The Good Soldiers

In January 2007, the young and optimistic soldiers of the 2-16, the American infantry battalion known as the Rangers, were sent to Iraq as part of the surge. Their job would be to patrol one of the most dangerous areas of Baghdad. For fifteen months, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Finkel was with them, following them almost every grueling step of the way. The resulting account of that time, The Good Soldiers, is a searing, shattering portrait of the face of modern war. In telling the story of these soldiers, both the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also written a classic work of war reporting.

No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, Finkel shadowed the men of the US 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad as they carried out the grueling fifteen-month "surge" that changed them all forever. Now Finkel has followed many of the same men as they've returned home and struggled to reintegrate - both into their family lives and into society at large. In the ironically titled Thank You for Your Service, Finkel writes with tremendous compassion not just about the soldiers but about their wives and children. Where do soldiers belong after their homecoming? Is it reasonable, or even possible, to expect them to rejoin their communities as if nothing has happened? And in moments of hardship, who can soldiers turn to if they feel alienated by the world they once lived in? These are the questions Finkel faces as he revisits the brave but shaken men of the 2-16. More than a work of journalism, Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding -- shocking but always riveting, unflinching but deeply humane, it takes us inside the heads of those who must live the rest of their lives with the realities of war.

The story of the Carignan-Salières Regiment which Louis XIV sent to Canada in 1665 to secure the colony from Mohawk Iroquois attacks.

The Good Soldier A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford At the fashionable German spa town Bad Nauheim, two wealthy, fin de siecle couples - one British, the other American - meet for their yearly assignation. As their story moves back and forth in time between 1902 and 1914, the fragile surface propriety of the pre - World War I society in which these four characters live is ruptured - revealing deceit, hatred, infidelity, and betrayal. "The Good Soldier" is Edward Ashburnham, who, as an adherent to the moral code of the English upper class, is nonetheless consumed by a passion for women younger than his wife - a stoic but fallible figure in what his American friend, John Dowell, calls "the saddest story I ever heard."

Waged for a just cause, World War II was America’s good war. Yet for millions of GIs, the war did not end with the enemy’s surrender. From letters, diaries, and memoirs, Susan Carruthers chronicles the intimate thoughts and feelings of ordinary servicemen and women whose difficult mission was to rebuild nations they had recently worked to destroy.

There have been thousands of books on the Great War, but most have focused on commanders, battles, strategy, and tactics. Less attention has been paid to the daily lives of the combatants, how they endured the unimaginable conditions of industrial warfare: the rain of shells, bullets, and chemical agents. In The Secret History of Soldiers, Tim Cook, Canada's foremost military historian, examines how those who survived trench warfare on the Western Front found entertainment, solace, relief, and distraction from the relentless slaughter. These tales come from the soldiers themselves, mined from the letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral accounts of more than five hundred combatants. Rare examples of trench art, postcards, and even song sheets offer insight into a hidden society that was often irreverent, raunchy, and anti-authoritarian. Believing in supernatural stories was another way soldiers shielded themselves from the horror. While novels and poetry often depict the soldiers of the Great War as mere victims, this new history shows how the soldiers pushed back against the grim war, refusing to be broken in the mincing machine of the Western Front. The violence of war is always present, but Cook reveals the gallows humour the soldiers employed to get through it. Over the years, both writers and historians have overlooked this aspect of the men's lives. The fighting at the front was devastating, but behind the battle lines, another layer of life existed, one that included songs, skits, art, and soldier-produced newspapers. With his trademark narrative abilities and an unerring eye for the telling human detail, Cook has created another landmark history of Canadian military life as he reveals the secrets of how soldiers survived the carnage of the Western Front.

It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. It became known as 'the surge'. 'Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences', he told a sceptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. What is the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions that the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. He was with Battalion 2-16 in Baghdad almost every gruelling step of the way. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, Finkel has also produced an eternal tale — not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time. 'This is the finest book yet written on platoon-level combat in the Iraq war. Unforgettable – raw, moving, and rendered with literary control. No one who reads this book will soon forget its imagery, words, or characters.' STEVE COLL, author of The Bin Ladens 'Finkel's account . . . is riverting, honest and bloodied.' The Age

Since retiring from the Armed Forces, Major-General Lewis MacKenzie has not stayed out of the spotlight but continues to speak his mind. In this straight-talking memoir, he traces his post-military career as an international commentator on military affairs, a consultant to the Irish government and a federal political candidate. In Soldiers Made Me Look Good he answers his critics, including journalist Carol Off for her criticism of his handling of the UN mission in Bosnia. In a hard-hitting chapter, he discusses his professional disagreement with the leadership priorities demonstrated by Roméo Dallaire in the early hours of the Rwandan genocide. He continues his story to the present, to “the first real litmus test for NATO”—Afghanistan. Divided into two parts—pre-1993, when MacKenzie calls himself a Cold War grunt, and post-1993, after his controversial stint in Bosnia—Soldiers Made Me Look Good is laced with anecdotes both funny and profound. It concludes with ten pointers on leadership, in which MacKenzie shares hard-earned insights from a life on the front lines.