Sebastian Junger's War

Traveling through the Pamirs Photo by WantTo Create on Unsplash

“It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.” Robert E. Lee And he should have known.

I’m reading Sebastian Junger’s War for a second time, mainly because I read it too fast the first go-round. It’s about his time as a journalist embedded with a platoon of soldiers in Korengal Valley in Afghanistan near to the Khyber Pass and the border with Pakistan.

Junger and Tim Hetherington also put together two documentaries, Restrepo and Korengal on the US effort to bring the modern world to the reluctant tribesmen living there (ultimately futile because the valley was only a few years later abandoned to the Taliban). Sadly, Hetherington died later while furthering his pursuit of photojournalism in the Libyan Civil War.

In War, Junger describes the Korengal Valley as “the Afghanistan of Afghanistan: too remote to conquer, too poor to intimidate, too autonomous to buy off.”

"Combat was a game that the United States had asked Second Platoon to become very good at, and once they had, the United States had put them on a hilltop without women, hot food, running water, communications with the outside world, or any kind of entertainment for over a year. Not that the men were complaining, but that sort of thing has consequences. Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure out how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for… Nearly fifty American soldiers have died carrying out those orders. I'm not saying that's a lot or a little, but the cost does need to be acknowledged."

from Junger’s website, as quoted from War

These tribal people of Korengal were the genuine article when it came to living off the grid. They were people who want to leave the modern world–more accurately, they never meant to join it. Maybe like those holed up deep in Idaho and Montana. And they hated the Americans as invaders, never liberators. Junger marvels at the ways in which they held off the US, with its firepower, helicopter gunships, jets, satellites and generally 21st Century warfare capabilities. The mountains were their backyard, and they were willing to die to keep their way of life. Like guerrilla fighters everywhere.

Yet it shocked the Afghanis to see how primitive the conditions of American troops were in places like Restrepo.

The book’s focus is on the American volunteer foot soldiers, how they coped during battle, and how they came apart returning from the war. In many ways it’s a preamble to Tribe, Junger’s later book wherein he reaches to grasp how humans bond with each other in times of crisis–and when they don’t.

The American soldiers Junger was embedded with confirmed the Confederate general’s quote. The tension they faced in anticipation leading up or during lulls in the fighting disappeared in an actual firefight; after a while they’d yearn for the battles to overcome anxiety coupled with boredom.

I appreciate Junger’s writing style. It’s deceptively understated, making it easy to blow through–and requiring a second reading. He lets facts speak for themselves. As an observer (and he does not claim to be disinterested) he rarely gets in the way of his story. You’d have to watch the film documentary, Restrepo to get a visual sense of what he was living with–what the platoon was living with–hanging off the edge of a mountain enveloped by more of the same. From the book, you do get the respect he holds for these men–most in their twenties–and to think they’d even volunteer for it. And he’s not immune himself to the risks the platoon is taking:

“While we’re waiting for the gun team to join us I have time to decide where I want to be in the line. O’Byrne is up front with the rest of his fire team–Money and Steiner and Vaughn. If we walk into an ambush they’re going to take the brunt of it, but they’re the guys I’ve been bunking with and know best. When you’re entirely dependent on other men for your safety you find yourself making strange unconscious choices about otherwise very mundane things: where to walk, where to sit, who to talk to… It’s subtle, what you want–I’m not sure there are even words for it–but at night on a frozen road outside an enemy village the choices you make reflect something real. I pick up my pack and move forward.”

from War by Sebastian Junger

The story’s timeframe is 2007-2008 Afghanistan, and the Army already had women on the frontline as medics and drivers–even serving in missions designed to interrogate Afghani women, but in theory women were not to engage in actual battle. There were newspaper stories, of course, where female soldiers ended up in firefights, so the line was blurred. However, at a station such as OP Restrepo (named for a fallen comrade) those soldiers were all men. Today, some still argue women shouldn’t face the brutality of warfare–as if it’s OK for the country to send our young men into that hell? And what of the women who choose to take part? Junger never mentions the subject in War, and I’d be curious to hear his take on it.

