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All the Ways We Kill and Die: A Portrait of Modern War
The search for a friend’s killer is a riveting lesson in the way war has changed.
The EOD—explosive ordnance disposal—community is tight-knit, and when one of their own is hurt, an alarm goes out. When Brian Castner, an Iraq War vet, learns that his friend and EOD brother Matt has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, he goes to console Matt's widow, but he also begins a personal investigation. Is the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been hunting since Iraq, known as the Engineer?
In this nonfiction thriller Castner takes us inside the manhunt for this elusive figure, meeting maimed survivors, interviewing the forensics teams who gather post-blast evidence, the wonks who collect intelligence, the drone pilots and contractors tasked to kill. His investigation reveals how warfare has changed since Iraq, becoming individualized even as it has become hi-tech, with our drones, bomb disposal robots, and CSI-like techniques. As we use technology to identify, locate, and take out the planners and bomb makers, the chilling lesson is that the hunters are also being hunted, and the other side—from Al-Qaeda to ISIS— has been selecting its own high-value targets.
Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
The EOD—explosive ordnance disposal—community is tight-knit, and when one of their own is hurt, an alarm goes out. When Brian Castner, an Iraq War vet, learns that his friend and EOD brother Matt has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, he goes to console Matt's widow, but he also begins a personal investigation. Is the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been hunting since Iraq, known as the Engineer?
In this nonfiction thriller Castner takes us inside the manhunt for this elusive figure, meeting maimed survivors, interviewing the forensics teams who gather post-blast evidence, the wonks who collect intelligence, the drone pilots and contractors tasked to kill. His investigation reveals how warfare has changed since Iraq, becoming individualized even as it has become hi-tech, with our drones, bomb disposal robots, and CSI-like techniques. As we use technology to identify, locate, and take out the planners and bomb makers, the chilling lesson is that the hunters are also being hunted, and the other side—from Al-Qaeda to ISIS— has been selecting its own high-value targets.
Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
356 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2016
62 people are currently reading
449 people want to read
About the author
Brian Castner
9 books120 followersYou can now find me on Skolay: https://www.skolay.com/writers/brian-...
Brian Castner is a nonfiction writer, former Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, and veteran of the Iraq War. He is the author of "Stampede," "Disappointment River," "All the Ways We Kill and Die" and the war memoir "The Long Walk," which was adapted into an opera and named a New York Times Editor’s Pick and an Amazon Best Book. His journalism and essays have appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Esquire, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and on National Public Radio.
Brian Castner is a nonfiction writer, former Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer, and veteran of the Iraq War. He is the author of "Stampede," "Disappointment River," "All the Ways We Kill and Die" and the war memoir "The Long Walk," which was adapted into an opera and named a New York Times Editor’s Pick and an Amazon Best Book. His journalism and essays have appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Esquire, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and on National Public Radio.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
April 1, 2018
I always struggle when rating and reviewing non-fiction. I argue with myself about what it is I'm actually rating. Am I rating the story/material? Am I rating the research? The writing or prose? The flow? How it made it feel? All these questions normally lead me to slapping some stars on the rating and skipping the review.
With this book, Castner ticked all the boxes. The research, the flow, the story/material covered, the writing quality, his approach to the material. He also balanced a sensitivity for the lost and their families with his own personal experience and feelings.
This book is exactly what the cover says it is, An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer. But it's also more than that. It's a fresh look at how we go to war, and the ways in which we approach it that are different today than they were even 10-15 years ago. It's a salute to the EOD community, and the ways in which that community tries to deal with the loss of any one of its own, supporting not only each other, but each other's families. And it's a well-written record of one man's journey through his personal emotions around all of those things. Well done.
With this book, Castner ticked all the boxes. The research, the flow, the story/material covered, the writing quality, his approach to the material. He also balanced a sensitivity for the lost and their families with his own personal experience and feelings.
This book is exactly what the cover says it is, An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer. But it's also more than that. It's a fresh look at how we go to war, and the ways in which we approach it that are different today than they were even 10-15 years ago. It's a salute to the EOD community, and the ways in which that community tries to deal with the loss of any one of its own, supporting not only each other, but each other's families. And it's a well-written record of one man's journey through his personal emotions around all of those things. Well done.
June 4, 2018
*This review originally appeared on The Millions*
The enemy knew he could not defeat us on our own terms. The conventional battlefield was ours, the sky as well. So they made us bleed one body at a time — limb by limb — through the use of handmade bombs. If there is one tribe of the military that knows this tactic best, it is the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians charged with combatting it. Brian Castner spent eight years leading EOD teams, including two tours in Iraq. The harrowing aftermath of that period of his life was well-told in his memoir The Long Walk; his latest work of nonfiction, All the Ways We Kill and Die, continues the memoir’s narrative while displaying Castner’s considerable talent for both in-depth reportage and more imaginative forms.
