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The Good Soldiers |  | Author: David Finkel
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
Buy New: $12.56
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Seller: OB1S
Rating:  70 reviews
Sales Rank: 3724
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0374165734
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.70443420973
EAN: 9780374165734
ASIN: 0374165734
Publication Date: September 15, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9780374165734 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Amazon.com Review
Book Description 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 almost every grueling step of the way.
What was the true story of the surge? 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. Faces of the Surge
Beneath every policy decision made in the highest echelons of Washington about how a war should be fought are soldiers who live with those decisions every day. These are some of the faces of the U.S. strategy known as "the surge," as photographed by David Finkel, author of The Good Soldiers.
Product Description
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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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 70
 Why do you call them "good"? March 17, 2010
T. Nesler
Abraham Lincoln once said, "if you look for the bad in people, you will find it." I got this book because I wanted to learn about the Surge and what made it successful. (It was successful) If you want analysis and insight into this campaign, save your money. This book is a selective diary about a Ranger brigade's 15 months in Iraq and their misadventures. I say selective in that it will skip a couple of months and then go into exhausting detail about the tragedies of certain soldiers on a certain day. The pattern is relentless; the soldiers try to do right but everything goes wrong. People die. People get wounded. They kill the wrong people and the bad guys get away. It is incredibly depressing.
Finkel's reporting probably is very accurate and carefully documented, but I question if it is truly a fair analysis of this campaign and war in general. If you compare "Marine at War"Marine at War for example with this book, you will see similar situations and similar suffering on the part of the soldiers involved, but today's reporter has been steeped in the idea that ALL War is unacceptable and nothing is worth the sacrifice that these men did. Consider the quotations listed in the front of each chapter by President Bush making it appear that everything is fine when in reality nothing is working. Today's reporter is so concerned about getting the facts that he fails to convey the motives of the characters.
All bureaucracy's are SNAFUS. The army is no different. Managers are always asked to keep up morale when they know their campaigns are doomed. The soldiers in this book paid a terrible price. But their suffering is just as bad as all soldiers have faced through the centuries. The tactics and the technology may be different, but the confusion and the pain soldiers endure is universal.
If you want a book that details all the bad things that can happen to a soldier in Iraq, this is your book. If you want a book that jutifies your view that this war was senseless, read this book. If you want to know what our soldiers learned in their struggle to carry the fight to the enemy, don't buy this book. If you want to understand why the enemy was fighting our men, read something else. And finally, if you want a happy ending which shows how our forces brought peace to all the warring factions and returned Iraq from the brink of chaos, definitely, this book is not for you!
 Great Read! March 14, 2010
Philip Spinucci (Venice, FL)
Eye opener. Gets you in touch with what Iraq was really like for our soldiers. Well written.
 A Heartbreaking and Engrossing Read February 23, 2010
G. Whitehouse (Seattle, WA United States)
A jacket review of The Good Soldiers avers that "[t]his may be the best book on war since the Iliad." That's quite a claim, considering the thousands of years of history and probably hundreds of thousands of volumes that have since been published on the subject. While I'm not nearly well read enough to be able to make such a boast, The Good Soldiers is easily the best book on any topic I have read in the past 5 or 10 years. Author David Finkel brings his readers into the hearts and minds of an American infantry battalion posted in Baghdad during the 2007 surge, led by Lt Col Ralph Kauzlarich. Kauzlarich initially isn't the most sympathetic character, but within a chapter or so I found myself caring about him, his unit, and their mission. The fact that this takes place amidst nearly indescribable insanity made me ache for the tragedy that is the Iraq war.
Finkel does it all by paying attention to the small details like the seemingly unimportant conversations between characters and the routines they follow when preparing for a patrol, or late at night when they can't sleep. Finkel's effortless prose makes the story compelling, though his lack of presence in the story itself makes me wonder how he (presumably an embedded correspondent) could have possibly captured so many details from so many lives, even when they're home on mid-tour leave or visiting injured comrades at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. He describes the privation of the Iraqis, the frustration of the grunts, and the sacrifices of their families with equal tenderness. Even as the Iraq war appears to be fading from our collective consciousness,the scenes brought to life in The Good Soldiers, whether of combat, doctors struggling to save a patient, or of a soldier's mother and wife caring for their wounded loved one... these will stay with me for a long while.
Realities of War February 16, 2010
Ii Naotaka (between Continents)
One of the most poignant books I've ever read. Seeing the soldier's story of this war so well treated is gratifying. Finkel tells it straight without the intensifiers and without resort to the cloying agendas of a political cant. The colonel and his soldiers acted in accord with the Army's expectations, and by showing us that, Finkel is saying a lot for the unit, all its soldiers, and the Army that trained and equipped them. The immensity of the commander's responsibility and his courage as a battle commander deserves the highest respect possible. Importantly, this chronicle of his unit is a tribute to every infantry battalion in the U.S. Army (as well as to the many other units that have effectively become infantry units). The unit mission was far more demanding than anything our commanders have had to face since Vietnam, and because it was all urban combat, it was likely a far tougher 15-month deployment than those deployments the Vietnam era commanders had to face. The Army has a cadre of officers now who have had to deal with the worst realities of war and its aftermath.
A great insight February 15, 2010
D. Aubin
I could not put this book down. It was an eye opening experience hearing about the men my age at war. I have recommended this book to all my family members and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know what the surge felt and looked like through the eyes and hearts of our soldiers. I appreciated that the book didn't lean left or right, or tried to justify the war. It was an honest account of the soldiers out there doing the work and risking their lives (and losing them) for a cause (whatever that cause did or did not turn out to be).
An excellent book and frankly any voter should read it since we are the ones electing the people who make the decisions regarding this war.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 70
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