In a handful of scenes, Junger describes just how basic life was for the men at Restrepo and how they adapted. Definitely a tale about the males of the species. Showers at best once a week when they came back off the mountain to the larger base. Fleas and scorpions. PVC pipe sections jammed into the ground were used to pee into–out in the open–and the latrines were referred to as burn-shitters, because of how the stuff was disposed of–using diesel fuel, not the most ecological means.

Humor was as bent as their living conditions–like debating the ways certain of them had in ‘beating the chicken’ in such tight quarters, leading up to the punch line question as to whether any had done it during a firefight. The ridiculousness of the image suited the absurdity of their existence, camping in awe inspiring mountain country of cedar forests surrounded by nearly invisible devils seeking to kill them to the last man. Why not make up stories about the most absurd places these boy soldiers whacked off?

Rory Stuart’s book, The Places in Between, gives you a good sense of the Afghan culture lying outside the cities. The book is about his walk across Afghanistan immediately after the fall of the Taliban–and before the majority of the civil war that followed. Even the book’s review is a good read:

“The book is replete with fascinating, if fearfully context-dependent, travel tips. If you are forced to lie about being a Muslim, claim you're from Indonesia, a Muslim nation few non-Indonesian Muslims know much about. Open land undefiled by sheep droppings has most likely been mined. If you're taking your donkey to high altitudes, slice open its nostrils to allow greater oxygen flow. Don't carry detailed maps, since they tend to suggest 007 affinities. If, finally, you're determined to do something as recklessly stupid as walk across a war zone, your surest bet to quash all the inevitable criticism is to write a flat-out masterpiece.”

from Tom Bissell’s review in the New York Times.

I was in ROTC for two years at Clemson. My sophomore year, the Army Captain who led us–he was an Airborne Ranger–returned to Vietnam for another tour and was killed in a helicopter crash. I was still working out for myself whether the war was something I supported, and his death shook me. I’d been with an Airborne training unit–’cause it got me out of drill and landed me running through the woods practicing combat patrols, which was admittedly fun, firing blanks from an M1 at the seniors who would be doing it for real in only months. When word got back that the Captain died, it dawned on me late that this was not a game. Some of us are just slow.

The college chaplain, a Jesuit named Father Fisher was a pacifist, and a great an influence. I was taught, as were Catholics of that time, to believe in something called a ‘just war,’ that Fisher rejected entirely. Rumor had it that he aided Daniel Berrigan fleeing from the FBI after burning draft records with homemade napalm. Fisher ultimately withdrew from hearing confessions, saying he couldn’t, in good conscience, counsel women against birth control.

Fisher invited me to accompany him and an anti-war bishop whose name is lost to me–to return him to Greenville to catch his flight. The bishop had delivered a speech in Clemson’s Tillman Hall auditorium and during the following questions and answers, Father Fisher challenged him to offer an argument in favor of a just war. The bishop replied that he thought Fisher had the stronger ethical position.

Sitting later at dinner listening to those two men of the cloth discuss morality made an impression on me, kid that I was—which I’m sure was Father Fisher’s point.

I ultimately decided, while I was opposed to the Vietnam war, I’d take my high lottery number and stay out of the way, rather than declare I was a conscientious objector. Something about feeling I was too insignificant to take on the United States Selective Service, and how it would follow me later in life—that held me back. The bravest I could do was to grow my hair long while playing Jimi Hendrix on the record player.

War, as Sebastian Junger describes it, is a good way for adrenaline junkies to get their fixes. Not such a good way to prepare soldiers for the civilian life to follow. There’s a great plot for a story waiting to be written.

Sounding the Retreat

Last Sunday’s Washington Post magazine had an article “Sounding the Retreat” on rising sea levels and the impact on coastal places. Norfolk and Virginia Beach are already in trouble, as is Miami. Most people haven’t heard of ‘king tides’ and if they have, they probably hail from places like these. Just a heavy summer downpour in Miami causes six inch deep street flooding–and it’s been going on like that for while.

The article discusses the situation in Nags Head on the Outer Banks, and an ongoing fight against beach erosion. Dredgers are pulling sand from off shore and pumping it back onto the beaches. A year and a half ago, we witnessed a rebuilding operation in Duck, a few miles north of Nags Head. Following that operation, we were blessed with wide beaches again. This past fall it seemed about half of the new beach had been pulled back into the ocean. What the ocean giveth, the ocean taketh away.

