★ 09/12/2022
Journalist and Marine Corps veteran Kesling’s gut-wrenching debut documents the physical and psychological tolls of the war in Afghanistan through the story of one U.S. Army unit’s deployment. In 2009, the 82nd Airborne’s Bravo Company went to Afghanistan’s Arghandab Valley to conduct foot patrols against the Taliban. Kesling draws empathetic yet incisive profiles of the unit’s officers and grunts, many of whom enlisted after the 9/11 attacks: “It’s a simple truth that men who go to war want an orgasm of violence for the sake of violence itself,” he writes. “Don’t let them tell you any different.” Setting up their combat outpost in a radish field, Bravo Company began patrolling in December 2009 and sustained its first fatality from a Taliban IED the day after Christmas. Kesling conveys the visceral horror of such deaths (“With an IED it’s not dust to dust. It’s to pink mist, the result of a violent and horrible cancellation of a person’s parts and pieces”) and their long-term effects: three soldiers dead, dozens with life-altering dismemberments, two suicides, and dozens of attempted suicides. He also reports on the soldiers’ difficult reintegration into civilian life, the unique challenges of traumatic brain injuries, and the 2019 launch of Operation Resiliency, a program that organizes unit reunions with an explicit focus on mental well-being. Devastating yet cautiously hopeful, this is an essential study of combat trauma. Agent: Rafe Sagalyn, ICM/Sagalyn. (Nov.)
If you want to understand the fingerprints of American military culture and the terrible human consequences of bad policy decisions, this excellent book by Ben Kesling is the way.
director of foreign and defense policy at the Amer Kori Schake
Ben Kesling . . . has written what may be the defining book about a very different version of the war in southern Afghanistan . . . The author masterfully captures the dark humor that troops used to cope with their real anxieties through writing that simultaneously captures the infantryman’s spirit (and profanity) in a way any reader can understand.”
Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath is a fast-paced, frenetic read that captures the reality of life in the 82nd Airborne Division during the height of the global war on terror . . . an incredible treatment of one corner of the war that serves as a tragic microcosm for the overall American experience in Afghanistan.”
Why can't some veterans and survivors leave their wars in the past? How does the same experience become one person's bar tale and another's formative bane? With great skill and masterful reporting, Ben Kesling examines these questions and more in Bravo Company . War's long, dark tail emerges in all its terror and thrill here, summoning the old wisdom of the past not even being past. What a great book.
author of Youngblood and Empire City Matt Gallagher
Gut-wrenching, emotionally charged...excruciatingly detailed...Bravo Company is that rare deep dive into the meaning of war and soldiering, the inevitable tragedies and trauma that accompany them, and what happens after you hang up the uniform.”
“Bravo Company is not your average book about the military or men at war. The book, brilliantly told through the lens of one company, perfectly captures the true cost of the decades-long war in Afghanistan. We meet young men who dreamed of life and adventure in the U.S. Army, only to be broken physically and mentally by the toll of combat. For anyone who ever wanted to know about the cost of war, this is the book.
Bravo Company goes places other books don’t. Ben Kesling captures not only war, but the way war puts the complexities and paradoxes of life itself in sharp relief, revealing to us the strangeness of memory and love and loss and honor and pain. Bravo Company is beautiful and profound.
National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment Phil Klay
"Bravo Company is an honest account of bravery, sacrifice, and what it means to seek redemption. As a veteran of combat himself, Ben Kesling is able to intimately and honestly document war and its aftermath in ways others haven't. If you want to understand what war in Afghanistan meant to those who fought—or if you were in combat and want to understand more about yourself—read this remarkable book."—Jake Tapper, CNN anchor and author of The Outpost Publishers Weekly, *starred* review Kirkus, *starred* review Booklist Bravo Company goes places other books don’t. Ben Kesling captures not only war, but the way war puts the complexities and paradoxes of life itself in sharp relief, revealing to us the strangeness of memory and love and loss and honor and pain. Bravo Company is beautiful and profound.”—Phil Klay, National Book Award-winning author of Redeployment and Uncertain Ground Bravo Company . War's long, dark tail emerges in all its terror and thrill here, summoning the old wisdom of the past not even being past. What a great book.”—Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood and Empire City “From the Iliad to the Odyssey, stories of war are typically about going to it or returning from it. In Bravo Company, Ben Kesling has done a masterful job braiding together these twin strands. For those who came home, Kesling’s book is a road map of their journey. For those who were lost, this book stands as a memorial.” —Elliot Ackerman, author of The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan Bravo Company are captivating, raw, salty—and above all real. Ben Kesling knows of what he writes and does us a service to bring home their stories of war and the battles afterward.”—Quil Lawrence, NPR correspondent and former bureau chief in Baghdad and Kabul “Bravo Company is not your average book about the military or men at war. The book, brilliantly told through the lens of one company, perfectly captures the true cost of the decades-long war in Afghanistan. We meet young men who dreamed of life and adventure in the U.S. Army, only to be broken physically and mentally by the toll of combat. For anyone who ever wanted to know about the cost of war, this is the book.”