at 4:04pm

19 August 2010,
Just finished reading WAR and pumped up and angry how O'Byrne and others were treated on their return home. The Army and the nation is heading in the right direction for the most part to help returning VETs but still have a long way to go. This is a great book and well told story of how war sucks, but you have brothers for life. Sebastian Junger you and all that help did a great job.
Pat McDowell
OEF-5
US Army Ret

Comment by Gary Bowes on August 20, 2010 at 1:06pm

On my Facebook page I noted that this book "established a direct correlation between induced anxiety and beads of sweat on my forehead". I found many parallels between what these men endured and our service in Vietnam. Our Afghan servicemen have both my eternal gratitude and my tears.

Come home safely, guys...

Comment by WEDwyer Jr on March 15, 2011 at 12:05pm

Currently deployed,fighting the gentlemans war from a cockpit on ISR mission.Reading WAR and remembering why I left ground ops for aviation.Vet,airborne+ranger schools,73-74.Past deployments as a ground guy and aviator South America,Afghanistan,Iraq.Perhaps war is our natural state as men of modern age though it is obviously becoming a smaller and smaller caste system in USA.Americas not at war ,they re at the mall.WEDJr

Comment by G.M.M. Coghlan on May 6, 2011 at 1:51am

One of the finest books about men and combat I've read yet, Mr. Junger. I hadn't seen Restrepo until all of my patients returning from downrange recommended it. After seeing the film, I of course had to read the book. A friend one described being a combat veteran as "membership in a secret fraternity that only the ignorant or mad aspire to, and that you can't help but be both proud and ashamed of your membership in." Your book made that very real for me. It goes on my list with Michael Herr's "Dispatches", Artyom Borovik's "The Hidden War", and T.R Fehrenbach's "This Kind of War" as an excellent window to understanding.

Comment by Douglas Ross on February 15, 2012 at 11:52am

Just finished "WAR". Still trying to process it along with comments of others. Book blew me away and brought back old memories. Jolly Greens, DaNang '67-'68

Comment by Carl Ploense III on January 3, 2013 at 10:21pm

I served in two branches, Marines and Seabees.  I did a tour in Iraq in 2006.  Every day since then I have tried to make sense of the feelings, thoughts, emotions I experience.  Junger is the first writer I read that makes sense of any of these things.  He is a soldiers writer in the sense that Ernie Pyle was.  He gets it.

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