‘The Kill Team’
I’ve been thinking about the so-called ‘Kill Team’ over the past few days, prompted by a disturbing article in Rolling Stone magazine. I’ll try to write something later this week, but for the moment, I’d strongly recommend two books (both out of print, I think, so use bookfinder.com to locate a copy) to help put it all in some sort of context. They’re both oral history sources for the experiences of Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan (and one also offers the additional comparison point of US soldiers in Vietnam). At any rate, give these two books a read:
- Parallels: The Soldiers’ Knowledge and the Oral History of Contemporary Warfare - J.T. Hansen, A. Susan Owen and Michael Patrick Madden (especially chapter 4)
- Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Forgotten War - Svetlana Alexievich (a must-read, in any case)
I’ve just finished another round of edits of An Enemy We Created, so have a bit more time to take my head out of the sand and blog here and at Current Intelligence over the next few days hopefully.