One Soldier's WarOne Soldier's War is a visceral and unflinching memoir of a young Russian soldier's experience in the Chechen wars that brilliantly captures the fear, drudgery, chaos, and brutality of modern combat. An excerpt of the book was hailed by Tibor Fisher in the Guardian as "right up there with Catch-22 and Michael Herr's Dispatches," and the book won Russia's inaugural Debut Prize, which recognizes authors who write "despite, not because of, their life circumstances." In 1995, Arkady Babchenko was an eighteen-year-old law student in Moscow when he was drafted into the Russian army and sent to Chechnya. It was the beginning of a torturous journey from naïve conscript to hardened soldier that took Babchenko from the front lines of the first Chechen War in 1995 to the second in 1999. He fought in major cities and tiny hamlets, from the bombed-out streets of Grozny to anonymous mountain villages. Babchenko takes the raw and mundane realities of war--the constant cold, hunger, exhaustion, filth, and terror--and twists it into compelling, haunting, and eerily elegant prose. Acclaimed by reviewers around the world, this is a devastating first-person account of war by an extraordinary storyteller. |
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already arms army asks barracks battalion beat blood body boots bother boys bullets called carrier Chechens Chechnya cigarettes cold comes commander covered dead death didn't don't empty everything eyes face fall fear feel feet field fighting fire floor front give grenades ground Grozny guys half hands happened head hear hell infantry inside it's jacket keep killed later leave legs light live look Loop major manage months morning mountains move never night officer once pass platoon pulled recon regiment rifle road says seems shell shoot shot shouts side sleep smoke soldiers someone stand started stay stop tell tent there's thing thought took truck trying turned vehicle village waiting walk watch whole window wounded yards Zyuzik