Finkel's focus is 'the surge', which was interesting and very different from the experiences at the start of the war documented in Generation Kill. The surge was much more bloody, more deadly, and reminded me of Catch-22, with soldiers dreading their next foray out onto the battleground.
The book is well written and takes a fairly dispassionate, unbiased view of events. There seems to be less anger at command incompetence than in Generation Kill. I found this description of Mortuary Affairs soldiers' work fairly confronting:
..whose job was to search the remains for anything personal that a soldier might have wanted with him while he was alive.
"Pictures," one of the soldiers, Sergeant First Class Ernesto Gonzalez, would say later, describing what he has found in uniforms of the bodies he has prepared.
"Graduation pictures. Baby pictures. Standing with their family. Pictures of them with their cars".
"Folded flags," said his assistant, Specialist Jason Sutton.
"A sonogram image," Gonzalez said.
It was also interesting to read about the human cost of the theories expoused by Kilcullen in The Accidental Guerilla, who is quoted by Finkel as being the driving force behind the strategy of establishing small command outposts (COPs) to bring a residential security force to an area.
Finkel also spends a significant amount of time following seriously injured (mostly from IEDs) soldiers and their families. Those soldiers cared for at the US Army Institute of Surgical Research Burn Center in San Antonio receive, by Finkel's account, an amazing standard of care.
The image of a soldier who lies in a bed wearing goggles that produce a mist to keep his eyes moist, in the absence of eyelids which were burnt off during an IED explosion, will stay with me for a while.
Generally the vibe from the book is the Americans are astounded that Iraqis are fighting them, since all they are trying to do is provide security and repair infrastructure.
"I start thinking about what happened, and then I start thinking about why I'm here," he said. "It's pointless. They say on TV that the soldiers want to be here? I can't speak for every soldier, but I think if people went around and made a list of names of who fucking thinks we should actually be here and who wants to be here, ain't nobody that wants to be here. There ain't probably one soldier in this fucking country, unless you are higher up and you're trying to get your star or you're trying to make some rank or a name for yourself - but there ain't nobody that wants to be here, because there's no point.
A very good account of 'the surge', but I would have like to read more about the overall strategy and tactics: what worked and what failed (e.g. Kauzlarich's soccer balls). Finkel tended to jump from tragedy to tragedy, with not much in between.
3.5 stars.
