Wesley Morgan 7:31 pm . Chris Townsend is a Middle East and North Africa Foreign Area Officer with 25 years of service in the U.S. Army, and he is a proud member of the Military Writer’s Guild. October 6th 2020 21. Furthermore, as Morgan vividly shows, the enemy proved skillful in overcoming the Americans’ apparent technological superiority, downing helicopters and overrunning small bases on several occasions. Share. Wesley Morgan. [6] Friedrich Hacker, Crusaders, Criminals, Crazies: Terror and Terrorism in our Time (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), 148. So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. The author: Wesley Morgan '11 is a military affairs reporter who most recently covered the Pentagon for two and a half years at Politico. Bin Laden and other key Al Qaeda members had used Afghanistan as a base and were still there on 9/12. Retrieve credentials. Due to space and time he glossed over the deployments there (to include mine of course) but kept it factual and was a good read on the subject of the war in the country, especially in the Pech area. [10] Nineteen years on, the Pech is much as the U.S. found it, though now littered with the detritus of nineteen one-year wars and countless shorter Central Intelligence Agency and Army Ranger efforts that never seemed truly tied together in anything resembling a grand strategy. About halfway through reading Wesley Morgan's "The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley," I drove south from my home . the book is "the hardest place: the american military adrift in afghanistan's pech valley". The Hardest Place Wesley Morgan. The best book I’ve read about Afghanistan. HISTORY | Having spent my Afghanistan tour in 2008-2009 I was anxious to read this book to see a different perspective on the war I fought there. Found insideWritten with breathtaking immediacy and unflinching honesty, this taut, brave book takes us deep inside the military establishment to explain why we lost and why we didn t have to. The fighting in the Korengal valley has seemed futile throughout the war in Afghanistan. Wesley Morgan. Add to basket. [11] Fans of Restrepo, Why we Lost, Killing the Cranes, and even The Man Who Would be King will find much to enjoy here. Beauty and Ugliness. Although the May 1st deadline for withdrawal of U.S. forces has come and gone, America’s time in Afghanistan is winding down. The recent announcement of his selection to command the storied 25th Infantry Division could mean there is a chance he walks again on that stony ground.[3]. Howard Zinn, by Wesley Morgan's The Hardest Place covers the American experience conducting counterinsurgency in the Pech Valley. And, you will be our enemies if you stay.”[1], Life and Death. In The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley, Wesley Morgan has written a 672 page account of the Sisyphean task that the US unwittingly set for itself in Afghanistan after 9/11. Insurgents who learned their tactics from the fight against the Soviet army in the 1980s now turned against the U.S. forces, using improvised explosive devices and well-coordinated ambushes. Wesley Morgan first visited the Pech in 2010, while he was still a college student embedding with military units as a freelancer. Howard Zinn It offers six . . Each of these words evokes the essential character of the war in Afghanistan, America's longest and least-understood conflict. Korengal. Timothy Patrick McCarthy. However, with villages isolated by steep mountains and almost no passable roads, movement was difficult—it could take an entire day for a small unit to move a couple of miles, even without opposition. Categories: Refresh and try again. The US military's twenty years in the Valley demonstrates all of promise, frustration, exhilaration, and raw combat Afghanistan had to offer. If you only read one book on the conflict in Afghanistan, let it be this one. UNITED STATES. so i will top this book as one of the best due to its research, due to giving the voices to fighters on both sides, to the detailed descriptions. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., Iraq, and Afghanistan, contributing stories to The Washington Post,… More about Wesley Morgan Categories: History , Military. Wesley Morgan's "The Hardest Place" is embedded reporting at its finest. Found insideNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and the New York Post Winner of the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award Winner of the Hay Festival Medal for Prose Finalist for the NYPL Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in ... translated by Add to Calendar 2021-10-07 15:30:00 2021-10-07 17:00:00 The Hardest Place - The American Military and the War in Afghanistan When Americans think of the war in Afghanistan, they often think of a small, remote corner of the country where U.S. military action has been heavily concentrated: the Pech valley and its tributaries in Kunar and Nuristan provinces. For years Grant Kessler has smuggled goods from one end of the world to the next. Wesley Morgan, The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley. [1] Ted Tally, 12 Strong, directed by Nicolai Fuglsig (2018; United States, Warner Brothers), DVD. SoundCloud. The Afghanistan War from the inside. Over 800 classified reports by the troops in the field, presenting the reality of how the war is being fought on the ground. Assassinations, demonstrations, ambushes, IEDs. Magazine Subscribers (How to Find Your Reader Number). Found insideWhat calls a warrior to duty? What makes, sustains, plagues, and even breaks a warrior? These are bigger questions than the ones impolite society pokes around when a veteran returns home—Did you kill anyone? Did you have to go? Wesley Morgan is a military affairs reporter who most recently covered the Pentagon for two and a half years at Politico. W hen Green Beret Capt. He is the deputy chief of staff for operations, Resolute Support Mission; deputy commanding general for operations with U.S. Forces-Afghanistan; and commander of U.S. National Support Element Command-Afghanistan. Found insideAdaptation under Fire identifies the characteristics that make militaries more adaptable, illustrated through historical examples and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley, Wesley Morgan has written a 672 page account of the Sisyphean task that the US unwittingly set for itself in Afghanistan after 9/11. By Wesley Morgan. