In the tradition of Black Hawk Down and Jarhead comes a searing portrait of young men fighting a modern-day war.

A powerhouse work of nonfiction, Generation Kill expands on Evan Wright's acclaimed three-part series that appeared in Rolling Stone during the summer of 2003. His narrative follows the twenty-three marines of First Recon who spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed "First Suicide Battalion," searched out enemy fighters by racing ahead of American battle forces and literally driving into suspected ambush points.

Evan Wright lived on the front lines with this platoon from the opening hours of combat, to the fall of Baghdad, through the start of the guerrilla war. He was welcomed into their ranks, and from this bird's-eye perspective he tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to be ruthless killers. He chronicles the triumphs and horrors-physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual-that these marines endured while achieving victory in a war many questioned before it began. Wright's book is a timely account of war; even more important, it is a timeless description of the human drama taking place on today's battlefields. Written with brutal honesty, raw intensity, and startling intimacy, Generation Kill is destined to become a classic and take its place in the canon of the most captivating and authentic works of war literature. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

專業書評

From Publishers Weekly

Wright rode into Iraq on March 20, 2003, with a platoon of First Reconnaissance Battalion Marines—the Marine Corps' special operations unit whose motto is "Swift, Silent, Deadly." These highly trained and highly motivated First Recon Marines were the leading unit of the American-led invasion force. Wright wrote about that experience in a three-part series in Rolling Stone that was hailed for its evocative, accurate war reporting. This book, a greatly expanded version of that series, matches its accomplishment. Wright is a perceptive reporter and a facile writer. His account is a personality-driven, readable and insightful look at the Iraq War's first month from the Marine grunt's point of view. It jibes with other firsthand reports of the first phase of the Iraqi invasion (including David Zucchino's Thunder Run), showing the unsettling combination of feeble and vicious resistance put up by the Iraqi army, the Fedayeen militiamen and their Syrian allies against American forces bulldozing through towns and cities and into Baghdad. Wright paints compelling portraits of a handful of Marines, most of whom are young, street-smart and dedicated to the business of killing the enemy. As he shows them, the Marines' main problem was trying to sort out civilians from enemy fighters. Wright does not shy away from detailing what happened when the fog of war resulted in the deaths and maimings of innocent Iraqi men, women and children. Nor does he hesitate to describe intimately the few instances in which Marines were killed and wounded. Fortunately, Wright is not exposing the strengths and weaknesses of a new generation of American fighting men, as the misleadingly hyped-up title and subtitle indicate. Instead, he presents a vivid, well-drawn picture of those fighters in action on the front lines in the blitzkrieg-like opening round of the Iraq War.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Its timeliness notwithstanding, this chronicle of an American reconnaissance platoon's mission to spearhead the invasion of Iraq is not one of those hastily thrown together "instant books." The author was the only journalist to travel with First Recon. He joined the platoon in March 2003 and traveled with its soldiers into combat missions (including the assault on Baghdad in April). His book is not about the war itself but about one group of men who fought in it. Today's American soldiers, Wright says, are young men who are "on more intimate terms with the culture of the video games, reality TV shows and Internet porn than they are with their own families." (One 19-year-old corporal compares driving into an ambush to a Grand Theft Auto video game: "It was fucking cool.") Wright also explores how today's pop-culture-driven soldiers differ from those who fought more than three decades ago in Vietnam. A perceptive, often troubling examination of soldiers' view of war, peace, and combat. David Pitt

Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

中譯本簡介

《美軍戰地記者伊拉剋戰爭親曆記》是一部發人深省的非小說類作品，它跟蹤記敘瞭對伊拉剋發動閃擊戰時的美國海軍陸戰隊第一偵察營尖刀排23名陸戰隊員的戰鬥行動。本書作者埃文·賴特與這個群體共同生活瞭兩個月，親眼目睹瞭頻繁的戰鬥，從來沒有離開這個衝鋒陷陣的群體半步。在連續30天時間裏，他們幾乎每天都參加激烈的戰鬥。賴特受到他們熱忱的歡迎——甚至得到他們給他的槍。他人較高的視角敘述瞭一個令人不安的故事：這些年輕人被自己的國傢訓練成瞭無情的殺手。他以紀實的手法敘述瞭這些陸戰隊員有肉體上、道德上、情感上和精神上所經受的勝利喜悅和恐懼。

賴特的這本書與邁剋爾·赫爾的《派遣》和斯蒂芬·安布羅斯的《兄弟連》等經典著作有異麯同工之妙，它也刻畫瞭一代人：其中有維護受到傷害的兄弟情誼的職業軍人科爾伯特軍士，由膽小變成嘗試殺人滋味的特朗布利，畢業於院校、也於挑戰連長但對部下非常信任的菲剋中尉，趾高氣揚、不能自控、後來受到戰爭罪指控的連長“美國上尉”等。

這是一部絕妙的新聞特寫，其內容比我們讀到的許多來自前綫的報道更為豐富，更讓人覺得身臨其境——強烈的真實感。本書的每一頁都散發齣濃烈的戰爭氣息——不可知、刺激、疲勞、恐懼以及無處不在的死亡。《美軍戰地記者伊拉剋戰爭親曆記》肯定地成為一部經典，在最具感染力和真實性的戰爭文學經典著作中占有一席之地。

（均引自卓越網）

Evan Wright的原作大受好評，改編的HBO同名mini劇也不錯。

解放軍文藝齣版社的翻譯差強人意，雖然譯者翻得挺認真，但相較原作的語言風味盡失，隻能當作對照和參考（尤其是軍事術語方麵）。真的喜歡GK的話，依舊推薦原著。