A gritty, well written book about a savage war fought by the US military and its allies. There are many everyday guys who can be considered incredible heroes, even though they are merely doing the job that they were trained for. There must be thousands of other unknown stories out there which have yet to be coveredThe Pentagon does not come across as a particularly caring high command, making poor decisions which impact the folks on the ground.
I can particularly relate to the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, my son flew a number of tours with the RAF in both countries. He has the utmost respect for the professionalism of the US forces.
I definitely want to read this book again in the future, a sign that I really enjoyed the read!

Chivers has written a remarkable book. What an eye opener for the layman who wants to know and understand the American role in the Afghan and Iraq wars. He brilliantly explains the workings of the wars through the eyes of 6 combatants who play different roles but whose dedication and determination is mirrored by each other.
Sadly, modern warfare has taken a frustrating turn according to the stories Chivers relates. The confusion and lack of coordination surrounding the battles and preparation seem to permeate their stories.
This is a book that needs to be read and dissected by all of us.

Chivers is a senior editor at The New York Times, and has won the Pulitzer for journalism. This meaty but readable book is the culmination of his years covering the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not the creation of a man parked in a library behind his laptop; he has personally gone to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and Libya, and has either accompanied the people he writes about or retraced their footsteps. He covers the lives of six servicemen in the lower and middle ranks of the armed forces, and so he primarily uses eye witness reporting and interviews, in addition to American military data. I read it free courtesy of Net Galley and Simon and Schuster in exchange for my honest review. The Fighters will most likely be regarded in future years as the go-to book for those that want to know more about this war and the people whose lives were changed by it—including many of those whose homeland is or has been part of the war zone.

Chivers sees a tremendous amount of waste and foolhardy disregard for human lives on the part of the Pentagon, and he makes an undeniable case for it. After reading it I came away convinced that he did not begin his project with an axe to grind and seek out the particular facts that would support the reality he wanted to present, but rather that over the many years since the towers fell in 2001, the things that he has seen and heard all point remorselessly toward the same conclusion. In point of fact, there are two places in my reading notes where I marked, without hyperbole, the similarity between the true information provided here and what I might expect to read in The Onion.

Take, for example, the Afghan allies that are integrated into U.S. forces. The U.S. provides them with guns, but as far as anyone can see, it is strictly for the purpose of the Pentagon’s public relations campaign. Afghan soldiers in U.S. units don’t fire those guns. They hold them. They don’t aim; they don’t look at whoever is giving instructions nor at the translator. (They sure as fuck don’t salute.) In a protracted firefight, an American will eventually run out of ammunition and trade their empty weapon for one of those they hold, if the Afghan has not disappeared and taken the gun with him. And at night, the night watch exists in large part to ensure that if the Afghan soldiers choose to make themselves scarce overnight, they won’t take a bunch of munitions and hand them off to the Taliban.

But since the American public is increasingly impatient with the duration and loss incurred by this war, those guys have to be kept around like untrustworthy mascots in order to maintain the illusion that Afghan forces will be taking the place of U.S. troops soon. Timelines get pushed back, but nothing significantly changes. The drums beat on.

Thoughtless and ham-handed decisions by the top brass increase the resentment of civilians that live near the bases, people living in miserable poverty in sometimes directly across the street, with expensive machinery and plenitude of supplies the locals will probably never have. Meanwhile, troops are sent into circumstances that are bound to be fatal and also fail in their military objectives.

It makes you want to sit down and cry.

However, most of the narrative is not carnage and defeat. Who would read it if it were? Chivers instead does a fine job of painting the individual lives of the Americans he follows, and so most of the story reads almost like good fiction, and rather than being swathed in constant despair or endless statistics, I was instead deeply absorbed. Who knew it would be so interesting?

Those that are curious about the war in the Middle East, the first U.S. war in generations to see reporters banned from providing live footage or photographing flag-covered caskets sent home, could hardly find better material to read. This is on-the-ground coverage at its finest. If you want to read just one book about the U.S. conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, this should be it.

THE FIGHTERS by C.J. Chivers is a highly praised analysis of military history and American combat in Afghanistan and Iraq which offers the perspective and experiences of six combatants described by the publisher as a fighter pilot, a corpsman, a scout helicopter pilot, a grunt, an infantry officer, and a Special Forces sergeant. Chivers said that his one organizing idea was to convey "that they are human," especially to readers who may not have served or know anyone in the military. It is certainly eye-opening and at times an almost overwhelming emotional experience to read the personal details about the danger and suffering that these soldiers and their families faced, both during and after deployment.

Chivers was an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps in the Persian Gulf War and is now a Pulitzer Prize winning correspondent for The New York Times. THE FIGHTERS was recently featured on PBS NewsHour and here is a short video interview with him:
[ video embedded in post]: https://www.youtube.com/embed/fhTwoNkvl-8

THE FIGHTERS received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. You can read or hear an excerpt here. Please look for a copy on our shelves soon.

