Since Iraq, the discussion of American war has once again become highly politicized. The conversations are rarely about war itself anymore; they are about the political forces and rhetoric surrounding it- people are looking to media pundits to explain it to them instead of to soldiers. It’s almost hard to remember the time when I studied war and warfare objectively; so all consuming is the political debate over what Iraq means to America and its politicians.

Frederick Downs’ The Killing Zone, My Life in the Vietnam War will strip the political lenses off your face and plunge you mercilessly into the Vietnam War experience, detaching you from the meaningless promises of presidential candidates and instead connecting you to the visceral experiences and true costs of war- that part of humanity where men wake up each day to kill each other.

Simply put, Downs’ honesty and economy of words are completely arresting. The book runs full-bore into the jungle and delivers an account of the war that is jolting, forthright, and painful. Consumed by uncertainty, the reader will undoubtedly find himself cringing with anticipation, waiting for the enemy to surprise the narrator in what must be a tiny facsimile of the writer’s own fear.

The Killing Zone is bursting with the sights, sounds, and smells of what I believe is the most important and relevant war to American troops today. Insurgency, political strife, civil war- it’s all here. But when you read this book, you won’t be thinking about how it relates to Iraq- in fact, you’ll forget what Iraq is or why you care about it. Instead, you’ll feel like a visitor traveling scared at the center of Downs’ platoon, looking for booby traps and listening for brush breaking underfoot. The only thing you will consider while reading this book is how anyone survived long enough to write it. You will read it quickly, rushing to make it through alive. This is war and this is the way it should be studied.

Special thanks to Brendan Curry at WW Norton for the review sample.