If you liked Junger's book The Perfect Storm, you'll love this one even more. In War he writes of his time as an embedded reporter in the remote Korengal Valley in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, arguably one of the, if not the most dangerous locations for the US military anywhere in the world. His descriptions of life and death, and his insights into soldiering on the front lines far from the rear echelons are riveting, addictive, thought provoking. If you want to read what the war is really like in small squads on the ground, this is the book for you.

A good book written from a third party perspective that tries to remain bias free. Details the year+ that journalist Sebastian Junger spent with a platoon in the war of Afghanistan. I have read quite a few books on the subject now, and this doesn't really provide a whole lot of new information on the subject but deals more or less with how the members of the battalion he's with dealt with the stress and pressures of the war, and the mental and physical strains of dealing with it as well as life after it. Not a very long read but an enjoyable one nonetheless.

It is interesting to read Junger's" War" and then read Mariantes "Matterhorn: A novel of Vietnam". One book is written by an embedded reporter, Junger, reporting on the feel of Afghanistan and Mariantes wrote a novel about the war in Vietnam. We gain a true insight into how a soldier in any war can proceed with bullets flying around them. Each and every soldier does not fight the battle for a cause but rather for the guy next to him in the trench. It is an honour that will cause a soldier to take one for the guys. Both authors bring this fact to the front and give you a great feel of boots on the ground with minute images of realism. Both novels hit the nail on the head. I would recommend reading both books.

As an avid follower of the Afghan conflict I've read multiple books on the subject, and was thoroughly impressed by Junger's approach to the topic. He provides insightful commentary from a new angle: the experiences of the soliders themselves. Other authors have tried to master this approach before (Christie Blatchford comes close!) but none pull it off quite like Junger. His commentary is riveting, raw and importantly real. The experiences described by Junger very much coincide with what I have heard from my friends that served in Afghanistan as members of the Canadian Forces.

Simply, if you're interested in the Afghan conflict, you must read Junger.

(I'm a Masters student writing my thesis on Canada's participation in Afghanistan and even quoted Junger in my paper! It is THAT good.)