Link to excerpt: http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fighters/C-J-Chivers/9781451676648

The author follows soldiers serving multiple tours of service in Iraq and Afghanistan and the effects this has on their lives. This book doesn't sugar coat anything, it is an honest account of how multiple tours of duty can effect soldiers.

The Fighters by C.J. Chivers is a non-fiction book offering unnerving accounts of soldiers on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Chivers is a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist and former Marine Corps infantry officer.

This book is a riveting read which tells of the harsh truths, challenges and pains of fighting two wars in distant countries, away from home. If you like your “alternate facts”, or happy stories this book is not for you. But if you’d like to read what US soldiers are going through, face some ugly truths and difficult facts this is it.

The author tells real stories of real soldiers that have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, some are new to the military and others are veterans of other conflicts. Their stories are told from a humane point of view and takes into account the human factor and the toll fighting takes on one’s self and one’s family.

The book is told from a third person perspective, but we read the background on each of them and see them as individuals, not just soldiers who are small cogs in a big machine who have opinions on what they do, why they do it, and suffer the consequences along with hundreds of thousands of others.

Mr. Chivers’ does some analysis, not much but some, in the course of the book. His analysis is reasonable and based on facts, you or I might agree or disagree with some of them, but that is what reasonable people do. The author does not make up facts, but makes reasonable assumptions and tries to stay as objective as possible.

The book is very real and raw, it makes several points – some on geopolitical matters which I do not know enough to comment on, but others on local level. One of the main points is how the US, as a whole, needs to treat our veterans better, especially those that are suffering from physical and/or mental wounds. Coming home broken is not a weakness, but one does need strength and support, as well as no social stigma, to ask for help when needed.

If you feel inclined, please support the Wounded Warrior Project, or any other of the fantastic organizations that were set up to help these veterans.

Afghanistan,Iraq, war-is-hell, war-experiences, nonfiction -----

This is one tough read. This journalist shows the waste, poor planning, and ineptitude of self aggrandizement by the Congress and the armed forces brass in this seemingly endless war to save the lives of people who no longer believe us by verbally delving into the lives of a number of combatants in all branches of the US armed forces. If the reader is in a paramedical field or law enforcement, there will be triggers in the graphic descriptions of incidents and results. He covers the time from early days after the attacks in the US to present days, and the reader can see for self that only those who had or have boots on the ground are the ones who really care, and the families suffer right along with them for as long as they can.
I requested and received a free review copy from Simon and Schuster Publishers via NetGalley.

I have taught at the same high school for the past eighteen years, and every year approximately 5 or 6 students enter the military after graduation. Many of those over one hundred young men and women have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to fight. I often think about what they go through on a day-to-day basis. Where are they deployed? What are their tasks? How are they faring? C.J. Chivers's The Fighters goes far to answer these questions about the lives of the individuals in our military units since 9/11. He writes compassionate and telling profiles from the cockpit, the turret, and the boots on ground.  Chivers balances a keen understanding of the machinery and the bureaucracy of the military, with the human element of war.

The book's twelve chapters are broken up with pieces of history detailing the big-picture moves of the American government since the start of the conflict. One of the running themes in Chivers's narrative is the striking changes that technology has brought to war. He describes how tech has dramatically altered how a soldier sees the brutality of the fighting.  The reader experiences not only the day-to-day bravery of the men and woman’s efforts but the long-term effects of those days, weeks and years on a soldier’s conscience and body. 

The Fighters honors the soldiers who try to see through the fog of war every day: the medical corpsman who has to triage a roadside bomb and the helicopter instructor pilot who takes his students through their first missions. They may not be directly connected to 'why' of the missions, but they certain are there for their fellow solders. This is a much needed text. Much needed because not enough has been documented about the last 15 years of war. And Chibers gives us a near-complete look, not at the directors, but the grunts with their hands on the triggers and the responsibilities on their shoulders. I commend Chivers's dedication to expose the report on the challenges of these and all the soldiers. 

One of my past students will be entering his junior year at West Point this fall. Where will he serve? What will his experience be like? 

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and C.J. Chivers for an advanced copy for review

I almost didn't read this because one review said something to the effect "he didn't start out to write a book about how foolish the US was". That is one of those key phrases acknowledging a sure lie like "transparency or just like Jack Reacher". Anyway, due to the author being a vet I kept on.

As one of the 2.5 who served along with my son I found six chapters of patriotism and loss. Hopefully the great lessons in these six including the one who is gone will not be lost on the greatest country in the world with a recent (last 20 years) record of very poor leadership. We still make the greatest warriors in spite of them. We never faltered in fighting, we faltered when we asked why and got bad answers or no answer at all.

Read this book