Semper Fi

I have just finished three very good books about military. The first was Generation Kill by Evan Wright about a platoon of First Reconnaissance Battalion Marines, which are the Marine Corps' special operations unit. Wright gives a pretty engaging account and does a pretty good job suppressing any political tendencies he may have. The second book was Shooter by Jack Coughlin, the top-ranked Marine sniper. Finally, I read Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell about Operation Redwing which, by a quirk of fate and kindness, became the largest loss of life ever by the Navy SEALs.

Each was very different, but I was glad to have read them in that order. Generation Kill, though giving you an often disturbing picture of the Iraq invasion, involves little tragedy amongst the men you become attached to in the book. Shooter is a much more intimate book as Gunny Coughlin gives the reader vivid details of his targets, tracking them and then the "smoke checks." Riveting stuff.

Lone Survivor is powerful. Luttrell's four man SEAL team go hunting for a Taliban bad guy. Goatherds stumble upon them and they argue whether to kill them. They don't and soon thereafter, the team is attacked by the Taliban they are hunting. Outnumbers 40-1, they nonetheless hold off the attackers until three of the group is ultimately shot and killed. Luttrell survived and his tale of the Pashtun tribe that takes him in, thereby swearing to protect him, gives insight into the Pashtun tradition and Afghani history.