Review by Booklist Review
Chronicles of American military units in action have flooded shelves recently, but rarely do those titles follow the soldiers after the battles and after their separation from the service. Kesling takes this concept to its gut-wrenching, emotionally charged conclusion by following soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division through a deployment to Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley in 2009. Every casualty from that IED-infested valley of pomegranate trees, mud-walled compounds, and radish fields is excruciatingly detailed, using the expletive-laced, jargon-filled language of soldiers. Psychology and philosophy are stressed in Bravo Company, alongside weapons and other military prerogatives. It is a journey into the minds of each veteran and how they cope with traumatic brain injuries, loss of limbs, and PTSD following battles in which they rarely saw the enemy. Kesling has high praise for service members and the army's medical system, while he is realistic about the horrors of war. Bravo Company is that rare deep dive into the meaning of war and soldiering, the inevitable tragedies and trauma that accompany them, and what happens after you hang up the uniform.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist and Marine Corps veteran Kesling's gut-wrenching debut documents the physical and psychological tolls of the war in Afghanistan through the story of one U.S. Army unit's deployment. In 2009, the 82nd Airborne's Bravo Company went to Afghanistan's Arghandab Valley to conduct foot patrols against the Taliban. Kesling draws empathetic yet incisive profiles of the unit's officers and grunts, many of whom enlisted after the 9/11 attacks: "It's a simple truth that men who go to war want an orgasm of violence for the sake of violence itself," he writes. "Don't let them tell you any different." Setting up their combat outpost in a radish field, Bravo Company began patrolling in December 2009 and sustained its first fatality from a Taliban IED the day after Christmas. Kesling conveys the visceral horror of such deaths ("With an IED it's not dust to dust. It's to pink mist, the result of a violent and horrible cancellation of a person's parts and pieces") and their long-term effects: three soldiers dead, dozens with life-altering dismemberments, two suicides, and dozens of attempted suicides. He also reports on the soldiers' difficult reintegration into civilian life, the unique challenges of traumatic brain injuries, and the 2019 launch of Operation Resiliency, a program that organizes unit reunions with an explicit focus on mental well-being. Devastating yet cautiously hopeful, this is an essential study of combat trauma. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM/Sagalyn. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An urgent account of a parachute infantry regiment in Afghanistan. Most books about the war in Afghanistan end grimly, and this one more than most, but readers will find it impossible to put down. Wall Street Journal Midwest correspondent Kesling, a former Marine officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, follows Bravo Company of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, already experienced from earlier tours, on their 2009 deployment. The author delivers vivid biographies of a dozen soldiers who "grew up as kids playing Army in the woods…waiting for the day they could enlist and head off to boot camp. They watched movies like Full Metal Jacket and The Green Berets and hagiographic tales of manly heroism." During their deployment, Bravo soldiers ventured into the Arghandab Valley, an extremely dangerous area where a previous unit had stopped patrolling, "tired of getting fucked up by Taliban bombs." Kesling delivers a gripping, detailed, nuts-and-bolt account of their ordeal. Only three men died, but a dozen "lost at least one limb," and half the company received Purple Hearts. Most unnervingly, they almost never saw the enemy, who kept out of sight but planted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of improvised explosive devices often undetectable by minesweepers. Patrolling was a nightmare in which soldiers carefully walked in the footsteps of the man in front, a difficult tactic to maintain. Kesling devotes more than the usual space to his subjects' lives after returning home, similar to David Finkel's approach in Thank You for Your Service. "In the decade since," writes Kesling, "two men killed themselves…more than a dozen made attempts and others admit they have seriously considered it." Slowly but with some success, the government, concerned citizens, and even the soldiers themselves began to address the often crippling physical, mental, and emotional consequences of their deployment. An outstanding narrative about a single unit's harrowing experiences in the "forever war." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
