One Soldier's War

November 19, 2007
If you haven't yet learned that war is hell, this memoir by a young Russian recruit in his country's battle with the breakaway republic of Chechnya, should easily convince you. And yet Babchenko, who was drafted in 1995 as a second-year law student for the first Chechnya campaign, actually volunteered for the second one in 1999 for reasons even he is hard put to explain. Written shortly after his discharge from the army, the book burns with the need to tell of his personal ordeal and that of his fellows as young, innocent and woefully inexperienced grunts condemned to a miserable life ruled by shell-shocked superiors and perpetual threats. Here there are no good guys or moral high purpose—”No one, from the regimental commander to the rank and file soldier,” Babchenko assures us, “understands why he is here”; one fights only for the fellow soldier next to him. Babchenko, now a journalist, demonstrates genuine literary ability, especially in the earlier vignette-like chapters, but readers will glean little about the conflict's political and historical context. Redundancy weakens a narrative that otherwise would have benefited from brevity.

January 1, 2008
With the U.S. mired in Iraq, it is useful to be reminded that another powerful nation continues to wage a confusing, frustrating war against irregular forces motivated by a combination of nationalism and Islamic fervor. Babchenko was a law student in Moscow in 1995 when he was drafted into the Russian army. He fought in both the first and second Chechen wars; he now works as a journalist for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta. His account of his experiences is brutal, unvarnished, and deeply disturbing. On an individual level one can witness Babchenkos slow transformation from an apparently sensitive youth to a tough warrior who seems to accept the horrors of war with unsettling stoicism. The sheer brutality he describes is downright sickening, as fighters on both sides torture their victims, sometimes for the sheer fun of it. Babchenko is a gifted writer who conveys stark images of ravaged cities, rotting corpses, and emotionally scarred young men. This is a difficult, painful read, but it is a superb chronicle of modern warfare.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)