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Welcome To Afghanistan: Send More Ammo

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Without ever intending to be one, "Welcome to Afghanistan: Send More Ammo" is a story. It's about war. And I liked it.

Written during and after Captain Benjamin Tupper's year long deployment to Afghanistan in 2006-2007, it tells the story of his experiences as a member of an Embedded Training Team working with a hundred man unit of the Afghan National Army. It is a compilation of his blogs, some of which he narrated on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, and is seasoned with photographs that capture some of the people and places he encountered.

My disclaimer is that I belong to that unenviable group of people who wait at home for a loved one who has gone off to war. When my son was deployed in Afghanistan as an ETT, training, living, and fighting with Afghan soldiers, I had no understanding of what his days and nights were really like; I was reduced to imagining only the worst. Most news stories were two dimensional, flat, and yet capable of striking fear in a mother's heart. A morning news hour without an Afghanistan report made for a good day.

Tupper's blogs fill in the blanks. He captures the faces and heart of the people he fought with and against.

My imagination goes on hiatus as he reveals a few American soldiers and the Afghan soldiers charged with seeking and fighting the Taliban. Lives in this inhospitable landscape frequently hung in a balance easily tipped by ramshackle machinery, pride, military policy, and the hidden loyalties of natives torn between competing tribal, family, and cultural allegiances.

The book is divided into five sections: War Stories; Laughter Is Our Best Defense; Culture Shock; Farewell Fallen Comrades; and Home. There are moments filled with fear, sweat, levity, and shrapnel, hours colored with compassion, self-deprecation, and blood. Tupper fleshes out the days with humor, tactical maneuvers and blunders, brotherhood where you might least expect to find it, and wrenching loss.

The ending of his story hasn't been played out yet, not in Afghanistan or in the lives of the people the war brought together. Tupper reflects upon whether such a war can ever be won and characterizes the future for some of the soldiers returning from the war as painfully uncertain and often frightening. There are cruel ironies in country and at home. This book made me laugh out loud and shed tears; I muttered a few cuss word, too. But mostly I wanted to touch the shoulder of each of these very real warriors, American and Afghan, alive and gone, and whisper, "Thank you."

"Welcome to Afghanistan" shines a light on our humanity and makes the days my son was away more real. He came home whole and mostly healthy. I am grateful that Tupper chose to share his experiences in this book. They bring me closer to my son.

This was a superbly entertaining and informative book about the conflict in Afghanistan. The vignettes were cohesive and fluid, though they were (as I understand it) written over an extended period and not meant to be brought together in a single printed volume. As you read through the stories, experiences, and portraits, a larger picture is elucidated of life in Afghanistan, with obvious emphasis to the life of an Embedded Training Team member (what Tupper served as).

Tupper writes in an objective, sympathetic, and humanistic manner which I found very appealing. He's not writing from the one-dimensional perspective of an "AMERICAN" [read with over-the-top Texas accent], but from the perspective of a human being fighting to help others. I found the chapters Dogs of War and Sept 11 Coma most striking in their objective humanism. The empathy I had towards such chapters as chapters Women of Kyrgyzstan, The Heat in Dreams, and Fayez (to name just a few of many) speaks strongly to Tupper's writing style and subject matter choice. Tupper's insight (eg A World Without Women) and honesty (eg Pieces in the Snow) add further to the read.

Overall, an exceptional book which I have recommended to many I know and I recommend to you now.

This book was unlike other Iraq and Afghan war books I've read. The author was embedded within the Afghan Army and his stories informed me on how the Afghans think, act, and what mistakes the US is making there. It was simply written and really brings the reader into the war. Its not abstract and made me feel like I was right there with him. Plus the PTSD stuff was very enlightening. I read it in one day. Could not put it down!

I didn't realize this was going to be a "bloggers" book, and when it arrived I was a tad disappointed, bloggers can be really good or really bad, and I wasn't expecting such a short book. Once I started reading it, I loved it. Short, sweet, to the point. I found it to be honest and straight from the hip. It's got it all...action, adventure, heartache, education, victory and defeat, enlightenment, it's a good story about a Soldier's deployment. It takes no time to read, definitely worth picking up.

Two years ago when I first discovered this writer at the Doonesbury "Sandbox," his posts were lost in a welter of well-written accounts of America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet even among these gripping accounts by observant writers, Tupper's tales stood out.

Benjamin Tupper served as an Embedded Team Trainer, an ETT, with the Afghan National Army in Ghazni and Paktila provinces in 2006-07. Working with 10-16 other Americans in the midst of a war while dealing with a culture clash of monumental proportions and having to deal with all of that "on the fly" while discovering that The American Way of War might not be what the Afghan army needed to learn in a situation most Americans don't think of when they think of "our boys" fighting these wars. Tupper's insight opens a window to a world Americans need to know about and understand.

"Winning" in Afghanistan isn't about defeating the Taliban on the field of battle.

Gary Trudeau says "Tupper's timing is right and readers will appreciate the context he provides for the news stories we will be reading soon." I would amend that to say that those will be news stories we should be reading soon, if any good at all is to come from this long struggle. Reading "Welcome to Afghanistan" one realizes why these stories have to start happening if we are to avoid being just another failed invader in a two-millenia-long line of failed invaders.

