Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath

by Ben Kesling

A timely and searing account of the American war in Afghanistan.

In Bravo Company , journalist and combat veteran Ben Kesling tells the story of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of the men of one unit, part of a combat-hardened parachute infantry regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division. A decade ago, the soldiers of Bravo Company deployed to Afghanistan for a tour in Kandahar’s notorious Arghandab Valley. By the time they made it home, three soldiers had been killed in action, a dozen more had lost limbs, and an astonishing half of the company had Purple Hearts.

In the decade since, two of the soldiers have died by suicide, more than a dozen have tried, and others admit they’ve considered it. Declared at “extraordinary risk” by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Bravo Company was chosen as test subjects for a new approach to the veteran crisis, focusing less on isolated individuals and more on the group.

Written with an insider’s eye and ear, and drawing on extensive interviews and original reporting, Bravo Company follows the men from their initial enlistment and training, through their deployment and a major shift in their mission, and then on to what has happened in the decade since; as they returned to combat in other units or moved on with their lives as civilians, or struggled to. This is a powerful, insightful, and memorable account of a war that didn’t end for these soldiers just because Bravo Company came home.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, War, Politics, Journalism

368 pages, Hardcover

Published November 1, 2022

Reviews

[Aaron Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a lot of the books chronicling our war in Afghanistan, and this one belongs on the list of the very best. Unlike a lot of journalistic accounts of deployment or battle heavy soldier memoirs, this book delves deeply into the lives of the soldiers when they returned home and the struggles they faced. Perhaps not as exciting but just as fascinating and, arguably, just as important. For those of us still grappling with our 20 year venture into the war torn graveyard of empires, and our embarrassingly disastrous withdrawal, this book is a must read.

[Jake Hunsaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 out of 5 stars. I found this book hard to put down. The way the author told the story of Bravo Company was captivating and informative. I really appreciated that he continued the story after their deployment. The effects of war for many don’t stop just because deployment ends. By the end to the book I found myself quite emotionally invested in the stories of the few men he chose to write about. While I gave the book a 4.5 rating, I do have some critics. The book is called Bravo Company, but much of the telling was about the battalion and even brigade level challenges. While this bird’s eye view of the war was informative, it distracted from the intimate and personal stories of the few men this book follows. Instead of having numerous breaks in the story to talk about higher level war plans, I would have liked more stories at the company, platoon, and even squad level. What were meals like for the men, what did they do in their down time, how did they joke around and cope with being on such a hard deployment? Overall, the book was well done and if anyone wants to know what it feel like to go on a mission and not know if you’re going to be blown up that day or not, this book is for you.

[Haley Hofmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic book. Heartbreaking but so wonderful all at the same time. I liked the different sections this was broken into and how it followed different soldiers' stories. Eye opening and insightful.

[Edward · Rating 1 out of 5]

Will not be reading this book. I read a few of the author’s Twitter threads. They are glib and flippant descriptions that do not give proper respect to the horrors of combat or the sacrifices made by servicemembers. If The whole book is written in that sociopathic style, it certainly is not worth my time.

[Warren Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall well written and passionate. There were a few sections that, in my opinion, were repetitive in descriptions or completely unnecessary to the events being described. But for the most part, an excellent telling of one infantry company’s harrowing experience in Counter Insurgency.

[Moriah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story chronicles the men of the parachute infantry regiment in the 82nd Airborne Division. They were deployed to Afghanistan and endured tremendous hardships. What I liked about this book was the rawness and no holds back real reality of war and how it can effect our soldiers. It was heartbreaking and I cried in multiple sections of the story. I loved how the author was able to take each character and we got to know theme as the book unfolds.

I did feel like the first 100 pages of the book were quite dense and the style of story switches to a much more interesting story after that. The book is divided up into three main parts: the beginning is an intro to all the men of the division and it goes into detail about the foreign policy, the second part is how the actual fighting in Afghanistan and the third part is how the men coped after coming home.

This book is definitely intense and goes into alot of details that could be trigger warnings for a sensitive audience. This book is also just so very emotional. I cried during some parts of this book. The absolute horrendous things these men had to live through and then come home and be expected to just fit right in with no problems whatsoever was terrible to realize. What an important book.

[Will Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

Guy writes a book and doesn’t interview anyone who was there? Great job. Ignore this book, and for the love of god don’t judge the OEF campaign on this. Many accounts in this book are wrong. Dude interviewed 8 people out of 135. So guess how accurate this shit is. You had all of our phone numbers; yet you wanted to tell our story for us. This is why it’s all wrong- every single major event you got wrong.

[Zachary Mezz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kesling's book was underwhelming. A good portion seemed like he was trying to flex his prose skills, which was cringy and felt out of place. I suppose the story of Bravo was worth telling, but what distinguished the company from a dozen others? Nothing really seemed to stand out, as I am sure other units have dealt with similar rates of suicides and PTSD. I was also surprised there was no mention of the Karzai Airport bombing, considering how much of the book centered around bombings/IEDs.

