Review
'There is no one better to tell this story than Sam Kiley. One of the most intrepid foreign correspondents of our generation, he delves into the heart and soul of battle. Kiley has never been afraid to tell the truth - his long career in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East is a testament to that. If you want to know why men wage war - read this' --Janine di Giovanni
Kiley describes the business with great originality and perception. Without hyperbole, without any softening or glamourising effects, he takes us to the battlefield and shows us its grimness.
He clearly achieved a real intimacy with the people he was observing and writes about them with insight and affection. In the process he lights up the great paradox - that people trained to kill ... can at the same time display a humanity and generosity of spirit often lacking in civilian life. -- Evening Standard
"Riveting. Evocative. Spine Chilling. Taste the bullets and the fear. Kiley writes like a dream, taking the reader into the heart of the heat, blood and dust of the Afghan nightmare"
--Damian Lewis
Kiley is a remarkable reporter, a verteran of countless conflicts. The dust jacket notes that he has been kidnapped twice and shot once. To write this extraordinarily vivid account of modern war, he accompanied 16 Air Assault Brigage, at the sharp end, through its entire tour in Helmand. He came to know its men intimately and writes of them with affection as well as insight, through turbulent and bloody experiences... he offers a strikingly convincing portrait of how Britain's part in the Afghan war seems to those who are fighting it. --Sunday Times - Max Hastings
Sam Kiley has produced an outstanding book which will join the classics of military history.... He makes the reader feel that he was there at the lung-bursting sprint to cover, as the bullets kick up the dust --Bruce Anderson, The Independent
a vivid rifle-sight's view of the war, and probably the best battlefield account yet of the British in Afghanistan --The Economist
Kiley describes the business with great originality and perception. Without hyperbole, without any softening or glamourising effects, he takes us to the battlefield and shows us its grimness.
He clearly achieved a real intimacy with the people he was observing and writes about them with insight and affection. In the process he lights up the great paradox - that people trained to kill ... can at the same time display a humanity and generosity of spirit often lacking in civilian life. -- Evening Standard
"Riveting. Evocative. Spine Chilling. Taste the bullets and the fear. Kiley writes like a dream, taking the reader into the heart of the heat, blood and dust of the Afghan nightmare"
--Damian Lewis
Kiley is a remarkable reporter, a verteran of countless conflicts. The dust jacket notes that he has been kidnapped twice and shot once. To write this extraordinarily vivid account of modern war, he accompanied 16 Air Assault Brigage, at the sharp end, through its entire tour in Helmand. He came to know its men intimately and writes of them with affection as well as insight, through turbulent and bloody experiences... he offers a strikingly convincing portrait of how Britain's part in the Afghan war seems to those who are fighting it. --Sunday Times - Max Hastings
Sam Kiley has produced an outstanding book which will join the classics of military history.... He makes the reader feel that he was there at the lung-bursting sprint to cover, as the bullets kick up the dust --Bruce Anderson, The Independent
a vivid rifle-sight's view of the war, and probably the best battlefield account yet of the British in Afghanistan --The Economist
Review
'I have known Sam Kiley since we were young men racing around Africa's war zones. He is one of the few originals in modern journalism - a legend among his peers, not just for his sometimes insane bravery but for the force of his understanding and the originality of his journalism.' Fergal Keane 'There is no one better to tell this story than Sam Kiley. One of the most intrepid foreign correspondents of our generation, he delves into the heart and soul of battle. Kiley has never been afraid to tell the truth - his long career in Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East is a testament to that. If you want to know why men wage war - read this' Janine di Giovanni
Product Description
His mates watch, and giggle, when tracer bullets from Spongebob's machine gun rip through a Taleban fighter. A wounded colonel high on morphine mistakes a helicopter for a train. Young men and teenagers fight the toughest battles for fifty years. Then play like puppies in the sand of their isolated bases, cooling off in paddling pools. Almost no one out there understands why Britain is at war in Helmand. They would not have missed it. Sam Kiley joined 16 Air Assault Brigade and got unescorted and unrestricted access to the front line for a full six month tour of duty. .
About the Author
Award-winning journalist Sam Kiley has covered wars and insurgencies in more than thirty countries over the last twenty years. Educated at Oxford University, he joined The Times in 1987, and since 1990 has worked as a foreign correspondent all over the world, most notably in Africa, where he won acclaim for his coverage of conflicts in the Congo, Somalia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. He has worked extensively in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban and has made more than twenty television films for Channel Four, Sky 1 and the BBC. He is a frequent contributor to the Mail on Sunday, the Evening Standard, the Observer, The Times and the Spectator. Married and a father of two, Sam Kiley lives in the countryside of East Anglia.
