War

Author Sebastian Junger and retired US sergeant Brendan O’Byrne travel to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and visit Justin Kalenits, who’s recovering from injuries suffered during the Bella Ambush in Afghanistan’s Waygal Valley. Returning late from an audience with a local village’s elders, US and Afghan military squads were surrounded and subjected to withering rifle and grenade fire. Every member of both squads was wounded or killed, and Kalenits nearly bled to death from a serious bullet wound. The troops gave as good as they got and, somehow, they finally repelled the attack.

O’Byrne asks if anyone questioned the lieutenant when he ordered the soldiers to walk back during dangerous daylight hours. Kalenits responds, “What are you going to say to him?” (8).

Korengal Outpost, or KOP, is a US military base in the Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous areas of the war in Afghanistan in spring 2007. Soldiers take fire from mortars when they arrive for duty and depart months later. Accommodations consist of tents and plywood cabins; the men get one hot meal a day, shower once a week, and pee into plastic pipes hammered into the earth.