GENERATION KILL -- Evan Wright

GENERATION KILL: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the new face of American war
G.P. Putnam's Sons -- hc
New York -- ©2004 -- 354pp
ISBN: 0-399-15193-1

A reporter imbedded with the Marine First Recon team, is among the first American's into Iraq at the outset of the Iraq war.

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I'm not quite sure why I picked this book up in the first place, and am not sure what to make of it.

it is well written, making it a quick read. i did lose track of who some of the people were. So many names of soldiers and officers, I had trouble keeping them straight, and a reference list of who's who and their rank, and their charge 9which division, which command, etc) would have been incredibly useful.

The book is billed as a look at the new generation of soldiers and their attitude toward killing. I was expecting more of an association with the violent video games and movies and so forth, but I didn't get any of that. There was a brief mention in the beginning about how many of the soldiers who died during the Invasion of Normandy hadn't even fired their guns, but that in the battles in Iraq, that was not a question or concern. But there the association seemed to end.

What I got from the book was that the ranking officers in charge of the invasion of Iraq were mostly incompetent. Poor decisions were constantly being made (when made at all) -- starting with the fact that the first team into Iraq was the Marine First Recon team. First Recon is a highly trained marine group, akin to the Navy Seals. They are trained for MANY kinds of battle situations. What they are NOT trained for is riding in humvees in open territory. What they were asked to do was ride in humvees in open areas. Oddly enough, there IS a group of military personnel trained for riding in humvees inopen territory -- a division of the Rangers. They did NOT do this in Iraq. And of course it goes downhill from there.

Humorously (sadly) the driver of the lead humvee doesn't even have a license for driving a humvee, and during a battle jokes about whether or not he's got enough driving hours now to get his license.

This book simply pointed out to me, in a finer detail, how ill-prepared we were to start this ill-advised war.