War by Sebastian Junger (Introduction) w/Jesan Sorrells

Hello, my name is Jesan Sorrells and this is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode number 170. In one of the ever expanding parts of historical and cultural understanding of war, part and parcel of the legacy of World War I down to our time currently, is the idea among civilians who have never been to war who romanticize the act of killing people and

breaking things. They look at war as a furnace in which the dross of complicated and uncomfortable human emotions are burned off, and a furnace in which or from which emerges a mechanical, hard

man who can do the acts of killing and breaking things that a civilian themselves cannot

do. In our modern time, in our post modern American moment, where the percentage of the available male population who actively serves in the Military is at 0.8% or less than 1% of the available male population, the understanding of what exactly goes into making war and the psychology of the actual soldier himself, and yes, in some cases herself, the understanding of that has been lost in a haze of mythology, massive cultural inexperience, biased media reports, and of course,

institutional, political and cultural biases. What is understood even less is why the men who do go and serve in the US

Military fight in the first place. It is incredibly difficult for the vast majority of the population in the United States to understand at a visceral and emotional level the impetus that leads young men to go fight and die in places that are hard to find on a world map and that seem to be meaningless in the larger scheme of living daily life in a complex, postmodern, wealthy and incredibly comfortable society like the United States of America. What exactly are the young men and sorry ladies,

my apologies. It is still, even in these times of relentless insistence upon gender egalitarianism in every facet of life, mostly young men fighting for. A better question might be who are these young men who serve fighting for?

And what can civilians take as lessons from that level of visceral commitment and apply to their non combatant lives, draped, as I already said, or drowned, depending upon your perspective, in comfort, wealth and the most productivity out of any human civilization in the history of humanity

today, on this episode of the podcast we will try. We will attempt to extract multiple themes that may potentially provide a pathway to an answer to some of these questions, particularly these questions that arise from our critical, skeptical

postmodern minds. And we will be using the book today War by Sebastian Younger leaders dedication to filling and fulfilling promises with honor even to the point of death, cannot just be a marketing position with no actual meaning and sacrifice in the real world. So as we open War by Sebastian Younger, going to point out a couple of different things

in this episode today. So as usual with copyrighted works, particularly copyrighted works that are, were that are, that are not in the public domain as war is not, we do not read directly or we read minimally directly from the book. If we read it all instead, what I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize the book and point out what I think are some key themes in the content for you to pay attention to when you pick it up and,

and read it. The other thing that I would recommend in looking at War and in reading it in is thinking about sort of the context in which it was written and the time frame in which it was written. So when you open it up, there's multiple different versions, but this first paperback edition was published in 2011 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers out of London. Obviously the material is copyrighted to Sebastian

Younger. And the version that I have when you open it up has a table of contents and then it has a map. You turn the page and it has a map of the locations that are referenced in the material in the Korengal Valley. So Camp Blessing, Firebase Michigan. Let's see the Korengal Outpost, Firebase Phoenix, OP Restrepo, the location of a, of an IED attack now near Firebase Vegas, which you'll find out more about that in the book Hill 1706. And like I said, Op

Restrepo. By the way, I'm going to put this out there early. If you get the movie or you go see the movie Restrepo, that is a companion to this book. So this book is a reporting, not a reporting. It is the reporting on the war. In the war, the battle in Afghanistan for, for the Karangal Valley that was conducted by Sebastian Younger, who at the time was writing for Vanity Fair and was an embedded journalist with the 2nd Battalion in,

in Afghanistan. And he along with his, along with his, his photographer Tim Harrington reported as a result of their five trips to the Korengal Valley between June 2007 and June 2008 again for vanity Fair magazine. That feature length documentary that they produced is called Restrepo. And Tim Harrington is no longer alive. He actually died in an Believers either an

IED attack. I think it was an ID attack if I remember correctly, in Syria, reporting on the Syrian civil war many years later, which of course was a knock on effect from our efforts in Iraq.

So the book is set up in the table of contents, is set up into three, three parts, right? So you have book one, Fear, book two, Killing, and book three, Love. And you begin to see as you read each one of these books what the themes are that, that, that Sebastian Younger is able to pull from the interactions he has with the men of 2nd Platoon. It's also interesting to note that he does not talk about politics in this

book. One of the points that he makes is, is that it's, and it's, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of a good point actually. He says that, oh gosh, it's early in the, in the first book in Fear, when he talks about kind of who the men are, he talks about, you know,

o' Byrne and the rest of the men of Battle Company. He talks about the Chinooks and the Apaches, the, the, the background of, not that background, but the, the folks of the 10th Mountain Division who were in that part of Afghanistan before, before 2nd Battalion showed up. And of course he talks about the Taliban there. One of the points that he makes is that, huh, politics don't matter when the bullets start flying.

