The dilemmas of war

Afghan War depicted vividly here

By Dan Dervin

For The Free Lance-Star

THIS  worthy novel is being promoted as the  account of the Afghan war.  Since I was  blown away in the reading, I can’t object. It is an  engaging work of timeless imagination, both vivid and gritty.

Players are brilliantly rendered in their idiosyncrasies  while also projecting the key attitudes, pitfalls, ideals and tragic dilemmas that constitute this fractious war.

The locale is a U.S. military outpost in the dust-driven plains.  The garrison has  been nearly overrun by a Taliban night attack.  The wounded are recovered, the few deaths tallied, the enemy corpses are left in no-man’s-land. All but one, and this young fighter is selected by the top brass as a trophy to return to HQ and be displayed  for propaganda.

The next morning, there appears outside the defenses a figure awaking and  emerging from a cart.  Looks to be a woman.   A suicide bomber?   A decoy for another Taliban attack?  An interpreter with a megaphone begins conversing with her.  She insists she has come to claim her brother’s body for proper burial, the same one chosen for public display.

The captain is going by the book, the young lieutenant is torn; the seasoned  sergeant  sympathizes.  The men are spooked.  What are the protocols for an enigma?

Do law and military force trump  the piety of blood ties?  These are the quandaries faced by those caught in this supposedly soon-to-end war, but never-ending conflict.

Dan Dervin  is a freelance writer  in Fredericksburg.

THE WATCH

By Joydeep Roy–Bhattacharya

(Crown, $25, 304 pp.)

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