Castner opens the book with a prologue that imagines the detonation of an IED in Afghanistan from the Taliban perspective — a detonation, we learn a few pages later, that takes the life of his friend and EOD comrade Matt Schwartz. Castner, five years out of uniform and now a writer and freelance journalist, asks the question the book seeks to answer: “Who killed Matt Schwartz?” From there, the narrative loops in ever-widening arcs through a structure that roughly mirrors an EOD team’s post-blast actions. Collect the dead. Tend the wounded. Gather evidence. Hunt. Remember.
If there is risk inherent to the structure of All the Ways We Kill and Die, it is that its polygamous marriage of imagination, memoir, and reportage runs the risk of throwing off a genre-monogamous reader. There’s as much for the armchair military history buff in Castner’s exploration of IED technology and tactics as there is for fans of literary nonfiction. The early chapters are fairly traditional narratives, Castner retracing the impacts of personal losses ranging from his dead friend to maimed comrades. But by Part III of the book, Castner must link disparate narratives from both Iraq and Afghanistan while keeping an eye on how he imagines a kind of IED archetype, this “Engineer” he suspects took Matt Schwartz’s life. The surreal rhythms of a drone pilot, a firefight documented through passages of military Internet relay chat — these are the disorienting signs of a disappearing center, as Part IV reveals how we hunt and kill.
The book is not a cut-and-dried war story; its conclusion is appropriately ambiguous considering the open-ended nature of the wars my generation has fought. Novels and memoirs by service members that address their time in Afghanistan or Iraq have not benefitted from the sense of closure granted veteran writers of World War Two, or even Vietnam. Where writers like Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Eugene Sledge (With the Old Breed), Tim O’Brien (Going After Cacciato) and Phil Caputo (A Rumour of War) could look back at the U.S.S. Missouri and the Fall of Saigon with respective clarity; novelists Matt Gallagher (Iraq, Youngblood) and Elliot Ackerman (Afghanistan, Green on Blue) need only peruse the Internet for unnecessary reminders that both wars drag on today. Memoirists have fared similarly. Both Brian Turner’s My Life as a Foreign Country and even Castner’s The Long Walk could only conclude by narrowing the lens to a hyper-personal focus. A former soldier lies in bed. A former EOD officer performs therapeutic yoga. There is no definitive ending when the events that shaped your story are still unfolding.
“Long and Messy and Gray” is the book’s narrative climax, and details the lifeline of an EOD troop turned lethal contractor whose name Castner redacts to “M_____.” Highly fragmented, but crafted so as not to bewilder, its nearest cousin is that brilliant piece of Vietnam writing, “Illumination Rounds” from Michael Herr’s Dispatches. And it is the perfect final lift to a bracing narrative. George Packer noted in his New Yorker essay “Home Fires” that “fragments are perhaps the most honest literary form available to writers who fought so recently.” I contest the efficacy of a word like “honest” in this context; had Packer applied the word “effective,” the statement would prove more meaningful. “Long and Messy and Gray” might watershed the most effective personal war narrative structure I’ve encountered; the denouement that comes in Part V is necessary, but it’s this chapter that is most compelling.
All investigations, war-related or not, begin with a simple question and best of intent. But as Serial showed us last year, building a complete picture is about sorting through the puzzle pieces and assembling the mosaic as the meaning of each fragment appears. If, like M____, one returns to war dozens of times, the narrative must necessarily shatter each time. Within this frame, Castner shares the same creative space as Serial’s producer, Sarah Koenig. Certain pieces belong together, neatly assembled for the reader to observe. Other pieces, however, belong in a pile, appearing as they are overturned. There’s an art to this type of transient work, a sense of structural mastery just beyond the page that is all the more inspiring when you consider that both Castner and Koenig began with just one question: “Who?” The best writers fully admit that the best stories reveal themselves along the way. The best stories, as it turns out, might end up answering a different question altogether.
“Who killed Matt Schwartz” is the least of the questions answered within the pages of All the Ways We Kill and Die. Castner captures the complex push and pull; the cost and reward; and a fully formed image of what it’s been like to be both in the middle, and on the periphery, of The Forever War. Despite this wide lens, however, Castner’s real task is to tell an intensely personal story. In the closing chapter, we find him walking the forest with his children, pointing out roots, ruts, and creeping vines that threaten their peaceful stroll. I imagine him pausing, pushing a knee into the rich brown earth and pointing ahead once more: danger there.
The enemy knew he could not defeat us on our own terms. The conventional battlefield was ours, the sky as well. So they made us bleed one body at a time — limb by limb — through the use of handmade bombs. If there is one tribe of the military that knows this tactic best, it is the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians charged with combatting it. Brian Castner spent eight years leading EOD teams, including two tours in Iraq. The harrowing aftermath of that period of his life was well-told in his memoir The Long Walk; his latest work of nonfiction, All the Ways We Kill and Die, continues the memoir’s narrative while displaying Castner’s considerable talent for both in-depth reportage and more imaginative forms.
