If you enjoyed listening to Sebastian Junger here, I urge you to go out and read the book under discussion, "War", but also, just as compelling, his latest book, "Tribe".
I think he missed a few points between this and a couple other videos I have seen of him. he commented on how deaths are down but injuries and disabilities are up and how that number should be down as well. What he missed was those with disabilities in previous wars would have died but we're saved by advances in medicine. But then again he is trying to sell books to a specific audience.
Whilst in the combat zone, why couldn't Junger carry a weapon, defend himself from people that were trying to kill him, and not remain an honest, civilian, journalist?
In the book Junger says they were offered weapons but he felt it would take him from the realm of being a journalist into being a combatant and he'd lose any ability, and credibility, to speak about the conflict objectively. He did however say that obviously he would've used weapons, if able, in the event wherever he was was getting overrun.
Junger raises many interesting questions but I think he came to an incorrect conclusion when he posits that companionship or camaraderie is more important to men than excitement and battle. I would say excitement is at least as- if not more -important than camaraderie, and Junger himself supports my assertion with something else he mentioned. He goes on about how miserable many veterans are when they return to civilian life, yet as a civilian they have the ability to be with each other all the time if they really wanted. They could do charitable work together, start a business together, play sports together, or go to the bar together. Yet they are still miserable and missing the war because war is _exciting_ and dangerous; and without an exciting stimulus camaraderie isn't so viable.