[John Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moving

Having had similar experiences in my career this book brought me back in both good and bad ways. In the end it acted as a sort of healing. This will be recommended reading to my brothers and soldiers.

[Amy T · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gives a realistic perspective of soldiers in the army who served in Afghanistan and the aftermath. Something I think we don't know as much about unless we know people who served.

[Benjamin Duchek · Rating 2 out of 5]

In college, I received an assignment to create and defend a new theory of international relations. It was meant to be serious but I took it as a lark: I described the action hero model and awaited my C-, D...lower? Instead, the professor gave me an A, with bonus points for originality. Huh, I remember thinking, one of us didn't get the joke.

In this book, the laughs are surely meant at the reader's expense. The prose, written by ex-Marine/current WSJ correspondent Ben Kesling, is written in the same way a smartass college student would write a book, with constant asides that are meant as jokes, bonding, scene-setting? Not sure.

One such passage: "Suicide isn't a spur-of-the-moment thing, it's thought about and mulled over and plans are made. The actual event itself might be sped up by drugs or alcohol, by a sudden despair, which makes it seem spur-of-the-moment."

Is the author a doctor or medical professional? Why is he declaring what suicide is?

Another that just made my head hurt: "The transition from active duty to veteran status hit them all hard. It's good policy in life to never, ever say every person in a group is affected by some event or another. There are always outliers, there are always exceptions. One should not speak in definites(reviewer's note: is definites a word?). But for Bravo Company, every man was hit by the return home from that deployment."

Again, was that supposed to be a joke?

What is so jarring about this non-fiction memoir/book/overgrown newspaper article is the lack of footnotes. Zero. The author claims to know the thoughts of several characters so clearly some interviews were done but when? With who? The book doesn't say. How does something like that get published?

The ugliest part of all about this book isn't even the author's fault: it is the veterans' writing community. A veteran I respect on Twit-- er, X -- wrote that this was a great book. Phil Klay and Wesley Morgan, who both have published substantial fiction and nonfiction respectively, have blurbs. (Morgan's book was footnoted within an inch of its life.) Elliot Ackerman, Matt Gallagher, Jake Tapper...anybody with some clout and a veteran or vet-adjacent writer wrote with "advance praise" for this book. Gentlemen, did you actually read the book or are you too caught up in some sort of incestuous community that any veteran who works for the Wall Street Journal is in?

Oof. Good to know this review will keep me out...because I'd want people to tell me if my book sucked. Marine, they did you dirty.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bravo Company chronicles the 2009 Afghanistan deployment of Company B, 2nd battalion, 508th Infantry and the aftermath that deployment had on the mental and physical health of its soldiers. Based on interviews with the soldiers who served in Bravo Company, Ben Kesling recounts their anger, fears, strength, experiences on the battlefield, and post-traumatic stress.

This is an incredibly important book in the field of both modern military history and understanding veterans who have returned from war. Unfortunately, the writing of this book took away from the message it carries. The tone of the book is too informal—it takes away from the seriousness of the topic. Additionally, the author uses few direct quotes from the people he interviews. He paraphrases constantly, creating awkward sentences, such as: “US Army paratroopers are a world-class organization, yes, if they’re used for the purpose they were intended: combat with the enemy, thought Doug Lute, the Deputy National Security Advisor.” The book is littered with sentences such as this one, which take away from the power the book should be conveying.

Overall, I expected a lot more from this book. That being said, while the writing of this book distracted me from the message the author is trying to convey, I still think it should be read. This book will give readers an understanding of one company’s experiences in Afghanistan—and, perhaps even more importantly—how those experiences affected the soldiers for the rest of their lives.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for review.

[J.R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was an easy read, and the author did a decent enough job capturing some of the historical context and how the soldiers of Bravo Comapny fit into it. He spent a lot of time researching the individual stories of the unit.

Now the things I didn't like. First, I'm generally not interested in military stories that talk about the individual soldier's experience. Maybe because I have my own experiences to fall on, or maybe because I've read and watched hundreds of stories relaying the same old, "war is hell" mantra. It's just not the unit for analysis I am interested in.

Second, and more importantly, there is way too much pontification on the author's part. Every vignette ended with a lengthy philosophical monologue that made me roll my eyes so hard, I thought maybe I had TBI. A few deep reflections and existential questions are probably appropriate, especially if you're recycling the story arch that individual soldiers suffer greatly in war. However, the author was incessant, and it really detracted from the novel for me.

Snarky comments and pretentious critiques aside, it's an overall interesting book that I'm sure some people will really like, I just wasn't a fan of the style.

