Finest war journalism
这篇书评可能有关键情节透露
I haven't read many books written by journalists but this guy is good. Dexter Filkins is a journalist working for NY Times and he had been reporting from Afganistan and Iraq since 2001. This book is a collection of brutal and gruesome tibits form his 900+ notebooks. It gives readers an intimate view of the wars in succinct but powerful prose. Bullets whizz by, a spinal cord laying on the sidewalk, a dead marine's face cut wide open. He portrayed individuals, friend and foe, Americans, Afgans and Iraqis, in poignant, sympathetic, ironic or even down right hilarious details.
Below is a couple of excerpts of the book.
.........................
The craziest thing about the suicide bombings were the heads - how the head of the bomber often remained intact after the explosion. It was the result of some weird law that only a physicist could explain: the force of the blast would detach the bomber's head and throw it up and away, too fast for the blast to destroy it. So there it would be, the head, sitting on a pile of bricks or underneath a telephone pole.
One day a man walked into the Buratha Mosque in northen Baghdad during Friday prayers and bleew himself up. The explosives were hidden in his shoes. He killed eleven people and wounded twenty-five. I got there about an hour later. The walls were speckled with blood, and the workers were weeping up the rubble. Sure enough, they'd found the head. They'd placed it on a platter, like John the Baptist's, and set it on the ground next to an interior doorway. It was in good shape, considering what it had been through. Some nicks and cuts and a thin coating of dust, which gave the skin a yellow hue. The most curious aspect of the face was the man's eyebrows: they were raised, as if in surprise. Which struck me as odd, given that he would have been the only person who knew ahead of time what was going to happen.
..........................
(Ash: Ashley Gilberson, an Australian photographer working with Filkins at the time)
Word came over the radio that one of the patrols had discovered a tunnel network used by the insurgents. I was excited; I wanted to see it. That's where all the insurgents were, I thought. "Ash, we gotta go!" Ash said no way, too risky. Ash was usually the one who wanted to go, but this time it was me. He thought it was stupid. No way. We'd have to cross that open field again. Snipers are everywhere. We don't have an escort. We don't know the streets.
"We're going," I told Ash. We always went together, even when it was stupid. Omohundro radioed ahead and told the patrol that we were coming. We dashed into the open field, the two of us, Ash swearing the whole way. "Fuck you," he shouted in his Aussie accent as we ran. "Fuck you. We're going to die." We couldn't run fast because we didn't have uniforms, and we were afraid the marines might think we were insurgents. "This is bullshit," Ash screamed. "Fuck. Fuck. You're a fucking asshole."
We turned on what we guessed was the correct street and saw a hand come out of a metal gate and wave us in. We ran at top speed, hit the gate and fell into the courtyard. "You guys are crazy," one of the marines said. It turned out the tunnel was only a sewage pipe. The insurgents weren't using it for anything. Nothing but an ocean of shit. So we turned back and ran again.
"Fuck you," Ash shouted, running acoss the field. "You're a fucking asshole."
.................................
Below is a couple of excerpts of the book.
.........................
The craziest thing about the suicide bombings were the heads - how the head of the bomber often remained intact after the explosion. It was the result of some weird law that only a physicist could explain: the force of the blast would detach the bomber's head and throw it up and away, too fast for the blast to destroy it. So there it would be, the head, sitting on a pile of bricks or underneath a telephone pole.
One day a man walked into the Buratha Mosque in northen Baghdad during Friday prayers and bleew himself up. The explosives were hidden in his shoes. He killed eleven people and wounded twenty-five. I got there about an hour later. The walls were speckled with blood, and the workers were weeping up the rubble. Sure enough, they'd found the head. They'd placed it on a platter, like John the Baptist's, and set it on the ground next to an interior doorway. It was in good shape, considering what it had been through. Some nicks and cuts and a thin coating of dust, which gave the skin a yellow hue. The most curious aspect of the face was the man's eyebrows: they were raised, as if in surprise. Which struck me as odd, given that he would have been the only person who knew ahead of time what was going to happen.
..........................
(Ash: Ashley Gilberson, an Australian photographer working with Filkins at the time)
Word came over the radio that one of the patrols had discovered a tunnel network used by the insurgents. I was excited; I wanted to see it. That's where all the insurgents were, I thought. "Ash, we gotta go!" Ash said no way, too risky. Ash was usually the one who wanted to go, but this time it was me. He thought it was stupid. No way. We'd have to cross that open field again. Snipers are everywhere. We don't have an escort. We don't know the streets.
"We're going," I told Ash. We always went together, even when it was stupid. Omohundro radioed ahead and told the patrol that we were coming. We dashed into the open field, the two of us, Ash swearing the whole way. "Fuck you," he shouted in his Aussie accent as we ran. "Fuck you. We're going to die." We couldn't run fast because we didn't have uniforms, and we were afraid the marines might think we were insurgents. "This is bullshit," Ash screamed. "Fuck. Fuck. You're a fucking asshole."
We turned on what we guessed was the correct street and saw a hand come out of a metal gate and wave us in. We ran at top speed, hit the gate and fell into the courtyard. "You guys are crazy," one of the marines said. It turned out the tunnel was only a sewage pipe. The insurgents weren't using it for anything. Nothing but an ocean of shit. So we turned back and ran again.
"Fuck you," Ash shouted, running acoss the field. "You're a fucking asshole."
.................................
