Overview

"It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. It became known as 'the surge'. 'Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences', he told a sceptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. What is the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. He was with Battalion 2-16 in Baghdad almost every gruelling step of the way. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, Finkel has also produced an eternal tale - not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time. 'It is Mr. Finkel's accomplishment in this harrowing book that he not only depicts what the Iraq war is like for the soldiers of the 2-16 - 14 of whom die - but also the incalculable ways in which the war bends (or in some cases warps) the remaining arc of their lives. He captures the sense of comradeship the men develop among themselves. And he also captures the difficulty many of the soldiers feel in trying to adapt to ordinary life back home in the States, and the larger disconnect they continue to feel between the war that politicians and generals discussed and the war that they knew firsthand.' -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 'Finkel's sad and wonderful account of soldiers' experiences of war follows the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry, which was thrown into one of Baghdad's worst districts as part of the 2007 surge ... Finkel achieves great intimacy with his subjects, charting their changing feelings toward Iraqis, their mission, and their own commander. By the time they are told that they are winning, it's hard to remember or define what that means. After two members of his platoon are killed twelve days before their tour, already extended three months, is to end, a soldier writes to his wife, ""I'm gonna need some help when I get home."" -Sarah Crichton, The New Yorker 'This is the finest book yet written on the platoon-level combat of the Iraq war ... Unforgettable - raw, moving, and rendered with literary control ... No one who reads this book will soon forget its imagery, words, or characters.' -Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars"

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9781921844461

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Reviews

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of his powers comes an incandescent and profoundly moving book: powerful, intense, enraging. This may be the best book on war since the Iliad.' - Geraldine Brooks, author of People of the Book

'From a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the height of his powers comes an incandescent and profoundly moving book: powerful, intense, enraging. This may be the best book on war since the Iliad.' - Geraldine Brooks, author of People of the Book.

Author Information

David Finkel is the national enterprise editor of The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 1990 and has worked for the paper's national, foreign, and magazine staffs. He has reported from Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, and throughout the United States, and was part of the Post's war coverage in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo. Among Finkel's journalism honours are a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2006 for a series of stories about US-funded democracy efforts in Yemen. He has been a Pulitzer finalist three other times, for both explanatory reporting and feature writing.

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