[Pen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of very interesting vignettes about what it's like to be an infantryman both in combat and out.

Our society has a lot of tropes about why some veterans have problems. We assume it's memories of the fear of death, having seen or received some gruesome injury, losing friends, bitterness over fighting for an unimportant cause, etc.  But professional soldiers usually anticipate all that, and take it in stride. 

Equally or even more distressing for them is the triviality of post-service life, a society with low standards of honor, the loss of comradeship, esprit de corp, and soldierly identity, family members who have zero understanding, spouses that leave, etc.  In short, it is CIVILIAN LIFE that is traumatic, often more so than combat. 

This has been the message of authors for generations, from "All Quiet on the Western Front", to "The Forever War", to "The Hurt Locker".  But always, we fail to listen, or to build a society worthy of these men, instead offering jingoistic platitudes. Wish the book had an index.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This account was a most heart-breaking memoir of the soldiers of Bravo Company, their deployment, the horrific things they endured in Afghanistan , trying to stay alive , while watching their comrades in arms suffer anguishing pain before their own deaths. But it didn't stop there after their return to America. Their real problems began to surface in their own daily lives from dealing with amputations, tbi and ptsd. Many families divorced, and soldiers who could not live with their depression committed suicide. This opened my eyes to the supreme sacrifice our soldiers are enduring for the sake of liberty that we possess as US citizens. My prayers are that this will not be in vain and we will continue to fight for this freedom and not be undermined by the now in place evils that have come upon our government and this administration.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook. Ben Kesling is both the author and narrator for the audio version, and he did a great job. I laughed, I cried, and I shook my head a lot in disbelief at what the men in the book went through. The book is split into three parts: character introduction, deployment to Afghanistan, and the aftermath of deployment, injuries, and reentering civilian life. The aftermath for many of the men was brutal, and I appreciated that the author did not sugarcoat that. The book also discusses more recent happenings in Afghanistan, like the US withdrawal and its immediate effects. I would highly recommend this book.

[Daniel Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, a combat veteran, tells the story of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of the men of Bravo Company in the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2009 and 2010, these men deployed to the Arghandab Valley in southern Afghanistan. By the time the tour ended, three of the soldiers were dead and many had been maimed or badly injured by IEDs. In the decade since, as many have suffered with PTSD and other issues, the unit was chosen as test subjects for a new approach to veterans’ care. Engaging work that breaks the subject matter up into before deployment, during and after. Focuses on individual soldiers, their lives and the challenges their service has introduced to their lives. Very good.

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kesling reported on a few members of Bravo (a company in the 82nd Airborne) for the Wall Street Journal. If I remember correctly how Kesling (a journalist and former Marine) put it, he felt the story was too abbreviated to do those profiled full justice. This book is an outgrowth of that. The story follows along with several soldiers from their time training, to a high casualty deployment in which the enemy was usually no where to be found, and finally to the things they carried with them back home. This is the best book I read this year and one that will stick with me for a while.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was well written and the style worked well for the subject matter. I got through it very slowly mainly because of the difficult subject matter. The large cast of characters also made it hard for me to keep everyone straight.
I appreciated that the focus of the book was so much more encompassing than a war deployment or a battle, as many books now see to be. The explanation of how the deployment came to be, the injuries during deployment, and the aftermath of it made the book truly unique and worth reading.

[Dustin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the easiest read… It is VERY good, but I cannot imagine being the family member of some of these men and having to read the very detailed descriptions of some of their loved ones passing. Book, after book, interview after interview, will only show anyone reading or listening the massive failures of our government. I said this in another review on the same subject: it’s absolutely pathetic.

[Katelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Journalist Kesling immerses you in the lives of an infantry combat unit deployed to Afghanistan and then follows that unit for another decade as the soldiers deal with PTSD and the trauma of war. Kesling does an incredible job examining what it's like to go to war and return. This is a thought provoking, nuanced book. Highly recommended.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very enlightening concerning the aftermath of war. An education for those who never served. The author examines how important mental health treatment is so necessary for those who serve.
Just a glimpse of the trials and tribulations war creates. Very well written to include actual military experiences and the toll on families. An excellent read.

[Stacie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about a topic I'm not familiar with. However, additional research on a few of the topics made me question the author's presentation of facts vs opinion.

[David Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can tell a good writer usually in the first few pages.this is one.

[Ash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and very detailed information. I'm sure if you had some sort of milirtay background, youd probably enjoy this book more than me.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, but very sad

[Ted · Rating 4 out of 5]

Henry Fonda did not portray an 82nd Airborne paratrooper in the film The Longest Day. He portrayed General Theodore Roosevelt Jr, son of Teddy, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6th, 1944.

[Franklinho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Respect and care for our vets

[Ezra Root · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heavy book for sure, and hard to put down.

[katelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

i can’t stop thinking about this book. holy fuck.