thedrifter
11-02-08, 07:45 AM
Posted on Sun, Nov. 02, 2008
The hell of war
BY GAYLORD DOLD
DEXTER FILKINS' REPORTING ON AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ IS PROFOUNDLY MOVING
"The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins (Alfred A. Knopf, 384 pages, $25)
Dexter Filkins of the New York Times first saw war in Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban. Even before that, he'd been a reporter covering the struggle of warlords in that same country for control of opium poppies, the heroin trade, and weapons smuggling, a struggle that was the bitter broth of a failed Soviet adventure.
Later, when Iraq exploded into war, Filkins went there too, part of a huge Times contingent that lived outside the Green Zone and reported, in its own way, on a war unlike any other America had fought.
Filkins was rarely "imbedded," though he did often travel with Marines, observing their heroics, their peculiar rituals, their deaths. Instead, Filkins scrambled around Baghdad and out into the insanely dangerous countryside to encounter directly an Iraq that other, less foolhardy, journalists rarely saw.
Outside the war we know -- the 94,000 Iraqi civilians dead along with 4,000 American troops killed, the 4.2 million Iraqis displaced and homeless, the $1 trillion price tag -- Filkins placed himself in a parallel reality that lay just outside the purview of official Washington, or even of local American commanders on the ground.
"The Forever War" is a profoundly moving piece of reportage. Even more, it is a brutal and sometimes deeply affecting personal glimpse into the lives of real Iraqis.
Like all war reportage, "The Forever War" overflows with death, spinal cords on sidewalks, bits of thumb, a human leg atop a Humvee. A bloody boot. Young children blown to bits and smoldering like garbage.
And like all good war reportage, "The Forever War" brims with personal heroism and dissent, a "gray area in the middle" where young men and women return home to face immeasurable challenges of adjustment, some missing legs or arms, some just damaged inside their heads.
And perhaps most affecting of all is Filkins' story of young Lance Cpl. William L. Miller of Pearland, Texas, who, just ahead of Filkins and his photographer on the spiraling steps of a minaret during the battle for Fallujah in 2004, is shot dead because, as one Marine says, "your photographer needed a corpse for the newspaper...." Another Marine consoles Filkins: "That's what happens in war."
And so, just when you think that there can never be another war, that there can never be another war reporter better than Ernie Pyle, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway or Stephen Crane; and just when you think Michael Herr's "Dispatches" has told of war at its howling roaring bloodiest worst, that's when another war happens along and a new reporter must mule along in its wake of gore.
While Herr's "Dispatches" was rock 'n' roll, splats of brain and drugs, Filkins' war is laptops, satellite phones and IEDs. It is videos of beheadings, opportunists in Mullah black, a young Marine who takes a bullet on the way up a minaret's winding staircase.
For nine years Filkins was "part of the place, part of the despair, part of the death and the sandy-colored brown of it." He dealt all day long with "marginal people -- creeps, hustlers, gunmen." And at night, to the amazement of Iraqi security guards, he jogged along the Tigris in shorts and tennis shoes.
Grim, uplifting and arrow-accurate, "The Forever War" is a classic that will tell the tale as well as it can be told until the next war comes along with a reporter in its wake. Until the next soldier comes home with a song inside his head that must be sung by someone who was there.
Gaylord Dold is a professional writer living in Wichita.
Ellie
The hell of war
BY GAYLORD DOLD
DEXTER FILKINS' REPORTING ON AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ IS PROFOUNDLY MOVING
"The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins (Alfred A. Knopf, 384 pages, $25)
Dexter Filkins of the New York Times first saw war in Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban. Even before that, he'd been a reporter covering the struggle of warlords in that same country for control of opium poppies, the heroin trade, and weapons smuggling, a struggle that was the bitter broth of a failed Soviet adventure.
Later, when Iraq exploded into war, Filkins went there too, part of a huge Times contingent that lived outside the Green Zone and reported, in its own way, on a war unlike any other America had fought.
Filkins was rarely "imbedded," though he did often travel with Marines, observing their heroics, their peculiar rituals, their deaths. Instead, Filkins scrambled around Baghdad and out into the insanely dangerous countryside to encounter directly an Iraq that other, less foolhardy, journalists rarely saw.
Outside the war we know -- the 94,000 Iraqi civilians dead along with 4,000 American troops killed, the 4.2 million Iraqis displaced and homeless, the $1 trillion price tag -- Filkins placed himself in a parallel reality that lay just outside the purview of official Washington, or even of local American commanders on the ground.
"The Forever War" is a profoundly moving piece of reportage. Even more, it is a brutal and sometimes deeply affecting personal glimpse into the lives of real Iraqis.
Like all war reportage, "The Forever War" overflows with death, spinal cords on sidewalks, bits of thumb, a human leg atop a Humvee. A bloody boot. Young children blown to bits and smoldering like garbage.
And like all good war reportage, "The Forever War" brims with personal heroism and dissent, a "gray area in the middle" where young men and women return home to face immeasurable challenges of adjustment, some missing legs or arms, some just damaged inside their heads.
And perhaps most affecting of all is Filkins' story of young Lance Cpl. William L. Miller of Pearland, Texas, who, just ahead of Filkins and his photographer on the spiraling steps of a minaret during the battle for Fallujah in 2004, is shot dead because, as one Marine says, "your photographer needed a corpse for the newspaper...." Another Marine consoles Filkins: "That's what happens in war."
And so, just when you think that there can never be another war, that there can never be another war reporter better than Ernie Pyle, George Orwell, Ernest Hemingway or Stephen Crane; and just when you think Michael Herr's "Dispatches" has told of war at its howling roaring bloodiest worst, that's when another war happens along and a new reporter must mule along in its wake of gore.
While Herr's "Dispatches" was rock 'n' roll, splats of brain and drugs, Filkins' war is laptops, satellite phones and IEDs. It is videos of beheadings, opportunists in Mullah black, a young Marine who takes a bullet on the way up a minaret's winding staircase.
For nine years Filkins was "part of the place, part of the despair, part of the death and the sandy-colored brown of it." He dealt all day long with "marginal people -- creeps, hustlers, gunmen." And at night, to the amazement of Iraqi security guards, he jogged along the Tigris in shorts and tennis shoes.
Grim, uplifting and arrow-accurate, "The Forever War" is a classic that will tell the tale as well as it can be told until the next war comes along with a reporter in its wake. Until the next soldier comes home with a song inside his head that must be sung by someone who was there.
Gaylord Dold is a professional writer living in Wichita.
Ellie