—Ron Nixon, global investigations editor, Associated Press Kori Schake, director of foreign and defense policy at the American Enterprise Institute Bravo Company , Ben Kesling searingly transports readers first into the lush valley at the heart of President Barack Obama’s surge, where paratroopers saddled with an unsustainable mission rolled the dice with every step they took, and then into their lives back home as they wrestle with grievous injuries and the loss of friends in a war America ultimately lost.”—Wesley Morgan, author of The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valle Military Times “ Bravo Company ’s primary strength is that it provides a window into a world most Americans know little about or wish did not exist . . . Kesling’s text could be of great help to those who seek to better understand the experience of veterans and will serve as a historical record of one company during a difficult year in a war that often escaped national attention.”—America Magazine Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath is a fast-paced, frenetic read that captures the reality of life in the 82nd Airborne Division during the height of the global war on terror . . . an incredible treatment of one corner of the war that serves as a tragic microcosm for the overall American experience in Afghanistan.”—Army Magazine
★ 2022-09-06
Most books about the war in Afghanistan end grimly, and this one more than most, but readers will find it impossible to put down. Wall Street Journal Midwest correspondent Kesling, a former Marine officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, follows Bravo Company of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, already experienced from earlier tours, on their 2009 deployment. The author delivers vivid biographies of a dozen soldiers who “grew up as kids playing Army in the woods…waiting for the day they could enlist and head off to boot camp. They watched movies like Full Metal Jacket and The Green Berets and hagiographic tales of manly heroism.” During their deployment, Bravo soldiers ventured into the Arghandab Valley, an extremely dangerous area where a previous unit had stopped patrolling, “tired of getting fucked up by Taliban bombs.” Kesling delivers a gripping, detailed, nuts-and-bolt account of their ordeal. Only three men died, but a dozen “lost at least one limb,” and half the company received Purple Hearts. Most unnervingly, they almost never saw the enemy, who kept out of sight but planted hundreds, perhaps thousands, of improvised explosive devices often undetectable by minesweepers. Patrolling was a nightmare in which soldiers carefully walked in the footsteps of the man in front, a difficult tactic to maintain. Kesling devotes more than the usual space to his subjects’ lives after returning home, similar to David Finkel’s approach in Thank You for Your Service . “In the decade since,” writes Kesling, “two men killed themselves…more than a dozen made attempts and others admit they have seriously considered it.” Slowly but with some success, the government, concerned citizens, and even the soldiers themselves began to address the often crippling physical, mental, and emotional consequences of their deployment.
An outstanding narrative about a single unit’s harrowing experiences in the “forever war.
"Bravo Company is an honest account of bravery, sacrifice, and what it means to seek redemption. As a veteran of combat himself, Ben Kesling is able to intimately and honestly document war and its aftermath in ways others haven't. If you want to understand what war in Afghanistan meant to those who fought—or if you were in combat and want to understand more about yourself—read this remarkable book."
CNN anchor and author of The Outpost Jake Tapper
The men of Bravo Company are captivating, raw, salty—and above all real. Ben Kesling knows of what he writes and does us a service to bring home their stories of war and the battles afterward.
NPR correspondent and former bureau chief in Baghd Quil Lawrence
“From the Iliad to the Odyssey, stories of war are typically about going to it or returning from it. In Bravo Company, Ben Kesling has done a masterful job braiding together these twin strands. For those who came home, Kesling’s book is a road map of their journey. For those who were lost, this book stands as a memorial.”
author of The Fifth Act: America’s End i Elliot Ackerman
In Bravo Company , Ben Kesling searingly transports readers first into the lush valley at the heart of President Barack Obama’s surge, where paratroopers saddled with an unsustainable mission rolled the dice with every step they took, and then into their lives back home as they wrestle with grievous injuries and the loss of friends in a war America ultimately lost.
author of The Hardest Place: The American Mili Wesley Morgan
“ Bravo Company ’s primary strength is that it provides a window into a world most Americans know little about or wish did not exist . . . Kesling’s text could be of great help to those who seek to better understand the experience of veterans and will serve as a historical record of one company during a difficult year in a war that often escaped national attention.
War’s long, dark tail emerges in all its terror and thrill here, summoning the old wisdom of the past not even being past. What a great book.”
author of Empire City Matt Gallagher
Masterful…For those who came home, Kesling’s book is a road map of their journey. For those who were lost, this book stands as a memorial.”
New York Times bestselling author Elliot Ackerman
Kesling captures not only war but the way war puts the complexities and paradoxes of life itself in sharp relief, revealing to us the strangeness of memory and love and loss and honor and pain.”
National Book Award winner and New York Times best Phil Klay
Bravo Company is an honest account of bravery, sacrifice, and what it means to seek redemption…Read this remarkable book.”
CNN anchor and New York Times bestselling author Jake Tapper
