20-Year Letter: An Afghanistan Chronicle

Review
Intense, authentic, and engrossing...
Warner offers a firsthand glimpse at the camaraderie, peril, and gratifications of service in his engrossing memoir. A few short months removed from the events of 9/11, the young reserve officer, LT Warner, jumped on the opportunity to serve his country and joined the new Global war. Thus, begins his journey through the wartime deployment to Afghanistan. Though Warner's unit was not involved in direct combat, they immediately took control of the ammunition supply point and were in charge of its guard force as well. Warner is skilled when it comes to telling his story and he does so without any hint of hyperbole and sensationalism. He stocks his fluid narrative with the local color, grueling army regimen, solidarity among various international army forces, the unit's encounters with hostile locals, numerous life-and-death situations, and risky military ventures. The realism of Warner's account, combined with his assured prose and measured pacing create a story that's hard-edged and sentimental at once. Written with candor and precision, the book makes for a mesmerizing account. - The Prairies Book Review
A few short months removed from the events of 9/11, LT Warner is a young reserve officer with a burning desire to serve. Presented with the opportunity to do so in the new Global War on Terror, he jumps into his new assignment full blast, oozing with patriotism, a lot of cockiness, and not much of a plan. But soon enough he finds that his new normal will be clouded with uncertainty. New soldiers, new leadership, and a new geographic location are just the tip of the iceberg.
As the rear cargo door of the plane lowers to reveal a pitch-black Afghanistan night, the young leader encounters his first real challenge: simply leading the team off the airplane-over an airfield riddled with landmines. From there, 20-Year Letter follows LT Warner throughout the entire undertaking, chronicling the bad, the terrifying, the stressful, and even a little bit of the good. His tale is a comprehensive perspective of everything that isn't glamorous about war.