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Generation Kill | 
 enlarge | Author: Evan Wright
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.46
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Avg. Customer Rating:  167 reviews
Sales Rank: 404
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0425224740
Dewey Decimal Number: 956
EAN: 9780425224748
ASIN: 0425224740
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
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| • | Paperback - Generation Kill | | • | Hardcover - GENERATION KILL:Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War | | • | Kindle Edition - Generation Kill | | • | Audio CD - Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War | | • | Audio CD - Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War | | • | Library Binding - Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War | | • | Audio CD - Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War | | • | Hardcover - Generation Kill | | • | Paperback - Generation Kill | | • | Paperback - Generation Kill | | • | Hardcover - Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War | | • | Paperback - Generation Kill |
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Book Description
Within hours of 9/11, America's war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the "First Suicide Battalion" would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer.
Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.
Download Description
In the tradition of Black Hawk Down and Jarhead comes a searing portrait of young men fighting a modern-day war. A powerhouse work of nonfiction, Generation Kill expands on Evan Wright's acclaimed three-part series that appeared in Rolling Stone during the summer of 2003. His narrative follows the twenty-three marines of First Recon who spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed ""First Suicide Battalion,"" searched out enemy fighters by racing ahead of American battle forces and literally driving into suspected ambush points. Evan Wright lived on the front lines with this platoon from the opening hours of combat, to the fall of Baghdad, through the start of the guerrilla war. He was welcomed into their ranks, and from this bird's-eye perspective he tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to be ruthless killers. He chronicles the triumphs and horrors-physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual-that these marines endured while achieving victory in a war many questioned before it began. Wright's book is a timely account of war; even more important, it is a timeless description of the human drama taking place on today's battlefields. Written with brutal honesty, raw intensity, and startling intimacy, Generation Kill is destined to become a classic and take its place in the canon of the most captivating and authentic works of war literature.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 162 more reviews...
 Eye opener September 2, 2008
Great book, should be a must read for anyone interested in the mess we call the Iraq war.
Great read! August 31, 2008
The Book is great, I got into it after watching the first few episodes of the series. The book goes into further detail, obviously, than the series. It makes the reader see the difference between the command and the actual grunt and how different the war is to what we perceive. All in all I recommend the book for an eye opening read about the beginning of the Iraq conflict.
 Riding with the Iraq War Spearhead August 27, 2008
Since HBO just finished running a seven part miniseries based on this book, I decided I would probably get more out of the miniseries by reading the book. As is the case in situations like this, you definitely get more out of the book than the television show. And in this case, it makes for a excellent, first person account of the opening months of the Iraq War.
Generation Kill, by Evan Wright, is the result of his time in Iraq, embedded with the Marine Corp's First Reconnaissance Battalion, Second Platoon of Bravo Company, during the first three months of the Iraq War. Recon Marines are highly trained, very close to Special Forces, to work behind enemy lines. In the opening months of the Iraq War, they are used as the point of the war spear, driving quickly toward Baghdad in an effort to fake Saddam Hussein's army into thinking that it is the main military thrust. Wright, the only reporter embedded with First Recon, Second Platoon of Bravo Company, tells the story of this small group of Marines as they head toward Baghdad. In doing so, you get a much better understanding of the people that fight for our country, their thoughts on the ultimate taboo, killing, and an inside look at the 21st century US Military machine.
Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not, this is an eye-opening book. Since Wright had access to all of the men of Second Platoon of Bravo Company, including the commanders, you are witness to the conflicting orders, poor commanders, exposed to what it is like to go days on end without sleep, and how the men deal with killing other human beings. It is mentally exhausting reading as Wright describes how these Marines live, work, and interact with each other. Some of the best scenes take place within the confines of the Humvee, as the soldiers pass time by singing songs, rip on each other, and talk about their life back in the States. One interesting point is that there are rules to riding in certain Humvee's; no singing of country songs, no Charms candy (thought to be bad luck). You may think that the US has one of the best equipped military's, but as Wright shows you, Second Platoon is plagued by lack of lubricant for their weapons, causing them to jam at the most inopportune times, and batteries for their Night Vision Goggles and Thermal Imaging Devices. These deficits can have very tragic consequences. Finishing this book, you should have a new appreciation for the men and women in the Armed Forces. As Wright notes:
I am not always confident most Americans fully appreciate the caliber of the people fighting for them, the sacrifices they have made, and the sacrifices they continue to make.
This book will provide you with some appreciation.
Awesome Book August 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
My father was an Army medic in Vietnam so I've always been partial to reading about the military experience of war because of the stories my dad told me as a boy. This is the best book about those experiences I have ever read. It's almost as good as my dad's stories. Pick it up and read it now.
The Latest Generation August 25, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
For many of the people responsible for bringing on the war in Iraq, "support the troops" is a term that sounds good but is really devoid of substance. Regardless of whether it was right or wrong to go to this war, there is little doubt that the military was often short-changed by the very people who were supposedly supporting them: poorly armored vehicles, inadequate or inappropriate supplies, limited financial benefits and the atrocities at Walter Reed are some of the crimes that immediately come to mind. And who exactly are the troops: not merely numbers on a page or wrongly glorified heroes like Jessica Lynch or Ron Tillman (they may be great people, but they were lied about for propaganda purposes), but real people.
But even as real people, as seen in Evan Wright's Generation Kill, they are exceptional as well. His book follows a couple platoons in the Marines of the First Recon Battalion. These Marines are the elite members of the Corps, trained to be the first in a war zone. The book begins just prior to the Iraq invasion in 2003 and more-or-less concludes by "Mission Accomplished" time. During that time, they will go from the Iraqi/Kuwati border to Baghdad and beyond, often encountering an enemy that may be disorganized but still is deadly.
The Marines depicted are definitely flawed people, hardly the idealized men shown in those Marine commercials. In fact, many of them seem to be in a state of arrested adolescence, cracking racist jokes and fighting each other, often in an attempt to bond further. Some are intelligent, while others are a bit dimmer. But for all their flaws, there is also much to admire about them: they are good at what they do (for the most part) and they will endure hardships few others (including myself) could abide, typically with a smile.
Not all these Marines are competent. In fact, any Marine that Wright only identifies by a nickname - like Captain America or Encino Man - comes off as a buffoon. And since these buffoons are often officers, their idiocies endanger others as well. In fact, it often seems that the noncoms have more contempt for these officers than the Iraqis. Furthermore, they are often disappointed in the higher-ups as well, who often seem to have no real strategy to winning the war (and given that it still goes on over 5 years after "Mission Accomplished", there is good reason to question those authorities).
One problem with Generation Kill is that it does only focus on one small, elite group of Marines and doesn't give much of an impression of how other troops were (for better or for worse). Nonetheless, Wright does a really good job at showing what the day-to-day life of these Marines is like. And though my review may have a political bent, Wright is pretty good at keeping the politics out as much as possible, so whatever side of the war issue you're on, it is worth reading this book to understand a little about what is really going on with the soldiers in Iraq.
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