Castner opens the book with a prologue that imagines the detonation of an IED in Afghanistan from the Taliban perspective — a detonation, we learn a few pages later, that takes the life of his friend and EOD comrade Matt Schwartz. Castner, five years out of uniform and now a writer and freelance journalist, asks the question the book seeks to answer: “Who killed Matt Schwartz?” From there, the narrative loops in ever-widening arcs through a structure that roughly mirrors an EOD team’s post-blast actions. Collect the dead. Tend the wounded. Gather evidence. Hunt. Remember.
If there is risk inherent to the structure of All the Ways We Kill and Die, it is that its polygamous marriage of imagination, memoir, and reportage runs the risk of throwing off a genre-monogamous reader. There’s as much for the armchair military history buff in Castner’s exploration of IED technology and tactics as there is for fans of literary nonfiction. The early chapters are fairly traditional narratives, Castner retracing the impacts of personal losses ranging from his dead friend to maimed comrades. But by Part III of the book, Castner must link disparate narratives from both Iraq and Afghanistan while keeping an eye on how he imagines a kind of IED archetype, this “Engineer” he suspects took Matt Schwartz’s life. The surreal rhythms of a drone pilot, a firefight documented through passages of military Internet relay chat — these are the disorienting signs of a disappearing center, as Part IV reveals how we hunt and kill.
The book is not a cut-and-dried war story; its conclusion is appropriately ambiguous considering the open-ended nature of the wars my generation has fought. Novels and memoirs by service members that address their time in Afghanistan or Iraq have not benefitted from the sense of closure granted veteran writers of World War Two, or even Vietnam. Where writers like Joseph Heller (Catch-22), Eugene Sledge (With the Old Breed), Tim O’Brien (Going After Cacciato) and Phil Caputo (A Rumour of War) could look back at the U.S.S. Missouri and the Fall of Saigon with respective clarity; novelists Matt Gallagher (Iraq, Youngblood) and Elliot Ackerman (Afghanistan, Green on Blue) need only peruse the Internet for unnecessary reminders that both wars drag on today. Memoirists have fared similarly. Both Brian Turner’s My Life as a Foreign Country and even Castner’s The Long Walk could only conclude by narrowing the lens to a hyper-personal focus. A former soldier lies in bed. A former EOD officer performs therapeutic yoga. There is no definitive ending when the events that shaped your story are still unfolding.
“Long and Messy and Gray” is the book’s narrative climax, and details the lifeline of an EOD troop turned lethal contractor whose name Castner redacts to “M_____.” Highly fragmented, but crafted so as not to bewilder, its nearest cousin is that brilliant piece of Vietnam writing, “Illumination Rounds” from Michael Herr’s Dispatches. And it is the perfect final lift to a bracing narrative. George Packer noted in his New Yorker essay “Home Fires” that “fragments are perhaps the most honest literary form available to writers who fought so recently.” I contest the efficacy of a word like “honest” in this context; had Packer applied the word “effective,” the statement would prove more meaningful. “Long and Messy and Gray” might watershed the most effective personal war narrative structure I’ve encountered; the denouement that comes in Part V is necessary, but it’s this chapter that is most compelling.
All investigations, war-related or not, begin with a simple question and best of intent. But as Serial showed us last year, building a complete picture is about sorting through the puzzle pieces and assembling the mosaic as the meaning of each fragment appears. If, like M____, one returns to war dozens of times, the narrative must necessarily shatter each time. Within this frame, Castner shares the same creative space as Serial’s producer, Sarah Koenig. Certain pieces belong together, neatly assembled for the reader to observe. Other pieces, however, belong in a pile, appearing as they are overturned. There’s an art to this type of transient work, a sense of structural mastery just beyond the page that is all the more inspiring when you consider that both Castner and Koenig began with just one question: “Who?” The best writers fully admit that the best stories reveal themselves along the way. The best stories, as it turns out, might end up answering a different question altogether.
“Who killed Matt Schwartz” is the least of the questions answered within the pages of All the Ways We Kill and Die. Castner captures the complex push and pull; the cost and reward; and a fully formed image of what it’s been like to be both in the middle, and on the periphery, of The Forever War. Despite this wide lens, however, Castner’s real task is to tell an intensely personal story. In the closing chapter, we find him walking the forest with his children, pointing out roots, ruts, and creeping vines that threaten their peaceful stroll. I imagine him pausing, pushing a knee into the rich brown earth and pointing ahead once more: danger there.
August 1, 2024
I've only dealt with EOD on the level of waiting for them for a few hours to show up and clear an IED. That's about it. This book is about the EOD profession and that of a deceased member of the EOD profession and how they hunted the trigger man down. Overall I liked the book a lot, and showed the EOD community what it was and how it related to the Global War on Terror. It's good and basic and doesn't need much explaining, so if you're not a veteran some of the stuff may not resonate with you as much as it did with me. I lost a somewhat buddy to an IED, and while I didn't know well, I remember his name to this day, so there's that. I would recommend this book as it doesn't bore you with the details and doesn't waste any words in describing the events that are portrayed in this book.