On the Outer Banks, this is compounded by the fact that the dunes have been inching toward the mainland for as long as scientists have studied the phenomena. The ridge underlying the Outer Banks is said to be a remnant mountain range from back in prehistoric times. It’s been receding in geologic time; now the rising sea levels are happening in a much shorter time frame.

According to the Post article, something like $500 million has been spent in the last fifteen years holding onto the Outer Banks dunes which in turn are draped with million-dollar beach homes cheek to jowl up and down the islands. Hurricanes do their share of damage to the dunes, as do the winter nor’easters, but at some point resisting the rising seas will become futile. Which makes me sad. Like Venice without gondolas.

However you want to argue the cause, the oceans are rising.

The Nags Head mayor is quoted in the article, “You’re not going to buy out rows and rows of multimillion-dollar houses at one time and say, now we’ve retreated from the beach.” In the case of the Outer Banks, being not so wide, the only realistic retreat is off the barrier islands entirely. North Carolina has quite a lot of real estate tied up on the Outer Banks, and it’s not simply the oceanfront houses that are being threatened. Bounding the western shore, Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds are directly linked to the ocean’s levels. Water seeks its own level–something I learned in grade school science class.

NC Route 12 is the only continuous road running north-south on the islands. In Duck, where D and I have been taking week-long trips since before we were married, Route 12 is only a couple feet and some riprap set off from Albemarle Sound, and not much higher. It runs that way for most of the northern end of the island chain. It would take only a 2-foot rise in sea level before the only way you reached much north of Southern Shores would be by boat again. The ducks could reclaim Duck, sort of like that lion pride lounging on the road in South Africa.

“Keeler, of the Coastal Studies Institute, says rebuilding beaches may make sense in the short term, but it’s not sustainable, like other protections. It sets up towns like Nags Head for a catastrophe. ‘If you keep nourishing [the beach], then people are going to keep investing, and if people keep investing, you’re going to keep nourishing right up to the crash,’ he says.”

from the Washington Post Magazine article.

The house we’ve been spending time in Duck sits on one of the highest dunes in the area. You can stand on the deck and look to the east and the Atlantic and watch Albemarle Sound sunsets going down in the west. A kayak is stored in the lockup at the house. We may need it soon just to reach the place.

Finding Our Way Back 

It’s nearly time to take Layla out for her afternoon parade through the neighborhood. It’s our only encounter with other people; we see but a handful in the morning when we walk. D and I are amazed at all the people we’re seeing outdoors these days—maybe something good will come of this virus.

I don’t get the protestors, though I may understand their discomfort. And I don’t see the Koch brothers out there; they know better. At the neighborhood and community levels, the country seems to be facing the coronavirus danger the way Junger says humans normally react—by banding together. Though he admits that the country as a whole is less of a single mind about a number of issues. The protestors want people to know they are angry. Is it because this thing is invisible? Not a hurricane, not a tornado, so we don’t rally the same way? Dunno, but it’s sad. I don’t wish them ill health, even if they seem to wish it on the rest of us.

There is opportunity in this crisis to do better than we have–at helping one another–at planning to face some hard truths about how this society has been living of late–and I hope we can take advantage of it.

When the present confinement is over, when Americans find our way back to more stable times, we will carry the memory of these days with us. And if it leads to a rejuvenation akin to what followed World War II, then something good can come of it. Our young men and women who volunteer for military service are no less determined than previous generations in their willingness to sacrifice. The country should let them serve as example and get back to building a better existence for us all. E Pluribus Unum

“The phrase is similar to a Latin translation of a variation of Heraclitus's tenth fragment, ‘The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one’… St Augustine used a variant of the phrase, ex pluribus unum, in his Confessions. But it seems more likely that the phrase refers to Cicero's paraphrase of Pythagoras in his De Officiis, as part of his discussion of basic family and social bonds as the origin of societies and states: ‘When each person loves the other as much as himself, it makes one out of many (unus fiat ex pluribus), as Pythagoras wishes things to be in friendship.’ ”

from Wikipedia article

Seems we humans have understood this for a while–going back at least to the Greeks, even if occasionally we need a reminder.