Book Review - The Good Soldiers
The Good Soldiers
Written by: David Finkel,
Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2009,
ISBN: 9780374165734, 287pp.
Reviewed by: Major Andrew Shum
David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers is raw, confronting and more than a timely reminder of the lessons learnt, hardships faced and indelible physical and emotional scars that are left on those engaged in close counterinsurgency fighting in the modern era. As the current focus of the Coalition and its political masters remains firmly entrenched in the ongoing Afghanistan fight and surge, Finkel recounts the fifteen month tour of the soldiers of 2-16 Battalion, 4th Infantry Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division during the Iraq surge in 2006/2007.
Finkel, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who was embedded with 2-16 for most of its tour, doesn’t target the strategic or operational levels of the surge and provide a sugar-coated summary of a resounding success born from a remarkable strategy. Finkel has instead produced an insight of the surge at the tactical level, and in doing so tells its true story from the perspective of the man on the ground—achieving powerful and unforgettable results. The men of 2-16 were like many others in the Iraq surge. They were deployed at short notice and allocated a section of Baghdad, thrown a copy of the newly published FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency manual and given an intent echoed all the way down from their Commander-in-Chief President: ‘Our troops will have a well defined mission: to help the Iraqis clear and secure neighbourhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs’.
The 2-16 sets out true to the mission, the manual and the population. Guided by the battalion commanding officer, the men of 2-16 look to embrace counterinsurgency basic principles and from the first days begin expanding their footprint within the population, embracing and mentoring the local security forces, and taking every opportunity to reaffirm to the public that they are working towards a safe and secure environment for them. Over the ensuing fifteen months, 2-16 is tested to beyond personal and professional limits at each and every rank level in attaining these goals. Finkel presents this friction candidly and to great effect. The reader is not spared the horrors of explosively formed penetrator IED blasts and their resulting effect inside a Humvee, the lingering thoughts in the mind of soldiers in the hours and days after such events, the frustrations of dealing with questionable loyalties in local counterparts, and the emotional rollercoaster for the families left to care for the shattered minds and bodies of those wounded and returned home. By presenting each chapter as a new month in the surge and introducing it with a ‘same-time’ quote from the strategic leadership, Finkel subtly allows readers to make up their own minds regarding realities of the surge and its successes and failures. This masterful presentation contrasting the commentary that helped shape public opinion of the day, emphasising the success of the surge with the harsh realities endured by the soldier on the ground, reinforces Finkel’s own intent of documenting the 2-16’s corner of the war, unshaded and without agenda.
This book is a must-read not only for the junior leaders within our ranks, but all the way up to and beyond uniformed decision-makers at the highest levels. There is no glorification within Finkel’s account of 2-16’s part in the surge, instead an honest, compelling and powerful story of what it is truly like to fight in the modern battlespace. While The Good Soldiers is focused on the Iraq War surge of 2006/2007, it would be both disrespectful and dangerous to relegate it to history. The Good Soldiers is a remarkable, warts and all story that presents lessons, dilemmas and undeniable truths that will outlast the fighting in all current theatres. Just as it was for all those who have been on the ground in Iraq, this story does not have a happy ending. It is far more appropriate, and very simply implies the emotional impact on all those involved, that the final pages present a roll call of all the members of the 2-16 who fought in the surge, including the seventy-seven recipients of the Purple Heart, and the faces and names of their fourteen killed in action. The Good Soldiers is a great read.
