A Rumor Of War by Philip Caputo

[allmyposts]

The book is worth all praise that a man can give. Awesome book that captures not just interesting facts of the war but the attitude, physiological state of men in war, the frenzy activity due to which horrors of war occur, the dance of death, the boredom in Vietnam, the evil inside a man, the fears and the fear of fear, the doubts about sacrifice for nation, the doubts about death of beloved, spit and polish of USMC, what constant fear can turn you into, what death of brother-in-arms does to a soldier and a lot more.


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[Sancho]

Agreed. A true gem in that genre. If you liked that one, you may like: The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien - it's the kind of insight into war you get when a sensitive intellectual guy becomes a squad-level soldier and goes to Vietnam.

[cafolini]

It's true that men need to be more sensitive to all the horrors of war. Vietnam was a terrible mistake in many ways. But they need to be even more sensitive to the possibility of losing freedom of choice before the insane cultures that abound in more than half the world.

[paradoxical]

I agree, A Rumor of War was a great book. I read it because I wanted insight on what it was like to go to war and it made quite an impression on me.

Some of the things that surprised me were issues like severe boredom, like you mentioned. I also remember the psychological effects he spoke of: being surrounded by the enemy during the night and becoming paranoid -- never knowing when you might die -- the huge waste of money, etc.

I read this during the start of the first Gulf War, when there was a lot of talk about possibly having another draft. I had joined the antiwar movement and was going to protests for the first time. I wanted to read something that really exposed the horrors of war and this book did it.

[allmyposts]

I agree, A Rumor of War was a great book. ........................I read this during the start of the first Gulf War, when there was a lot of talk about possibly having another draft.


Hey .. Would you kindly recommend any good books on the Gulf War?? I would like to know how it was!!!

To everyone here!! Know any good books in this genre?? Can you suggest them??

Gonna check The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien for now!!

[Sancho]

Howdy allmyposts,

It’s a pretty big genre and it goes back a long time, probably to Homer’s Illiad.

Here are a few books I’ve read, and can recommend, mostly about our adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are, for the most part, journalistic efforts from reporters embedded with maneuver units.

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, by Doug Stanton.
- Special Forces in Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 and the battle to capture/liberate Mazar-i-Sharif.

Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, by Sean Naylor (Army Times)
- SOF Teams, SEAL Teams, a brigade of 101st Airborne troops, Elements of the 10th Mountain division in March, 2002, Shahi-Kot Valley in Eastern Afghanistan. These guys found a much tougher fight with the Taliban and Al Qaeda than they’d expected. It reminded me of the battle between NVA units and the 7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam in 1965. That book was called:

We Were Soldiers Once… And Young, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway
- Hal Moore was the battalion commander and Joe Galloway was an embedded reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. It was huge and unexpected fight, and it wasn’t lost on then Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore that he was commanding the same Cavalry Regiment that Lieutenant Colonel George Custer had commanded 100 years earlier at The Little Big Horn (Holy mackerel! Would you look at all these F’ing Indians!)

Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War, by Tim Pritchard (London based Journalist)
- March, 2003, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines has a helluva fight while trying to secure bridges over the Euphrates River and The Saddam Canal in the city of Nasiriyah.


Thunder Run, by David Zucchino (L.A. Times)
- April, 2003, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, in an audacious attack, rolled into downtown Baghdad. I don’t know if you remember, but when 3rd ID reached Baghdad everybody thought the Battle for Baghdad was going to be a long and bloody siege. The commander of 2nd Bde, Colonel David Perkins, led one of his battalions (TF 1-64) on a “Thunder Run”, in and out the first day, and the second day they rolled into Bagdad and stayed. “Baghdad Bob” was reporting from the banks of the Euphrates that American blood was “running in the streets,” meanwhile Colonel Perkins and the soldiers of the 1-64 Armor Battalion were smoking cigars in the Saddam’s Defense Ministry Palace right across the river.

The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel (Washington Post)
- I saved the best for last. This book, in my humble opinion, crosses over from journalism to literature. January, 2007 – July, 2008, 2-16 Task Force, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division attempts stability operations in a double-tough eastern Baghdad neighborhood. The 2-16 TF Commander was Lieutenant Colonel Ralf Kauzlarich, although by the end of the deployment some of his soldiers had begun calling him (not to his face) “Lost Kauz.” I met him.

[Buh4Bee]

The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien is a great book. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. I would also highly recommend it.

[allmyposts]

@sancho,

thanks for the list!! I usually read the military fiction books till date and a few non-fiction (usually about seals / delta boys)!!

thanks for it all!!