And that's a huge point right away or huge theme right away that comes out right away initially in book one, Fear and runs like a, like a, like a thread throughout the entire remainder of this book, by the way. It's also set up as a classic reportage kind of document, kind of on the line of what Joan Didion would have, would have done or Hunter S. Thompson if he still been alive and interested in doing something like this.

Restrepo is definitely a great film. I recommend Going and Getting It. There's also another film called Korengal which was also made for or produced from the documentary footage that Tim Harrington shot along with Sebastian Younger. And I would strongly recommend picking up this book, examining its themes and looking at it closely, which we'll start doing right now. But before we jump into the, the themes that are in war, I want to talk a little bit about the author. So Sebastian younger was

born January 17, 1962 and though he had a near death experience recently, is still very much, very much alive. He is an American journalist, author and filmmaker who has reported in the field on dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and of course

the experience of infantry combat. By the way, his other books which are listed in the Front of War, just want to point those out to you are the Perfect Storm, which was turned into a, which was turned into a movie, A Death in Belmont and Fire and again, he is part of that, that long line of reporters turned Authors that winds all the way back in our history to Ernest Hemingway really was probably the most most famous author turned reporter. Actually reporter turned author turned back

to reporter. But this idea of being a writer and doing dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and reporting on the results of dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and going directly into those experiences and embedding yourself directly into those experiences has a long journalistic and authorial history in the United States. And Sebastian Younger is just one more person

inside of that legacy. Younger's works, which makes him unique to our time, explore themes such as brotherhood, trauma and, and the relationship of the individual to society as told from the far reaches of human experience. Younger graduated from Concord Academy in 1980 and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University and cultural anthropology in 1984.

As an accomplished long distance runner, he spent summer training on the Navajo Nation reservation and wrote his thesis on Navajo long distance running and its traditional pre Columbian roots. By the way, he does talk about his running background in the book War. He also references it in interviews that you

hear about him later on. And he does actually say in the book, you know, the running and the ability to tolerate a lot of pain for a long distance helped him in the, in the Korengal Valley where, you know, he didn't want to be a burden on the, on the troops. And at the end of the day, you know, you have to be able to keep up. And we're only as strong in a group of soldiers. We're only as strong as our weakest point. And if the journalist is the weakest point,

then that's where the enemy will strike. And so

Younger fell back on that, that long distance running and was able to run with a pack, was able to commit to or not run, but hike with a pack and was able to hike 60 miles and I'm not, sorry, sorry, not 60 miles, was able to hike up the sides of mountains with a 60 pound pack as well as his cameraman, you know, bringing his cameraman's gear along as well in order to film what was happening in the Korengal Valley and to keep up with those soldiers who were also, by the way, at

the time of the writing of the articles in Vanity Fair that would eventually become the book War, the Time of the Writing. Most of Those guys were 20 years younger than him. So, you know, this is, this is not an easy, not an easy task. And I could tell you as a person who's in my mid-40s, trying to keep up with folks who are 20 years younger than me and, and I Don't have a background in long distance running is always a challenge.

While much of Younger's writing is subjective and participatory, he strives to maintain a neutral point of view and avoids contemporary political discussion, especially around frequent subjects that haunt his journalistic peers, like economic inequality, diversity and social justice, and of course, war. In 2021, when he was interviewed, he cited his quote, unquote favorite quote

in an interview with the Guardian. And I love this quote. And it goes directly to the mindset of a man like Sebastian Younger, a reporter like Sebastian Younger, a writer like Sebastian Younger. And I quote, journalists don't tell people what to think. They tell them what to think

about. So when we look at the book War, and when we look at particularly the first book or the first part of War, which is entitled Fear, we open up and we start with that chapter and there's a. An opening description of exactly what we are getting into in the. In the Korengal Valley. In the spring of 2007 in Afghanistan, we. We meet a character named. A character, a soldier named o'. Byrne. And Younger begins to walk us through what it actually means to be a

member of Battle Company. O' Byrne grew up in rural Pennsylvania, and he played army for many years as a kid. Um, and you know, he got in trouble at school, he started fighting at home. When he became a teenager, um, you know, you know, O' Byrne's father shot him twice with a.22 rifle. And of course, instead of going to jail, he went to reform school for assault rather than his father going to prison for attempted murder. And that was when O' Byrne was 16.

