Social Science/Psychology Excellent - a real page-turner
Comments:
The war in Iraq has gone on for a long time and appears to be continuing to go on and on and on. Dexter Filkins manages to accompany many different military units in their work in that country. Filkins relates his experiences in great detail during a four year period. He travels all over Iraq and develops close relations with many different sorts of people; some high in office some low, some Sunni and some Shiites, some very honorable and honest and some not so.
Dexter takes us to every corner of Iraq and visits with so many people that you will feel you know the country and its citizens by the time you finish his book. All the time he keeps us at the front lines of the war. Having spent some time in war in Viet Nam I can tell you that Dexter’s narrative rings true. His stories are filled with understanding and sometimes gut-wrenching drama. Children should not die. Men should not be tortured to death with electric drills. War is bad and should not happen.
Filkins, in “The Forever War” gives us a powerful and ‘heart-felt’ understanding of what this modern war is like on its battlefields in the buildings and streets and mosques of Baghdad and Ramadi and other towns and cities. The reader is allowed to experience some of what people on the ground, both fighters and innocent civilians must have felt. “The Forever War” is a powerful first hand narrative of war. Filkins makes a strong statement against this kind of human (inhuman) activity. I give this volume a 9 of 10 on the Weaver meter. It is a good book but you might not enjoy the feelings it will give you.