August 14, 2016
This book was welcome relief after being underwhelmed by "Billy Lynne's Long Halftime Walk". The title of this book alone grabs your attention. This book is along the lines of "The Things They Carried". It starts out with the death of Castner's EOD comrade in Afghanistan. You go inside a military funeral which was very heart wrenching.
Also the horrors of IED warfare are on display in this book. Castner vividly conveys this to the reader. You also follow wounded EOD warriors on their long road to recovery.
I would've given this book five stars except "the hunt for his killer" is not very riveting and the investigation is more of a personal journey and depiction of warfare rather than a true investigation. I will be checking out "The Long Walk" after this because EOD techs are the quite professionals and almost no books have been written about these brave men and women ( I think brave as an adjective falls incredibly short of describing EOD techs, possibly no word in the English language exists to represent their sense of duty and commitment).
Also the horrors of IED warfare are on display in this book. Castner vividly conveys this to the reader. You also follow wounded EOD warriors on their long road to recovery.
I would've given this book five stars except "the hunt for his killer" is not very riveting and the investigation is more of a personal journey and depiction of warfare rather than a true investigation. I will be checking out "The Long Walk" after this because EOD techs are the quite professionals and almost no books have been written about these brave men and women ( I think brave as an adjective falls incredibly short of describing EOD techs, possibly no word in the English language exists to represent their sense of duty and commitment).
January 13, 2017
Brian Castner is a veteran of the Iraq war, a former EOD officer turned writer, who is able to tell stories in a way that will greatly expand your knowledge and understanding of war, will deepen your appreciation for the nuances of military culture, and will tear your heart to pieces. All the Ways We Kill and Die seeks to find the man behind Castner’s friend/EOD brother’s death by taking the reader on a multilayered journey into modern warfare. It isn’t a dry, science heavy account. There is science, yes, and military jargon (with a handy glossary in the back), but the story is much deeper than all of the acronyms. It’s an exploration into the faces behind various aspects of war, full of deeply personal accounts that will change the way you watch the news - change the way you view veterans and their families. Every American should read this book.
June 5, 2017
I am not normally a fan of books written by soldiers about their time in battle, because the writing tends to be very dry and bland. Brian Castner's book caight my eye because the main plot was more anout finding a terrorist killer, than a recitation of battles fought.
This story focused on Matthew Schwartz, an EOD tech who was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) that exploded under his truck. The author gives us a background of Matthew Schwartz's life - he was a soldier, a husband, a father, a friend - and intertwines it with his own journey to find the facts.
Sometimes the story rambles, but overall it does an excellent job of taking the reader through the investigation to find the mastermind of the IEDs.
This story focused on Matthew Schwartz, an EOD tech who was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) that exploded under his truck. The author gives us a background of Matthew Schwartz's life - he was a soldier, a husband, a father, a friend - and intertwines it with his own journey to find the facts.
Sometimes the story rambles, but overall it does an excellent job of taking the reader through the investigation to find the mastermind of the IEDs.
February 27, 2024
There are parts of this book that are very raw and real. The prose throughout has really wonderful thick description which adds to the overall richness of the story, however there are parts of the book that really just do not feel fully integrated with the general arch that the author is focused on portraying. Some of the detail about the use and operation of drones just seemed a bit indulgent for no real purpose.
The author, and many Americans in general, lacks a certain amount of critical introspection insofar as the globalized and complex nature of postmodern warfare and how a myriad of US policy choices help to provide anti-American ideological framework for all of the worse pathologies of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's particularly frustrating in this work because Castner does in some parts of the book show a deeper understanding of how ongoing occupation breeds insurgency, as well as the role of poverty and social inequality in providing human fuel to the military industrial complex machine. So then the lack of ability to fully look into the mirror regarding a critical understanding of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan feels a bit like pulling punches.
And while the edition I read had the subtitle of "An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer," apparently there are other editions that have the subtitle "A Portrait of Modern War," and that kind of subtitle I find rage inducing to the point of automatic docking of points.
I will give Castner this - there is a tendency in the writing community to not give strong, workable feedback when it involves someone's personal experience of a particular traumatic nature. More so when the writer is associated with the military. So I would argue that some of the editing process work that could have really taken this book from alright to downright fantastic was lacking; my guess is that Castner's editors and pre-publication readers suffered from that culturally obligatory deference and the finished product suffered as a result. 2.75/5.
The author, and many Americans in general, lacks a certain amount of critical introspection insofar as the globalized and complex nature of postmodern warfare and how a myriad of US policy choices help to provide anti-American ideological framework for all of the worse pathologies of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. It's particularly frustrating in this work because Castner does in some parts of the book show a deeper understanding of how ongoing occupation breeds insurgency, as well as the role of poverty and social inequality in providing human fuel to the military industrial complex machine. So then the lack of ability to fully look into the mirror regarding a critical understanding of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan feels a bit like pulling punches.