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). In a regular routine reminiscent of the hill battles in the Vietnam and Korean Wars, soldiers and marines cleared the surrounding hills only to retreat to the base until fire once more rained down requiring another round of trimming the resilient weeds that are the tribal fighters in the valley. Section two starts with the next large thrust of U.S. operations in the valley, Operation Mountain Lion, which would leave a new string of U.S. positions. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. I hate what I read here. America now sues for peace with the warlords they initially went in to depose. © Copyright 2021 Kirkus Media LLC. Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children. Every year in the U.S., we observe National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 through October 15. Excellent book. In the front matter, likely skipped by many readers, is a list of recurring characters. The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley - Kindle edition by Morgan, Wesley. Welcome back. It is an important and vital read, deeply . eBook eBook Fr. [14] Allan Smith, “Biden Says it's Unlikely U.S. Withdraws All Troops from Afghanistan by Deadline Set by Trump,” NBC News, March 25, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-biden/biden-says-it-s-unlikely-u-s-withdraws-all-troops-n1262081. The Hardest Place is one of the best books telling the story of America's longest war." --Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad "Readers who want to understand the war in Afghanistan and the experiences of those who fight in their name should read Wesley Morgan's impeccably researched and . Stream The Hardest Place by Wesley Morgan, read by Mark Deakins by PRH Audio from desktop or your mobile device. Elie Wiesel, by It is a bountiful source of timber and valuable minerals, but questionable, according to Morgan, as a strategic foothold. Check for marketplace copies. The best book I've read on the War in Afghanistan. Found insideFrom the author of the New York Times bestselling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. It is not a traditional narrative. He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wesley Morgan's The Hardest Place covers the American experience conducting counterinsurgency in the Pech Valley. Found insideThrough these voices and histories, Gabriele will discover what it means to be a person in the world; a member of a family and a citizen of a country—and how reconciling these stories may be the key to understanding her own. by Wesley Morgan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 2021. Morgan tells how the U.S. cut its losses in Korengal—where the U.S. presence spent most of its time defending itself instead of making progress—and began to focus more on Pech. A searching history of the U.S. campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida in a remote district of Afghanistan. Joe Ryan lamented the absurdity of American operations while remaining committed to “killing as many insurgents as possible” before the U.S. "The definitive account of America's heroic but ultimately doomed effort in one of Afghanistan's most rugged regions."—S. The Hardest Place is one of the best books telling the story of America's longest war."—Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad Morgan lauds the courage of the heroes who fought there, painting a vivid human picture of the people on the ground as sincere people in a hard place, trying to do their best in unclear circumstances. It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds! The impotent Operation Winter Strike turned the locals even further against the Americans. In fifteen years of slaying dragons, Morgan worries that America’s efforts had only given rise to new and even more vicious ones. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. MwSt. GENERAL HISTORY | 4.9 out of 5 stars. Buy The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley by Morgan, Wesley (ISBN: 9780812995060) from Amazon's Book Store. The Hardest Place is one of the best books telling the story of America's longest war."-Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad "The Hardest Place captures the heroism, fear, and exultation of combat while laying out a damning portrait of military leaders who rushed into battle against an enemy . The Hardest Place The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley Wesley Morgan. (Wesley Morgan) Reading this confirms that Biden made the right choice to end US military engagement t in Afghanistan. [3] William Cole, “New Commander Named for Schofield Barracks,” Star Advertiser, March 25, 2021, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/03/25/breaking-news/new-commander-named-for-schofield-barracks/. All Rights Reserved. Found insideThis is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Simon Baker charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower, focusing on six momentous turning points that shaped Roman history. Stream and download audiobooks to your computer, tablet or mobile phone. “Leave it to the Afghans,” an oft-repeated line, has become the dominant refrain in Washington D.C.[12] As Joe Ryan says in the book, “Sometimes just your presence causes destabilization.” Perhaps with the U.S. presence gone, or reduced to a traditional security cooperation arrangement, Afghanistan will find an equilibrium. [13] Helene Cooper, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, and Eric Schmitt, “Biden to Withdraw All Combat Troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11,” New York Times, April 13, 2021. HISTORY, by [10] Chris Townsend, “Why We Lost – Book Review,” Armchair General, February 10, 2015., http://armchairgeneral.com/why-we-lost-book-review.htm. To see what your friends thought of this book, The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley. Found insideNew York Times Bestseller Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle Finalist for the George Washington Prize Finalist for the Library of Virginia Literary Award A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice ... Wesley Morgan's recently released book about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, "The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley," is unique in its completeness . This virtual event was . The 10 Best Beautiful Places to Visit in Afghanistan1. 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