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The Good Soldiers

by David Finkel 

REVIEWER – ANNA KASSULKE

In April 2007, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich led the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment into Baghdad for a fifteen-month stint. The ‘surge’ was George W. Bush’s ‘New Way Forward’ – a counterinsurgency measure designed to ‘help the Iraqis secure their capital…and build a free nation’.

Their area of operation in eastern Baghdad, was a place no sane person would go; ‘no one came to Rustamiyah’. What 2-16 endured there was ‘Fucking dirt…fucking wind...fucking stink’. On top of this were the relentless rockets, mortars and IEDs (improvised explosive devices). ‘Fucking country’.

Day after day these young men, who had scarcely lived yet, were on edge, on their toes and some either dead or in intensive care or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But Kauzlarich would pronounce ‘It’s all good’.

When it was formed, 2-16 needed to make up numbers and so some recruits had certain conditions waived, such as medical conditions, ‘burglary, theft, aggravated assault, and even…involuntary manslaughter’. That said, The Good Soldiers shows us how unfathomably brave they were to get up every day and climb into a Humvee (high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle) and ‘to expect the unexpected’ as they patrolled the streets. Theirs was a mission that some would say was doomed to failure. But on September 5, 2007 the worldly wise George W. announced they were ‘kicking ass’.

David Finkel was with 2-16 for eight months and the book describes this ‘corner of the war’ and the ways in which 2-16 were actually having their asses kicked. These guys learned they do not hear their moment of death. They learned too that you can’t ‘scrub out an explosion completely’. Mind you, only ‘pussies’ admit to mental stress.

Nonetheless Kauzlarich believed it was worth it. He probably agreed with George W: ‘An Iraqi mother wants the same thing for her children that an American mother wants’.

Finkel’s book is generally edgy and hard-hitting; it definitely shocks. But at times the writing is forced with excessive repetitions, dodgy preposition use and clumsy sentences: ‘a standing-room only crowd with a typical chattering-crowd dynamic, especially a crowd of male soldiers’. This kind of sentence doesn’t really do its job. In addition, the chapter titles which consist of specific dates ‘February 27, 2008’, confuse. They each cover more than a single day. He could of tried to polish this up a bit if he wanted a truly sparkling exposé.

The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, Scribe, RRP $35.00