The Afghan Campaign

By Steven Pressfield

"I wished once to become a soldier. I have become that. Just not the way I thought I would." (350)

A compelling and harrowing coming of age war story written by the extremely talented Pressfield. The story is told through the eyes of the young Matthias who comes to serve Alexander the Great in this Afghan campaign. The reader grows up with Matthais as he moves from a child to a man and into a soldier, bearing the memories he must endure to get there.

Another simple narrative throughout this story explores the role of honor in Afgan society at that time. It involves a woman and the code of honor which binds her by death to anyone who breaks that code of honor. The clash of cultures unopened is riviting and heart breaking.

Pressfield tells this story with an engaging storyt, simple but beautiful prose and a deep heart for the soldier's experience, coming from his own history as a Marine.

His books are popular with our troops. I completely understand why- he writes from the soldiers point of view, in an authentic and fearless way. He writes the truth of war, not just the glory or horror. He tells the truth from both of these extremes and everything (painfully) in between.

"We are keenly aware that we are boys, not men like Flag and Tollo. We do nothing like they do. We don't talk like them or stand like them; we can't even piss like them. They inhabit a sphere that is magnitutdes above us. We ape them. We study them as if we were children. They remain beyond us." (37)

"It is simultaneously extraordinary and appalling to see how efficiently our Macks (Macedonian soldiers) work this. They slaughter an entire male household with barely a sound, so swiftly that the wives and infants are cast into dubmstruck shock. It is the kill of wolves or lions, the cold kill of predation. It is work." (45)

"What makes Afghanistan so miserable is there's no shelter. The wind howls out of the mountains with not a twig to break its rush. Terrain is spectacular, but its beauty, if you can call it that, is stern and unforgiving. No trees intercept the rain, which descends, when it does, in volumes unimaginable. In the hot season you bind covers round every surface of metal exposed to the sun. To touch them unprotected blisters you to the bone. Now comes the wind. To trek in such a gale is like marching in a tunnel. The universe contracts to the cylinder between your muffled eyes and the rucksack of the man in front of you." (68)

In a speech by Alexander, beloved by the troops: "This is not conventional warfare. It is unconventional. And we must fight it in an unconventional way. Here the foe will not meet us in pitched battle, as other armies we have dueled in the past, save under conditions of his own choosing. His word to us is worthless. He routinely violates truces; he betrays the peace. He comes back again and again. He hates us with a passion whose depth is exceeded only by his patience and his capacity for suffering. " (70-71)

"Our women are still with us. The ordeals of mountain and desert have transformed them. They have earned our respect and their own. They fear now only the halt, when the corps may decide it no longer needs them. Biscuits paints my sore-pocked soles with vinegar and binds them with molesckin. Ghilla sets bones. Another girl, Jenin, sets up as the outfit's source for nazz and pank. The women have become indispensible. Even Flag defends them." (130)

" 'There must be a way to be a good soldier in a rotten war.' Boxer laughs. 'When you find it, Matthais, be sure and let us know." (156)

"The depth of horror one experiences to witness this is impossible to convey by the medium of speech." (176)

"The Afghans . . . posess two invincible confederates: the scale of their land and its desolation." (186)

"The enemy loves to attack out of the rising or setting sun. In the mountains, vales and even shadows can conceal battalions. In prarie country, dust storms building late in the day provide cover behind which the foe maneuvers and strikes. The tribesman appears along your track, where you think only your own men are coming from. He knows how to use glare to blind you and grit and rain to obscure his nubers. Suddenly he's on top of you." (231)

In The Company of Soldiers

In the company of soldiers
I have no need to explain myself.
In the company of soldiers,
everybody understands.

In the company of soldiers,
I don't have to pretend to be a person I'm not
Or strike that pose, however well-intended, that is expected
by those who have not known me under arms.

In the company of soldiers all my crimes are forgiven
I am safe
I am known
I am home
In the company of soldiers.

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Book 22