Later on, O' Byrne met a National Guard recruiter who talked him into signing up and transferred him from the National Guard into the. Into the. Or he transferred himself from the National Guard into the regular Army. O' Byrne is a linchpin character in this entire book. He becomes. You see him grow in leadership of the men of the. Of the 173rd Airborne and of course, the men of the 2nd Battalion. Then we get introduced to the Korengal Valley and the Coral Valley.

I love this line. And we'll revisit this idea later on in our. In our main. Our main episode that will focus on this book with, with John Hill, AKA Small Mountain. But this idea, I love this idea that the Korengal Valley is, Is too remote to conquer, the too poor to intimidate, and too autonomous to buy off. Everybody now knows about the history of the, the history of Afghanistan, right? And we'll talk a little Bit about that later on in

the. In the next section here. But this part of Afghanistan is so remote that the Soviets didn't even get to the mouth of the valley or didn't make it past the mouth of the valley when they invaded in the 80s and the Taliban didn't dare go in there at all. Only the Americans were stupid enough to go, or brave enough, depending upon your perspective, to go into the Korengal Valley. Then we continue to meet the other

men of 2nd Platoon, including 2nd Platoon Sergeant, a career soldier named Mark Patterson, who was 30, a full 12 years older than the youngest man in 2nd Platoon. And then we meet Sebastian Younger and we talk about his arrival into the platoon and how he was integrated into their group. And then, of course, the fighting starts and the bullets start flying, the patrols start exiting Firebase Phoenix and they begin engaging the

enemy. During the summer of 2007, by the way, a summer where it is 100 degrees every day and tarantulas invade the living quarters of the American soldiers and presumably the Taliban fighters as well. But the American soldiers, to get out of the heat. There's also a time when they're carrying so much gear and they are fighting so hard that the smell of their sweat is the smell of ammonia, because they're actually breaking down muscle rather than just straight sweat.

This first part, this first book, Fear, sets up what's going to happen in books two and three, Killing and Love. And it gives you an idea of exactly what, what it is that you're getting into when you go into war in Afghanistan. So what is it like, dying and killing? Not for America or for religion, or for economics or class or for land or for women. What is it like dying for your friends as an American in a place dubbed the graveyard of

empires? The British came through Afghanistan and couldn't subdue those folks. The Soviets came through Afghanistan and couldn't subdue those folks. And in 2001, one, after the events of September 11th, we decided, yes, to go into Afghanistan first, yes, going to Iraq second. But let's focus on Afghanistan for right now. And we decided we were going to disrupt, we were going to stop the insurgents, we were going to subdue the country. Of course, 20 years later, we would

exit in great power. Ignominity. We're not going to talk about that today. And the people that we sent there were not the same people that we sent to wars in the previous years of the 20th century. These weren't young Gen Xers going to the Iraq war in the early 1990s or Somalia or Sarajevo. These weren't soldiers in the Vietnam era. These weren't baby boomers and older baby boomers and old, younger silent generation folks that we

were sending to Vietnam. These weren't younger silent generation folks, younger World War II generation folks that we were sending to Korea. And of course these weren't Great Depression babies who were just grateful for three hots in a cot and would very happily go to Europe or island hop across the Pacific in World War II. The war in Afghanistan that went on from 2001 to 2021 was not Vietnam. It was a war not

of conscripted soldiers and low intelligence draftees forced by social or cultural norms to sign up. This, this was not that, that was not these people. These men were not the same men that had signed up for wars, to go fight wars for America in other places in the past. Matter of fact, if you ask these men, they weren't fighting the war for America at all. They were fighting the war for an entire myriad of reasons and America was very low on the

list. This is a challenge of modern warfare because we have smaller and smaller troop groups being asked to do more and more dangerous work. It used to be that you can mass troops at the point, at an inflection point and get some result. That was one of the principles of World War I, is a follow up principle from World War II and was still held to be a principle in Vietnam. But over the course of time, what has

happening, what has happened at least in the US military is that holding a position has become less about a mass of people to an inflection point and is more now about the intelligent application of force, technological force, cyber force in our time, and of course personnel force to any given

threat. But just like in any war, in any time, in any era, the young men performing these acts, holding this position, shooting people and breaking things, they aren't doing it for political reasons or even for social reasons or cultural reasons. They're doing it because it's a job with their buddies. And I think we're going to have to wrap our brains, I think we've already

wrapped our brains around this. But the knock on effects of this shift, this change, this momentous move in how we actually conduct war and the psychology of the people who conduct it has not been fully appreciated by the non war making non war fighting public. So what are we to take as we wrap up or as we begin to turn the corner from our conversation around war? By Sebastian Younger? Well, a couple of things I think we can definitely take from