When you read this book, you will understand what it is like to be there. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Wow, what a read. How do I review this without giving away the stories that are best experienced for yourself. Never did I realized what it was really like in Afghanistan until reading this book. News stories don't cover it so well and the brief emails I've gotten from friends over there are pretty 'sanitized'. Having just discovered military blogging, I have to admit I'm hooked. Mr Tupper has taken his blogs from a year long deployment and turned them into one heckuva read. If you ever wanted to know what's really going on in Afghanistan, how the soldiers live, work, fight and unfortunately sometimes die - this book is a must read. What really grips me is that it's not an after the fact remembering of events. These are the stories told as they happened. The Army thought well enough to let the author share them online while deployed and haven't edited his manuscript after the fact.

This is raw, funny, enlightening, frustrating, sad, insightful, honest and hopeful. It reads like having a conversation with the author. Sometimes events just unfold and they just are. Again, I really don't want to give away any of the stories but this book will impact your viewpoint, your heart and your thoughts. Full of true colorful characters stories range from the absurd, funny, gritty, violent, disheartening, and hopeful. I like that the ending isn't tied up in a neat bow but gives the reader more to think about.

Having just learned that the book wasn't a big company release, I think it's even more important to read and support so that the impact that these men and women are having in the world is known. Thank you Mr Tupper for inviting me into your world and experiences. I know they've had an impact on mine.

Disclosure: The author was a school friend of my daughters.

In 2006, while American attention was focused on the Iraq war, Ben Tupper fought the Taliban in Afghanistan. With another American as partner and an Afghan interpreter, Tupper rode in a heavily armored Humvee embedded amidst a company of the Afghan National Army, its soldiers less armored and perhaps more expendable. He was tasked as a military adviser, morale booster, and perhaps most importantly, the liaison needed during battle to call in American air support.

Between missions, Tupper wrote an intimate, articulate, clever and often funny blog, some of it posted on Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury website, some broadcast on NPR. The posts are here converted to a book of some fifty short chapters, full of insights that never appear in The New York Times. We read, for example, of the consequences for body hygiene of wearing full battle dress -- including fifty pounds of body armor -- during the Afghan summer; of the deleterious effects on friend and foe of the absence of women (except for Americans at Bagram Air Base, outside the combat zone). We sense the excitement and pleasure of surviving combat, rendering a stateside leave boring and depressing. Tupper fits Teddy Roosevelt's poetic vision of the warrior: "Every man who has in him any real power of joy in battle knows that he feels it when the wolf begins to rise in his heart."

Lacking a major trade publisher, this book has drawn surprising attention for its engaging, gutsy account of life as a Taliban hunter. Tupper puts the reader on the ground, in the firefight. With the Obama administration's interests turning from Iraq to Afghanistan, his story is increasingly pertinent. Perhaps a shortcoming -- but perhaps heightening the immediacy of the account, Tupper tells little about himself outside his daily activity of a soldier. He makes the briefest mentions of two years as a civilian in Afghanistan, working with social welfare agencies, before volunteering for combat; of his divorce immediately after service; of his atheism, unique among religious Muslim and Christian soldiers -- but none of these intriguing hints are elaborated. He barely reflects on the morality of Americans allying with one faction of Afghans to hunt with enormously superior firepower another faction of Afghans. No doubt his account reflects the view of most soldiers in combat, of good guys hunting bad guys. Perhaps this is a deliberate omission, a reluctance to dilute the gritty story of ground fighting with larger issues that ought to engage governments before they order their soldiers to kill each other.

Well written, timely, captivating, and humble in its unapologetic honesty, Tupper has authored a definitive account of a soldier's experience on both the front lines in the "war on terror" and adjusting to life "after the war." Simply put, this book is mandatory reading for anyone involved with Afghanistan.

I've now read this book 4 times and each time I am completely drawn into the honest and personal story Ben Tupper has told. This isn't the story of the Big Army units fighting a big war. It's a small group of highly talented volunteers (read reservists) that are on the ground living, working, fighting with the Afghan National Army. These are the soldiers that are not just fighting the real war but are embedded with the indigenous army, sharing their skills, experience, hopes and lives with the Afghans.

"Welcome to Afghanistan:Send More Ammo" is more than just an "I was there" story. It is a memoir of a current experience that will serve as a marker for what has been done, what needs to be done, and what history will record what is still to come. Beyond the scope of just daily life with the Afghan Army in a complex culture and war, Mr Tupper has captured the experience vividly and honestly. Joy, frustration, awareness, enlightenment, fighting, dying; and not just on the battlefield but in life itself.

I read the book and went along for the ride; in the oppressively hot Humvee, the harsh conditions, the beautiful country, the unfamiliar culture, the intensity of combat, the trust of men you barely can communicate with, power of the human compassion, the effect of a single bullet, the shock of returning to the 'real world'. Even after multiple readings I still find myself sharing his experience even if in some small way. I commend Mr Tupper for going beyond what first person war accounts usually entail. He opens his life to the reader and the results are a changed and aware man. His essays on PTSD and the effects on himself and members of his team help make this book stand out. This isn't a book constructed years later by an author who collects recollections with the benefit of time and reflection.It is a book written in the moment by a man who understands who he is and what he is doing. And bravo for that!

This is a fight that must be won (there's some great ideas on how to do that in here) and these are stories that must be told. I'll be reading this again and again. I can't wait for the movie!

Empowering the Afghani military is a key aspect of the rebuilding it without a terrorist regime, but it's easier said than done. "Welcome to Afghanistan: Send More Ammo" is the memoir of Benjamin Tupper, a New Yorker sent to Afghanistan to whip the Afghani army into shape to defend themselves. An intriguing task is an intriguing journey, as Tupper brings readers on a light hearted and not-so light hearted romp through the War in Afghanistan. "Welcome to Afghanistan" is a top-notch military memoir, highly recommended.