"The Blog of War" book cover

Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

Matthew Currier Burden

Simon & Schuster, 2006

ISBN 0-7432-9418-1

304 pages

$15.00 (paperback)

Reviewed by: Patrick Thomas

intro | ch1 | ch2 | ch3 | ch4 | ch5 | ch6 | ch7 | ch8 | epilogue

Chapter 5

"The Warriors"

Chapter 5 continues to chronicle soldiers’ experiences in battle through first-person accounts of combat situations. The primary distinction between these entries and those that appear in prior chapters is that these stories detail the combat situations in which US soldiers are put in offensive positions. The stories collected here address a kind of movement to battle, beginning with the preparations of one corporal’s team after a brief R&R (Rest and Relaxation) stint, continuing with an Army Sergeant’s engagement in Samarra, then moving to an Army Captain’s reflections on his first kill, and eventually detailing five different soldiers’ reflections on fighting in heavy offensive attacks in the streets of Baghdad, Fallujah, and Karbala.