And while the edition I read had the subtitle of "An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade, and the Hunt for His Killer," apparently there are other editions that have the subtitle "A Portrait of Modern War," and that kind of subtitle I find rage inducing to the point of automatic docking of points.
I will give Castner this - there is a tendency in the writing community to not give strong, workable feedback when it involves someone's personal experience of a particular traumatic nature. More so when the writer is associated with the military. So I would argue that some of the editing process work that could have really taken this book from alright to downright fantastic was lacking; my guess is that Castner's editors and pre-publication readers suffered from that culturally obligatory deference and the finished product suffered as a result. 2.75/5.
December 6, 2019
All the Ways We Kill and Die: A Portrait of Modern War
A book about US armed forces explosives ordnance technicians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s not just about derring do, shooting and heroic exploits but also about the families of the soldiers; some killed in action, some disabled – single/double/triple amputees; how the wounded and the families and their colleagues cope. It is also the story of a cat and mouse game – bomb maker being hunted by the intelligence as well as military, and how the bomb makers target the EOD techs as well.
There are chapters on contractors – at one stage the number of contractors was more than the number of regular troops. And civilian biometric experts with the beginnings of AI, and the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles, robots to assist EODs – all in one of the poorest countries on earth.
The writing is almost poetical – how do military personnel write that way?
God invented EOD technicians so that firefighters can have heroes
This book reads well, is of interest to those that like military history and want to understand that modern war although based on infantry with rifles, is also a lot more than that. I agree that although non-fiction; some of the stories could be a movie by themselves.
4.5 stars
A book about US armed forces explosives ordnance technicians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s not just about derring do, shooting and heroic exploits but also about the families of the soldiers; some killed in action, some disabled – single/double/triple amputees; how the wounded and the families and their colleagues cope. It is also the story of a cat and mouse game – bomb maker being hunted by the intelligence as well as military, and how the bomb makers target the EOD techs as well.
There are chapters on contractors – at one stage the number of contractors was more than the number of regular troops. And civilian biometric experts with the beginnings of AI, and the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles, robots to assist EODs – all in one of the poorest countries on earth.
The writing is almost poetical – how do military personnel write that way?
God invented EOD technicians so that firefighters can have heroes
This book reads well, is of interest to those that like military history and want to understand that modern war although based on infantry with rifles, is also a lot more than that. I agree that although non-fiction; some of the stories could be a movie by themselves.
4.5 stars
July 20, 2024
Pretty much essential reading for anything War on Terror-related. Part memoir, part detective story, part homage to a fallen comrade, part modern military technical guru guidebook (particularly for special operations and EOD and contractors hired out to do special missions), "All The Ways We Kill and Die" by Brian Castner was intense, informative like crazy, and not surprisingly made me glad I got out and did something else with my life. To the folks who go true blue professional in like special forces and whatnot, my hat's off to you for the just sheer technical savvy and for living that life, but Jesus am I glad it was never really a road I went down. In other words, yes, it is possible to be too military even for (most) military veterans... then again, there are people out there who feel they are in an existential fight and they're not going anywhere and, yes, we—as in that "we" which is a subset of professionals both in and out of uniform dedicated to the defense of whatever it is we're defending—are still fighting them, for better or worse. The fight hasn't ended; it's just changed. Worth the read. 👍
April 6, 2018
Castner presents an incisive look into the world of military EOD personnel and the horrible conditions in which they operate. This book rejects political correctness and places the blame for their deaths and injuries squarely on the upper echelons of the military and government. His search for the killer of his friend rips away the "glossy" masks that have been used to cover up the ridiculous demands placed on U.S. troops. And yet, the war in Afghanistan goes on and continues to decimate physical, mental, and spiritual lives without any clear goal. 16 years and counting. Either go all in and finish the job (after, of course, deciding what the job is), or get out. Stop wasting lives. Full disclosure: I am not anti-military. I am pro-military and have always strongly supported the troops.
August 17, 2017
Brian Castner came out of the military with a new profession, that of writer. But his military background has stayed with him, part of his bone and blood and soul. This book traces his hunt for the "why and how" behind the death of a friend and [military] brother from an IED. I would not do justice to the book if I tried to summarize it, but if you serve in Iraq or Afghanistan or you know someone who did, or if you have followed our military and our wars over the past 20 years, you will find this book gripping and in a way heart-breaking. I rarely give a 5-star rating; I'd give this one more if there were more available.
December 8, 2021
When author Brian Castner’s friend Matt Schwartz—an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician—dies when his JERVV hits an improvised explosive device (IED) on Jan 5, 2012, he consoles the widow but decides to go much deeper and peel back the killer’s identity. His exploration uncovers and relates to readers the EOD subculture, the drone operators’ subculture and a search for answers in a seemingly senseless quest for mission accomplishment amidst war’s travails. This 2016-published work tells us much about heroes and selfless service of a career field whose fatality rate during the height of Afghanistan and Iraq’s wars exceeded others.
