For more information:
Callie R. Oettinger, callie@o-a-inc.com
Ph: 703-451-2476, Fax: 703-451-6870

The War I Always Wanted
The Illusion of Glory and
the Reality of War

Brandon Friedman spent two years in Afghanistan and Iraq and never saw any of the combat he expected.

He never stormed a beach. He never ducked tracer fire while parachuting onto an enemy-held airfield. His colleagues and superiors weren’t always “the best and the brightest.” His country didn’t provide him with the basic protection and tools to fight the war. And his enemies hid among, used, and wore the faces of innocent civilians.

In an era of smart bombs, satellite communications, and multi-million-dollar tanks that can hit targets miles away on the first shot, Friedman and his colleagues weren’t prepared with what waited for them during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, nor in the streets and country of Iraq.

THE WAR I ALWAYS WANTED is the story of today’s military—the military that went to war at the height of our age of technology, yet found itself struggling to overcome counterattacks and strategies steeped in hundreds of years of history.

While Donald Rumsfeld stated that we “go to war with the military we have,” Friedman witnessed the reality of that phrase—a definition lost to the many leaders that led from behind, safe in their air-conditioned offices on the Hill.

Friedman had been a platoon leader for 53 days when he was given his deployment orders. The World Trade Center was still smoldering and Friedman and his platoon were a part of the “payback plan.” However, that plan didn’t resemble any of Freidman’s illusions of war.

In THE WAR I ALWAYS WANTED Friedman tackles the many hurdles he faced during his years in Afghanistan and Iraq, including:

• The beginning of the insurgency and the appearance/evolution of the IED
• Friendly Fire
• Inadequate supplies and support
• Corruption
• Winning and losing hearts/minds
• Prisoner interrogation and treatment

Friedman saw soldiers that were under-prepared and leaders that were over confident. And while he’d joined the military, in the tradition of his grandfather before him, the patriotism he felt for his country didn’t even the scale when weighed against the many problems he found with the War on Terror.

As politicians debated the reasons for going to war, Friedman and his brothers in arms debated using traditional strategies vs. improvising tactics that actually worked in the arena in which they fought, slept, laughed, cried, and tried to survive.

While most Americans were struggling to understand the images on their television screens, Friedman struggled to understand a war for which the old rules didn’t apply, while also questioning his dedication to “the cause”—he was willing to fight for his country, but was he willing to fight for a country where his vote didn’t count, where the reality didn’t mesh with the images he woke to every day?