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Gran Leon Books - Generation Kill
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List Price: $15.00
Our Price: $9.62
Your Save: $ 5.38 ( 36% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 956
EAN: 9780425224748
ISBN: 0425224740
Label: Berkley Trade
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: 2008-07-01
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Studio: Berkley Trade
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Editorial Reviews:
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In the tradition of Black Hawk Down and Jarhead comes a searing portrait of young men fighting a modern-day war.
A powerhouse work of nonfiction, Generation Kill expands on Evan Wright's acclaimed three-part series that appeared in Rolling Stone during the summer of 2003. His narrative follows the twenty-three marines of First Recon who spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed "First Suicide Battalion," searched out enemy fighters by racing ahead of American battle forces and literally driving into suspected ambush points.
Evan Wright lived on the front lines with this platoon from the opening hours of combat, to the fall of Baghdad, through the start of the guerrilla war. He was welcomed into their ranks, and from this bird's-eye perspective he tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to be ruthless killers. He chronicles the triumphs and horrors-physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual-that these marines endured while achieving victory in a war many questioned before it began. Wright's book is a timely account of war; even more important, it is a timeless description of the human drama taking place on today's battlefields. Written with brutal honesty, raw intensity, and startling intimacy, Generation Kill is destined to become a classic and take its place in the canon of the most captivating and authentic works of war literature.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: 2-501st. good read.
Comment: My husband entered Iraq in June of 2003 shortly after the Marines in this book. He spent 15 months there as a Blackhawk crewchief and until I read this book I had NO idea the nightmare that he bear witness to. I would like to tell Mr. Evans how much I love his book and how much it opened my eyes to what my husband saw. He has not been able to talk about the things he saw or the things he did, much like Vietnam. It scares me, but after reading this book, I understand why he can not talk about it, why he can not remember.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Does he know where Camp LeJeune is?
Comment: I haven't finished the book yet - and I'm happy to say that instead of buying it, I got it from the library. The copy I have is hardback, published by Penguin, and frankly, I'm debating whether or not to continue, based on the fact that on page 86 in my edition, he describes the Tarawa Marines as having come from Camp LeJeune, SOUTH Carolina. Whether this is the author's mistake or a fact-checker's oversight, Camp LeJeune, as anyone with a brain and the ability to use the internet or a map knows, is in NORTH Carolina. Mistakes such as these make me question every single aspect of this "reporter's" "reporting."
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent book on OIF
Comment: excellent fast reading book by reporter with 1st Recon Bn in Marine Corps push from Nasiriyah to Baghdad. The author gives a fair picture of the young Marines and military in general although it is clear that Evan Wright has limited personal attachment to the Marine Corps.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Semper Fi!!!! Thank you Evan Wright!!!
Comment: This book is amazing!! I am a disabled vet from OIF2. I spent 5 years in the Corps(1 of them in Iraq). My Lieutenant gave me this book 2 days before I went in to operation phantom fury(i think that was the name of the op, it was in November of 2004 when we took the city of Fallujia). My best friend is currently with that same unit that is in the book. So obviously I would be interested in reading this book, but for any of you who really want to know what is in the mind of the young Americans fighting over seas and what its like to be over there, this is the book for you. The dialogue in this book is so REAL it's not even funny. I could not put this one down.
I have read some negative post on here, and it seems that they might be upset because the author of the book often gives the lower ranked guys point of views about some of the jacked up things their officers were doing or such. There is a review with a 1 star rating from a supposed First Sergeant from 1st mar div. He says the author stabbed his unit in the back. I disagree(although I don't know all the facts behind that accusation). Most civilians didn't even know about Force Recon before this book came out. Now they made an HBO special about it(haven't seen yet) that has received great reviews, and every civilian I talk to thinks that Force Recon is the best of the best. If anything Evan might have improved the Corps' recruitment numbers. When the first sergeant says that "his unit got stabbed in the back" by Evan, I would envision Evan sharing classified top secret information to the enemy or something. That was not the case, Evan told it how it is or was. He is a journalist and is allowed to do that because of that thing called THE CONSTITUTION. That is the same thing that the first sergeant swore to defend, right?
5000 STARS
P.S. Thank you Evan Wright!!!!!!!!!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: excellent read
Comment: I purchased this book after seeing the series ... I often see the movie first because it serves as the appetizer to the main meal. The series touches briefly on a multitude of issues, events and people ... Wright's book thoroughly details most all of these points and answers many of the questions the series left me asking myself.
Having cancelled a 30 year long subscription to Rolling Stone due to it's transformation from a music-oriented magazine to a cheap liberal rag hell-bent on trashing anything associated with Bush, Republicans or the United States ... i was hesitant to read a book authored by a RS reporter. I had a foregone conclusion that "Generation Kill" was nothing more than another one-sided rant against the US war in Iraq. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by what appears to be an honest attempt to report what was actually seen ... without the left-sided colour commentary. I felt Wright took great care in preserving an air of political neutrality and let the men and their actions do the talking ... all angles are covered.
This is a story of modern combat ... about the men who formed the tip of the spearhead that was thrust into Iraq in 2003 ... a Marine Recon unit. You experience the vulnerability from the onset ... the naked feeling of riding in a caravan of open-topped humvees, deep in enemy territory and in the middle of a vast Iraqi desert ... alone. Yet, you quickly realize that these men (young men) aren't as scared as they are confident ... in each other (for the most part). The men Wright introduces to us are the crux of the entire book ... they are all so different, so extreme, so serious, so weird, yet so funny. Getting the reader to know these men is so important to Wright that he even has a special table of contents informing the reader to page in the book where each man is introduced ... and each introduction includes a mini-biography that seems to shed light, explain, or even excuse the behavior of these men on the battlefield. You share the men's experience of combat in a variety of manners ... from a recon mission to being ambushed on a bridge. the combat action is fast and furious ... and at times ... funny.
It is interesting to read that the same old rule still applies with the military, whether it be World War II or Iraq ... in all it's glory, the strength of the US military is enlisted personnel who are oftentimes more capable than their commanding officers. Wright illustrates this throughout the book ... the constant extremes portrayed by the pragmatic NCO "Iceman" vs. the wanna-be-a-war-hero Capt. "Encino Man" or the common-sense leadership provided by an understanding Lt. Fick vs. the bombastic ignorance of "Capt. America".
"Generation Kill" is an interesting, entertaining and engaging read ... from the ineptitude of the American government to the perverted mind of the youthful modern-day warrior and all that's in between ... all of it is on display in "Generation Kill". Wright has done an excellent job of bringing the reality of the long-forgotten start of the Iraq War to light in a twenty-first century style of writing that will keep even the younger generations interested in reading each page ... not an easy feat.
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