Generation Kill (book)

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Generation Kill is a bestseller by the American writer and journalist Evan Wright . The plot is based on experiences the author made during the invasion of Iraq in the course of the third Gulf War as a journalist embedded in a unit of American marines .

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The storyline of the book begins on March 20, 2003 , when the unit that accompanied Wright crosses the border from Kuwait into Iraq , and ends 45 days later, on May 4, with Wright's departure from Baghdad . Wright's unit was 1st. Reconnaissance Battalion, a reconnaissance unit of the American marine infantry . During the invasion of Iraq, they theoretically had the task of identifying positions of the Iraqi armed forces and reporting their positions. In practice, however, the situation was often different: the unit was constantly sent into situations for which it was neither trained nor equipped. This mostly meant frontal attacks on unknown settlements and enemy positions with almost unarmored off-road vehicles. While the majority of the American and British armed forces moved more or less unhindered on the Iraqi highways towards Baghdad , the Marines had to travel far away from the important traffic routes with fanatically fighting loyalists of the Baath Party , Republican Guards and especially from Syria , Libya and other Arabs To deal with jihadists who have traveled to countries .

Wright sits in the lead vehicle of the HUMVEE convoy throughout the campaign and describes the experience firsthand. He doesn't gloss over anything, bodies on the roadside disfigured by an American air raid are mentioned, as are children accidentally shot by his unit. He admittedly takes a very soldierly point of view, but occasionally also reflects what he has seen. His recurring socio-critical analyzes of the soldiers around him are striking.

The author

Evan Wright was a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine at the time , which mainly deals with music, politics and modern pop culture. His reports were published in 2003 as a three-part series in the magazine's autumn editions under the title "The Killer Elite". In comparison, the book is a much more comprehensive account of the events. Wright, who graduated from Vassar College in New York with a degree in medieval history in 1987, first worked for the American porn magazine Hustler after a brief episode as an English teacher in Okinawa , before moving to Rolling Stone. Wright's second book after Generation Kill was published in 2009 with the title "Hella Nation" and contains essays that deal with various American subcultures. Among other things, the book contains an essay about the 101st Airborne Division that accompanied Wright at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan .

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