The Outpost: Experiences of US Soldiers in Afghanistan

Tapper, Jake. 2012. The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.

A brief note after I just finished reading “The Outpost” by Jake Tapper.  I’m worn out, sick, and horrified.  And all I did was read about it, I wasn’t even there.

Unlike most of the books and movies about the current wars, this has no romance, no grand strategy, and isn’t about generals or presidents.  It’s all about actual soldiers on the ground in remote Afghanistan.

There is no sugar coating here.  The book is 600 pages of muck, violence, horror, and loss.  Boredom punctuated by brief periods of shattering violence.  Heroic sacrifices for comrades, but little else to show for it all.

Unlike most war reports, there are detailed, crushing stories of desperate medical responses to the devastating damage to the humans.  And the hardest part of all are the details of what the loved ones must experience.

Every US citizen should read this book. This was done for us, we need to know what has happened.  I would not recommend this for younger children, but I certainly would want any kid to read it before enlisting.  It’s not like the video games at all.

I really can’t talk about it any more right now.