Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War

by Evan Wright

These young men represent what is more or less America’s first generation of disposable children.

“We had a saying about the military in Afghanistan: ‘The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary.’ ”

What unites them is an almost reckless desire to test themselves in the most extreme circumstances. In many respects the life they have chosen is a complete rejection of the hyped, consumerist American dream as it is dished out in reality TV shows and pop-song lyrics. They’ve chosen asceticism over consumption. Instead of celebrating their individualism, they’ve subjugated theirs to the collective will of an institution. Their highest aspiration is self-sacrifice over self-preservation.

While the Marines might possess that “adolescent sense of invulnerability,” I have the more adult handicap of having always lived in denial.

Most people face their end pretty much alone, with a few family members if they are lucky. Here, the Marines face death together, in their youth. If anyone dies, he will do so surrounded by the very best friends he believes he will ever have.