May 17, 2018
Serious book, intense topic and very much what you would expect to find in a book about explosive ordnance disposal technicians. That being said, after a strong opening, it very much became the story of injured techs and the idea of the evil super bomb engineer. We engage a bit in bomb forensics but there seemed very little insight into how to actually chase down the mad bomb maker. A difficult project surely, but wasn't that what the book was about? 3 stars for sincerity and bringing the topic to light.
October 3, 2024
This was a brutal read but one every American citizen should read. The story of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) world during the height of the IED war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Built around the death of the author's friend in Afghanistan the book lays out the new age of IED and drone warfare and the huge price in lives lost among EOD technicians. A very haunting read on the very real price of war. Highly recommended.
October 11, 2021
All The Ways We Kill and Die
The title really says what we humans are capable of doing to each other in the name of whatever deity we worship, Allah, God etc.., and so forth. The personal cost of war we have paid in the men & women we send to war. The price is too high in my opinion but, you know what they say about opinions! I couldn’t put this book down, even for sleep.
The title really says what we humans are capable of doing to each other in the name of whatever deity we worship, Allah, God etc.., and so forth. The personal cost of war we have paid in the men & women we send to war. The price is too high in my opinion but, you know what they say about opinions! I couldn’t put this book down, even for sleep.
July 31, 2024
I read the book and it is excellent. I could feel the survivor’s regret throughout the book.
The staccato prose throughout the book makes it read like a mystery which in many ways it is.
The stories about the fighter and Predator pilots are great as are those about Fye and the other EOD amputees.
I highly recommend this book.
The staccato prose throughout the book makes it read like a mystery which in many ways it is.
The stories about the fighter and Predator pilots are great as are those about Fye and the other EOD amputees.
I highly recommend this book.
January 2, 2018
A very intense book, highly recommended, an excellent way to learn about and appreciate our people serving in the military.
March 16, 2018
Interesting and well written, but not my kind of book. PS very tempted to give 2 stars based on his very poor and untrue description of my hometown, but tried to be less biased 😒
August 17, 2020
I don't usually read military books, but this caught my attention and was well worth my time because it gives an insider's view of the wars conducted by the USA.
June 5, 2016
There are a couple of things I'm bringing to this book that I need to say up front. About once a year someone hands me off a "revolution in warfare via the addition of more trons" book and I get about 25 pages into hearing about how reality is morphing into science fiction before it takes that one-way ride over to the 1/2-price book store. I also need to juxtapose that with the facts that I've gone downrange with Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD; though not my career field, I consider them battle-tested operators in line with the truest definition of that ideal) and I have also personally gone through the whole shattered bones/pins-and-screws/external-fixator experience. So this book affected me deeply. Castner (a former USAF EOD officer) does describe a technology revolution in modern war which is both inspiring and grim at the same time. One-hundred-nine pages in he's tracking stats since World War II indicating that--due to innovation in battlefield medical evacuation--instead of lives we're increasingly sacrificing limbs in warfare. He has teed this up with some very personal rumination on colleagues he has lost in the counter-Improvised Explosive Device (IED) fight since 9/11 and the very real effects on both those who lose limbs and the families receiving the folded flags back home. He takes the time to delve into the 'ghost stories' analysts and operators always run into downrange--in this case, reports of al Qaeda filming and identifying individual EOD techs to best derive how to kill them and cash in on an unconfirmed $25,000 reward. He describes the awful ways to die inside an overturned and flaming up-armored vehicle in the wake of a roadside IED attack. Castner thus writes about what he knows--the dirt under the nails and gunpowder-stink side of our recent desert wars. If only 0.3% of the American populace is serving in the military, a smaller percentage is going to combat, and an even smaller fraction is out there dealing with our adversaries' preferred modus operandi by pulling home-made bombs apart; the author could have stopped here and produced an interesting but less-compelling narrative. It is clear, though, that he wanted to discuss the full team roster of the folks hunting down the bomb-makers, and this is where the technology comes in. As I have mentioned, I have never been too impressed with the "technology as panacea" people; they remind me of the doughy unshaven goofuses at parties who want to talk college sports strategy without ever having sweated on a court or line of scrimmage. What Castner has added here is a perspective from the professionals applying innovative hardware to the fight--the UAV operator in Nevada putting in the hours and suffering through repeated "helmet fires" as a whole list of people distant from the battlefield are calling him for situational reports; the biometrics contractor going into villages with ground-pounders to help identify bomb-makers and other bad actors; the orbiting MC-12 pilot trying to manage a whole stack of strike aircraft while imperiled troops in contact are calling for help outside an Afghan village at night. The machines are, to be fair, impressive--but equipment is managed and people are led. Castner knows this from what he encountered in the dust and heat of Iraq. It is his "humans over hardware" perspective that makes this a five-star book, and I highly recommend it.
