Book Review: Generation Kill by Evan Wright
There’s an overwhelming sense of madness to war. No, I’ve never been a combatant in one, caught up in one, nor have been anywhere except on the homefront. As an armchair reader of military history, I could only (and absurdly) be called a fan.
Modern warfare, however, remains a mystery to me. Is there strategy in being able to kill someone forty miles away by simply pushing a button? Yeah, of course there is.
That’s what’s interesting about Generation Kill
Here, the common soldier just happens to be a highly trained, elite, and very expensive recon Marine. Does that matter though? He still has to follow orders, struggle through the fog of art, support his brothers, figure out the individual within the group, go into firefight melees, and shoot to kill.
The future will say that General Mathis wanted to advance a small force to engage the enemy ahead of the main attacking force. But no one is going to know anything about that until later. First Recon just knows that they keep driving into positions where they keep getting ambushed and left vulnerable. Still, they come out the other side alive and able to strut about their prowess and survival.
For those not interested in military writings, this book will lose you. I think there are too many basics—ranks, orders of battle, martial culture, etc.—to pick up from a first-time print read. My suggestion is to watch the HBO series to get some visuals and a sense of that world.
The book, however, provides better details and corrected the for-the-story’s-sake changes that the TV adaptation made.
Generation Kill
On the micro level, we learn about the Marine Corp culture of today. These kids, and a lot of them are kids, are brave, intensely trained, and unbelievably crazy. And they know they are crazy. They kind of have to be.