this Book. The big one, of course, is that the more things change, the more they stay depressingly the same. The United states lost nearly 50 soldiers in the Korengal Valley, specifically at OP Restrepo. And the question when there is any loss of blood or treasure, but really blood from civilians who do not fight, the question is always for what? Exactly. What exactly was the strategic outcome that we were looking for that justified such a. From a civilian's perspective, large

tactical loss. This is the same question that was asked in the past about the sacrifices in the trenches of World War I, the battlefields of World War II, the valleys and mountains of Korea and the jungles of Vietnam and the deserts of Iraq. Both times. And it is a question that goes to the vicious idea or maybe the reality of trade offs. You can never get something

for nothing. Nothing. And Thomas Sowell once infamously said, or inciviously stated in his book a conflict of Visions, Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, and I quote, there are no solutions. There are only trade offs. By the way, the trade offs involved in war always involve counting the costs, as was pointed out by Jesus himself in Luke 14:28 32. You can go back and read that if you're curious. There is a cost to things, whether it is a material cost, an emotional cost or a

psychological cost. And we ask these young men, and this is one of the major points that Sebastian Younger makes in his book, particularly in the last section on love, we ask these young men to make a sacrifice, to lay down not only their physical lives, but lay down their psychological lives, their emotional lives, and dare I say, even their spiritual lives in the service of achieving a tactical moment inside of a larger strategic plan.

Civilian control of the military is one of the hallmarks of Western civilization. Civilization and civilizations that come out of and are influenced by the Western way of war making and civilization, sorry, civilization. Civilian control of the military is ensured through political elections and a formalized or. Or formalized constitutional processes.

But this doesn't mean that the politicians that we elect, that we vote for are any good or any better at explaining the strategies of warfare or the outcomes of battles to the people who voted for them than the generals are. There's a great line in that anti war pro war film directed by Stanley Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove, or how I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb from Sterling Hayden, who plays a general in in a bunker in the 1950s who begins or kicks off

nuclear Armageddon. He says, and I quote, the phrasing used to be war was too important to be left to the generals. These days, I say war is too important to be left to the politicians. Close quote the soldiers who were tasked with capturing and holding spots in the Corner Valley in 2007 and 2008 and before and were doing so against the Taliban were men who didn't know the strategy either. They just knew that their country had sent them there and now their friends were getting shot there and all

bets were off. Remember I said, the more things change, the more they remain depressingly the same. I was recently reminded of an idea that was buried in the book Starship Troopers by the great Robert Heinlein, whose book A Stranger in a Strange Land we covered on the podcast this season. You should go back and listen to that episode. The idea in Starship Troopers that Heinlein was rebelling against himself, a veteran of the United States military, the idea that he was pushing back

against was this one. And it comes in a quip that typically comes from well meaning or emanates from well meaning civilians who really don't know anything about war at all. The quip is violence is never the answer. Adults, particularly adults employed in the K12 education system in America, often deliver this bromide to children. The sentiment behind such an aphorism is

admirable, and I think Heinlein would agree with me on this. But just because it is admirable, that doesn't make it correct or particularly useful. Sometimes, and I'm saying this as a person who is and has worked in the mediation and peacemaking space, sometimes violence is the answer. It just depends upon what the question is.

And we in the United States, we are at a weird inflection point where the things that happened 20 years ago and the people who did those things and made those decisions are increasingly going to be framed and perceived as old or irrelevant. And the men who were boys 20 years ago in the Korengal Valley are going to be framed this way as well.

By the way, at the time of this recording, the news broke that the former Vice President of the United States, who was part of the decision making matrix that the civilian population voted for that, then sent those young men to the Korengal Valley. A gentleman named Dick Cheney has passed away. He was 84

years old, died, I suspect, peacefully in his bed. Hmm. War in general is still and remains the most serious act we as humans engage in against other humans. And I hope for the life of all of us that we are exiting a time, an era over the last 20 years of deeply held unseriousness, unserious politicians unserious generals, unserious executive leadership. I pray we are exiting a time of unserious media and unserious

entertainment. I pray that we are exiting a time of unserious culture, and that we are entering a time where, having been led and been commanded and been demanded to do things by unserious people, the people who had to do those things now become the mature, serious ones, and now speak with a mature and serious voice.

And I hope that we are in the last gas of being led by those who merely perform seriousness without a deep understanding of competency and skill, because the competency and skill that is required in order to effectively dish out, for lack of a better term, the sacrifices that are required to make war is also a competency or walks alongside competencies and skills that can explain in a serious fashion to a serious public that lies below a deeply unserious elite the consequences of

of such actions. And, well, that's it for me.