Whistles from the Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan

A Marine Corps Combat Cameraman and director of Combat Obscura presents an honest and refreshing account of the Afghan war, highlighting the brutality and sacrifices of a lost generation of American military.

Format: Hardback
Length: 272 pages
Publication date: 07 December 2023
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

From a Marine Corps Combat Cameraman and director of the acclaimed documentary Combat Obscura comes a bracingly honest and refreshing account of the Afghan war. This is a war story, but it is also a story of a lost generation. As an eighteen-year-old from New York City, Miles Lagoze joined the Marine Corps, surrounded by fellow millennials enticed by promises of stability, community, and economic security. Deployed as a Combat Cameraman, Lagoze produced images of glory and heroism among his fellow soldiers and the occupied Afghan people. However, his government-approved footage hid a grim reality.

Lagoze pulls back the curtain and illustrates the grisly truth of the longest war in American history. He shows us acts of brutality on innocent people performed by young men inured to violence, desensitized by their digital worlds, and uncertain of their mission. We see soldiers and Afghan locals drawn together by the terror of the Taliban. We witness the devastating effects on those caught in the deadly crossfire. And we see a generation of American military cast out into an unfamiliar world, steeped in nihilism, and sent back home with first-hand training in extremism and insurrection.

An unfiltered account of the war in Afghanistan unlike any other, this is a shocking and vivid look at a country eager to exploit its youth while also ignoring its sacrifices. A new modern classic that deserves to stand alongside Michael Herrs Dispatches and Evan Wright Generation Kill.

Weight: 432g
Dimension: 162 x 237 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781668000038