Fighting the Forever War: The U.S. Service Member Experience in Afghanistan, 2001-2014

by Lisa M. Mundey

Overview

During two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, U.S. service members confronted numerous challenges in their mission to secure the country from the threat of al-Qaeda and the Taliban and assist in rebuilding efforts. Because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred simultaneously, much of the American public conflated them or failed to notice the Afghanistan War; and most of the war's archival material remains classified and closed to civilian researchers.

Drawing on interviews and letters home, this book relates the Afghanistan War through the experiences of American troops, with firsthand accounts of both combat and humanitarian operations, the environment, living conditions and interactions with the locals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476646824
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	258
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lisa M. Mundey is an American and military historian who has worked both in academia and U.S. Army history. She has written extensively on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. She lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Lisa M. Mundey is an American and military historian who has worked both in academia and U.S. Army history. She has written extensively on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. She lives in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. First Impressions
2. Living Spaces
3. Getting to Know the Locals
4. Patrols and Combat
5. Air War
6. Embedded Trainers
7. Working with the Afghans
8. Surge and ­Draw-Down
9. Meaning and Memory
Conclusion
Glossary
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

With impressive rigor and exhaustive comprehensiveness, the author provides a ‘ground-up perspective of those Americans who served in Afghanistan, not from the top-down levels of strategy and policy.’... [Mundey] covers every imaginable sphere of military life—the frequently austere living conditions, sexual relations among soldiers, illicit drug use, and the profoundly forbidding terrain and weather. What lucidly emerges is an intriguing and complex picture of American soldiers confronting a world so alien that they often found it difficult to sympathize with the plight of the Afghans. ...Mundey's presentation is admirably nuanced—she limns a war in constant evolution, one in which the mission objectives were subject to significant revisions over time. The author's prose is journalistically precise and straightforward as well as refreshingly sober and unencumbered by ideological partisanship. Instead of tired talking points, readers are treated to something despairingly rare these days: a faithful description supplied by the witnesses themselves. A remarkable, thorough tour of the war in Afghanistan given by soldiers who fought there.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2022-04-11
A historical work explores the American military presence in Afghanistan as seen by the soldiers themselves.

As Mundey observes, it is easy to conflate the war in Afghanistan with the conflict in Iraq—two thoroughly Muslim countries in the Middle East that served as redoubts for militant Islamic terrorists. But the differences between the two are in fact so great that many American soldiers complained the training for one left them sorely underprepared for the other. With impressive rigor and exhaustive comprehensiveness, the author provides a “ground-up perspective of those Americans who served in Afghanistan, not from the top-down levels of strategy and policy.” Relying on a variety of firsthand accounts articulated in blogs, memoirs, and interviews, Mundey examines the impressions of Afghanistan experienced by a wide range of soldiers, including the often neglected private contractors. She covers every imaginable sphere of military life—the frequently austere living conditions, sexual relations among soldiers, illicit drug use, and the profoundly forbidding terrain and weather. What lucidly emerges is an intriguing and complex picture of American soldiers confronting a world so alien that they often found it difficult to sympathize with the plight of the Afghans. And as the war dragged on, a hopeful optimism began to give way to cynicism: “When looking back at nearly 20 years of war in Afghanistan, with the Taliban forces back in control, the future of a secure, democratic Afghanistan looks dim.” Mundey’s presentation is admirably nuanced—she limns a war in constant evolution, one in which the mission objectives were subject to significant revisions over time. The author’s prose is journalistically precise and straightforward as well as refreshingly sober and unencumbered by ideological partisanship. Instead of tired talking points, readers are treated to something despairingly rare these days: a faithful description supplied by the witnesses themselves.

A remarkable, thorough tour of the war in Afghanistan given by soldiers who fought there.

Kirkus Reviews