Book Review: Brian Castner`s All The Ways We Kill and Die

My military ProD reading lately has included Brian Castner, one of the writers to have emerged from America`s post-9/11 wars. A US Air Force EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) officer, Castner commanded teams of EOD operators in Iraq. In 2012, he wrote The Long Walk Home, a memoir of his time there, and his struggle to make peace with his memories, emotions and PTSD. In 2016, he published All The Ways We Kill and Die, chronicling his attempt to make sense of the death of a fellow EOD operator in Afghanistan. This second book is by turns a memoir, a piece of journalism, and an of-the-moment military history of the Improvised Explosives Device (IED), the signature weapon of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both books feature an unsparing honesty and a clear, bitterly beautiful prose style. Civilian and military readers alike will want to get to know this writer. I am very happy to say that my review of Castner appeared today in the online military journal, The Strategy Bridge. You can find it here. MP+