January 31, 2017
How many people does it take to design the perfect IED? In All the Ways We Kill and Die, Brian Castner, combat veteran and former explosive ordinance disposal officer, posits an answer. Maybe it only takes one, a single shadowy figure who he calls the Engineer. And after Castner’s best friend and fellow EOD member is killed in Afghanistan in an attack that appears deliberately aimed at the EOD team, he sets out on the Engineer’s trail. Because it’s not enough to kill the person who set off the bomb, or those who made it, or even those who incited the attack. Nothing less than killing the man whose mind devised the bomb, and aimed it at his friend will satisfy him.
His quest will take him halfway around the world, and through years of work with EOD, both with the military and as a civilian contractor. Along the way, he introduces readers to military amputees and forensic teams both military and civilian, pilots who fly planes and those who fly remotely piloted aircraft (“drone was a term used by those who didn’t like them”), collectors and analysts of the biometric data used to locate bombers, even a killer for hire identified only by an initial. “The contractor shooter world is a first-name-only world,” Castner writes. “His first name was M___.”
“When your comrades are coming home in pieces, I had always been taught, as an EOD officer, to focus back on the device. Adjust your tactics, disarm the next one. (Now) I felt compelled to do something more, so I turned the tables and asked a different question. Not what killed Matt, but who . . . Who is the engineer who killed my friend?”
Not an average foot soldier, not the one who mixes explosives, places them in the ground, or even sets them off. Certainly not a suicide bomber. The brain behind the bombs would have too much education, too much dedication to be squandered, Castner decides. And although with others to do the menial work, this mind, this Engineer, is unlikely to leave behind the usual sources of forensic evidence. No fingerprints, no DNA, no identifying hair or fibers.
Even those who did leave such evidence – and lived to be interrogated about it – won’t, maybe can’t -- name or describe him.
Considering how many IEDs there are, spread across countries from Kosovo to Afghanistan, with bomb-making recipes available on the internet, it is reasonable to believe a single man, or even a small group, could be behind their making? Castner makes a compelling case for the Engineer’s existence, including guesses about his nationality, the universities he may have attended, even his age. But ultimately, the question is unanswerable. At least, for now.
As with any book dealing with matters military, medical, and forensic, the text is unavoidably filled with jargon. Castner provides a glossary and notes, but I often found myself obsessively Googling words, abbreviations and phrases. Sometimes, the writer’s intent is, in fact, to overwhelm the reader in an almost stream of consciousness manner. (See the chapter entitled “Helmet Fire” for an example.) None of the this diminishes the sheer power of the story Castner tells. My only caveat – don’t read it just before you turn out the lights.
His quest will take him halfway around the world, and through years of work with EOD, both with the military and as a civilian contractor. Along the way, he introduces readers to military amputees and forensic teams both military and civilian, pilots who fly planes and those who fly remotely piloted aircraft (“drone was a term used by those who didn’t like them”), collectors and analysts of the biometric data used to locate bombers, even a killer for hire identified only by an initial. “The contractor shooter world is a first-name-only world,” Castner writes. “His first name was M___.”
“When your comrades are coming home in pieces, I had always been taught, as an EOD officer, to focus back on the device. Adjust your tactics, disarm the next one. (Now) I felt compelled to do something more, so I turned the tables and asked a different question. Not what killed Matt, but who . . . Who is the engineer who killed my friend?”
Not an average foot soldier, not the one who mixes explosives, places them in the ground, or even sets them off. Certainly not a suicide bomber. The brain behind the bombs would have too much education, too much dedication to be squandered, Castner decides. And although with others to do the menial work, this mind, this Engineer, is unlikely to leave behind the usual sources of forensic evidence. No fingerprints, no DNA, no identifying hair or fibers.
Even those who did leave such evidence – and lived to be interrogated about it – won’t, maybe can’t -- name or describe him.
Considering how many IEDs there are, spread across countries from Kosovo to Afghanistan, with bomb-making recipes available on the internet, it is reasonable to believe a single man, or even a small group, could be behind their making? Castner makes a compelling case for the Engineer’s existence, including guesses about his nationality, the universities he may have attended, even his age. But ultimately, the question is unanswerable. At least, for now.
As with any book dealing with matters military, medical, and forensic, the text is unavoidably filled with jargon. Castner provides a glossary and notes, but I often found myself obsessively Googling words, abbreviations and phrases. Sometimes, the writer’s intent is, in fact, to overwhelm the reader in an almost stream of consciousness manner. (See the chapter entitled “Helmet Fire” for an example.) None of the this diminishes the sheer power of the story Castner tells. My only caveat – don’t read it just before you turn out the lights.
August 24, 2020
Brian Castner’s memoir and non-fiction thriller, All the Ways We Kill and Die, is a fascinating and well-written read from start to finish. Ostensibly, it is about a personal investigation into the death of Castner’s friend and EOD brother, Matt, who was killed in an IED strike in Afghanistan. The question Castner asks is ‘was the bomb maker who killed Matt the same man American forces have been hunting since Iraq, known as the Engineer?’
