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Book review: Hooligans of Kandahar by Joseph J Kassabian

Hello and greetings from India 😊🙏 

If you were wondering why I have been silent on the blog, now you know! I will be sharing more on my (rather unexpected) trip back home in the coming few weeks but for now, I have a book review for you that was long pending. 


Hooligans of Kandahar
Author: Joseph J Kassabian
Genre: Non-fiction
Release date: August 9th 2018
Published by: TCK Publishing
Page numbers: 258

Joseph Kassabian was born and raised in the Metro Detroit area of Michigan and enlisted in the U.S. army in December of 2005 at the age of 17. He served multiple combat tours in support of the Global War on Terror. 

Based on true events, Hooligans of Kandahar is a gutsy and unvarnished account of ground realities in war-torn Afghanistan from the point of view of a U.S. Army soldier. The narrator, Joseph Kassabian was deployed for a tour of duty based around Kandahar in Afghanistan for the duration of 1 year from May 2011 to 2012. The focus of the memoir is not on the war or its outcome but on the daily lives of the Soldiers during their deployment. 

The Hooligans of Kandahar was written in 2017 and is available as an Amazon Kindle eBook.

***Plot***

The novel opens with young U.S. soldiers in their homeland basking in the sun, smoking and surrounded by anxious family members waiting for buses to whisk them away to a war they know very little about. They are excited by the prospect of going to war despite being filled with apprehension and uncertainty. 

The second squad are nicknamed “Hooligans” because of their inherently violent nature and propensity to cause mayhem. The hooligans don't think twice about being insubordinate, brutalizing civilians, stealing another squad’s air conditioner or even a goat, playing with explosives and firing a grenade dangerously near themselves. For these soldiers, living and working in deplorable conditions with extremes of weather (blistering heat and numbing cold), extreme lack of sanitation resulting in a hotbed of diseases and a startling inadequacy of resources and facilities proves to be a battle all in itself. If that wasn't enough, having to deal with the (mostly uncooperative and sometimes hostile) locals, Afghan police and the Afghan army while facing life-threatening attacks from Taliban insurgents perpetually puts them on edge, thus threatening their sanity. The soldiers survive on caffeine, nicotine, and sleeping pills. Their way of life in Afghanistan becomes a recipe for chronic physical and psychological stress. If the Hooligans were left to their own devices in Afghanistan, their attitude would have sent them to their graves. Squad leader "Slim" who although manages to get his soldiers in line, subjects them to an unrelenting rage often bordering on insanity. 

The hooligans go on a wild series of misadventures during their time in Afghanistan. Their days bleed together in a haze of insomnia, random missions, planned missions, guard tower duty and supply runs which forms the main content of the book.  It also sheds light on the interactions between the members of the squad and the dynamics they share with their superiors. It also highlights their undying loyalty to one another and their fortitude. 

My thoughts....

The last book I read on Afghanistan chronicled the lives of ordinary Afghans from the perspective of an Afghan. This memoir by an American shines light on the daily lives of U.S Army soldiers in hostile territory and provides a completely different perspective. 

The goal of Kassabian's squad was to capture Mullah Omar, one of the leaders of the Taliban and a wanted fugitive but they didn’t even come close. Hardly any of them believed in their mission in Afghanistan in the first place. As a reader, it felt utterly futile that nothing the soldiers did on the ground seemed to matter to them. Even after sacrificing their mind, body and spirit, they never felt like they accomplished anything. The novel ends with the soldiers exhausted and over-medicated with mental and physical scars for life.

Read more...


This post first appeared on Meinblogland, please read the originial post: here

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Book review: Hooligans of Kandahar by Joseph J Kassabian

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