Review Kelly Kennedy, They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011

Kennedy, Kelly, They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011

 

On June 21, 2007, reporter Kelly Kennedy witnessed the worst attack upon Charlie Company of the 26^th Infantry Regiment when an IED killed several soldiers during its deployment to the Adhamiya district of Baghdad. Kennedy bonded with the unit afterwards and felt their pain. This experience led her to write They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq which discusses not only their time in Iraq but the trauma they faced afterwards.

 

Charlie Company was part of the Surge which was a strategic change in America’s approach to Iraq. Instead of trying to hunt down insurgents and doing raids U.S. troops were to focus upon protecting the Iraqi population.

 

Since the book is about one small unit this change is barely recognizable. First off the Army was in such a rush to get units into Iraq that Charlie Company was never given training on what new tactics they were to use. It’s also not until the last third of the book that the Surge actually starts. It really ends up being a backstory.

 

One of the main themes of Kennedy’s work was that Charlie Company didn’t believe that their sector ever improved while they were there. Attacks upon the unit increased in 2007 and so did its casualties. The battalion the company was part of suffered 31 dead and 122 wounded the most casualties of any unit since Vietnam. Charlie itself had 14 soldiers killed. When the unit left almost every soldier was very bitter feeling like nothing had changed while they faced huge losses.

 

The biggest take away from the book is the failure of the Army’s medical treatment. One soldier had shrapnel imbedded in nearly every part of his body from a grenade attack. He was sent back to Germany but kicked out of the hospital which said they needed his bed. When he went home he was given no medications. Not only that but he had an undiagnosed brain injury. When he went to a hospital for medication he was told he needed to make an appointment and that they had no openings anyways. He had to make multiple complaints to his commanders to get any pain killers. To top it off the soldier would accompany his dead comrades when they returned but the Army told him to stop because you could see the effects of his wounds and that was not the image they wanted. The soldiers of Charlie Company made a commitment to the Army and their country but there was little long term support for them. This one soldier felt abandoned and quit as a result.

 

Another example was how the Army dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Army said one in five soldiers deployed suffered from it but again it was doing little about it. While Charlie Company was in Iraq only the beginnings of a support network were being created. Soldiers for example could go for counseling but that was usually when they were at larger bases and not the forward operating base they were stationed at. Not only that but no soldier or commander wanted to say they or their troops suffered from PTSD even though they knew it was happening because that would mean a loss of soldiers and them not being with their friends. Charlie was especially vulnerable to stress because of the losses it suffered. After the June 21 incident the unit even refused to go on patrol as the sergeant of a platoon believed his troops would take their anger out on Iraqi civilians if they did. Later one sergeant shot himself in the head while on patrol. His entire platoon went to therapy afterwards. The situation got so bad that Charlie was sent to another more peaceful district for the end of its tour. Again the book highlights a growing problem that the Army knew about but wasn’t willing to commit the necessary resources to deal with. This was especially true during deployments where PTSD was often ignored. The Army seemed to think it would deal with it when the troops went home but by that time it was too late for many that fell into depression, alcoholism and suicide.

 

They Fought For Each Other is not your usual story of an American unit in Iraq. For one because it was written by a reporter it’s more literary than firsthand accounts written by soldiers. That means it doesn’t get bogged down in details like the needless patrols and raids that were the daily routine of U.S. troops. Second, its biggest contribution was how Charlie Company’s bodies and souls were affected by the war and the general neglect they faced from the Army. For a unit that suffered so much it really felt like they were neglected by the Army and government.

 

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