But, of course, the book is much wider in scope than this personal question that provides Castner with a narrative link through the story. No, the book is mainly the story of modern asymmetric warfare, ‘The War on Terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deadly game of chess between the hunters and the hunted (it is not always clear which is which). It’s about the insurgent bomb-makers and the evolution of their bombs (IEDs). It’s about the EOD Techs and their robots destroying those IEDs. It’s about lost lives and limbs. It’s about the insurgents, the Special Forces, and the Contractors who fight the war on terror. It’s about the intelligence analysts, the forensic investigators, the surveillance aircraft pilots, and the drone operators who are all trying to get ‘left of boom’, which Castner describes the process of disrupting insurgent cells before the bombs can be built and planted.
Anyone interested in modern warfare should enjoy this book.
But, of course, the book is much wider in scope than this personal question that provides Castner with a narrative link through the story. No, the book is mainly the story of modern asymmetric warfare, ‘The War on Terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deadly game of chess between the hunters and the hunted (it is not always clear which is which). It’s about the insurgent bomb-makers and the evolution of their bombs (IEDs). It’s about the EOD Techs and their robots destroying those IEDs. It’s about lost lives and limbs. It’s about the insurgents, the Special Forces, and the Contractors who fight the war on terror. It’s about the intelligence analysts, the forensic investigators, the surveillance aircraft pilots, and the drone operators who are all trying to get ‘left of boom’, which Castner describes the process of disrupting insurgent cells before the bombs can be built and planted.
Anyone interested in modern warfare should enjoy this book.
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October 31, 2017ALL THE WAYS WE KILL AND DIE is a hard book to classify: part elegy, part war memoir, part investigative journalism, part technological treatise on how modern war differs from those past, and how it doesn't. Perhaps the hybrid nature of the work explains why it did not garner a wider readership upon first publication, or it could be that most Americans are simply no longer very interested in taking a deep dive into the wars being fought in their name. Regardless, I highly recommend this book. It's insightful, moving, troubling, and well-written. The first 100 pages are absolutely riveting.
March 2, 2016
I’ve never served, but best-selling author, Brian Castner‘s portrayal of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) brotherhood in his latest book, All the Ways We Kill and Die makes me appreciate their service all the more. Castner writes a remarkable tribute to his friend and fellow EOD technician, Matthew Swartz, after he was killed on his sixth tour in Afghanistan. This book details Castner’s quest to determine who killed his friend. His theory is a man he calls “the Engineer” – the master bomb builder of the devices EOD guys have to disarm. Along the way he introduces us to many of his brothers and the life of an EOD technician both deployed and at home.
As in his first book, The Long Walk, Castner uses his personal experiences to provide the reader with a realistic understanding of the enormous price paid by our veterans. A must read for military buffs, historians or anyone that enjoys a first person thriller.
As in his first book, The Long Walk, Castner uses his personal experiences to provide the reader with a realistic understanding of the enormous price paid by our veterans. A must read for military buffs, historians or anyone that enjoys a first person thriller.
September 24, 2016
"Some people are worth killing more than others." It's interesting, how we're taught that war is dehumanizing and impersonal, and maybe that was once the case, but Brian Castner presents a convincing picture that this is no longer true. War is personal. It is targeted. There are hit lists and biometrics tracking devices and it's all planned. Not only is this book an appropriate elegy to Matt Schwartz, it's a fascinating and informative look at this new type of war. Anyone who wants to know how the war in the Middle East is being fought should read this book. And they should recommend it to anyone who thinks the war is over.
May 19, 2016
I had the good fortune to make it to a release party of this book on March 1st, where Mr. Castner did some selected readings from it. During the question portion of the evening, Mr. Castner resisted the label of journalist, noting that reporters can get all of the facts right, but not get to the truth.
This book is tangible evidence of that struggle. The act of writing it, the book itself, and the subject matter therein are parts that Mr. Castner successfully assembles and disassembles again and again, in the pursuit of the truth.
This book is tangible evidence of that struggle. The act of writing it, the book itself, and the subject matter therein are parts that Mr. Castner successfully assembles and disassembles again and again, in the pursuit of the truth.
May 21, 2016
The EOD - explosive ordinance disposal - brotherhood has suffered many casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Brian Castner, in his second book, focuses on the hunt for the man behind the design and manufacturing of the devices that kill and maim so many of our soldiers, The Engineer. A powerful read that examines the tactics and technology used by the military to go "Left of Boom," the U.S. military's effort to disrupt insurgent cells before they can build and plant bombs.
September 22, 2016
A deeply moving book. It moves on several levels. There is the human dimension and the technical dimension. The technical can kill and maim, and does, but a deeper story of love and camaraderie also proves that our humanity can and often endures. For me an important lesson is this: if war makes me cynical, it has won the battle for my heart. That cynicism too must be disarmed.
April 16, 2016
Powerful book, not an easy read, about war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reminds me of the movie "Taking Chance" which is also very powerful but not easy.
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