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Kevin Sites
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The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You About What They've Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War Kindle Edition

by Kevin Sites (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 432 ratings
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“The harrowing accounts detail the experiencesof 11 US soldiers and Marines who have been ravaged by modern warfare and its psychological aftermath. What makes Kevin’s reporting unique and essential is that it didn’t stop on the battlefield—he followed his subjects home.” — Vice

An important look at the unspoken and unknown truths of war and its impact, told through the personal stories of those who have been there.

In The Things They Cannot Say, eleven soldiers and Marines display a courage that transcends battlefield heroics—they share the truth about their wars. For each it means something different: one struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love, another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man, while yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him.

Award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks the difficult questions of these combatants, many of whom he first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq and others he sought out from different wars: What is it like to kill? What is it like to be under fire? How do you know what’s right? What can you never forget?

Sites compiles the accounts of soldiers, Marines, their families and friends, and also shares the narrative of his own failures during war (including complicity in a murder) and the redemptive powers of storytelling in arresting a spiraling path of self-destruction.

He learns that war both gives and takes from those most involved in it. Some struggle in disequilibrium, while others find balance, usually with the help of communities who have learned to listen, without judgment, to the real stories of the men and women it has sent to fight its battles.

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  1. Part of series
    Stories Soldiers Won't Tell You About What They've Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War
  2. Print length
    338 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  6. Publication date
    January 29, 2013
  7. File size
    2197 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The harrowing accounts detail the experiencesof 11 US soldiers and Marines who have been ravaged by modern warfare and its psychological aftermath. What makes Kevin’s reporting unique and essential is that it didn’t stop on the battlefield—he followed his subjects home.” — Vice

“Sites highlights the importance of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and sharing stories. Most importantly, he forces readers, those average civilians, to look at what war does to people and think about whether it’s always worth it.” — San Francisco Chronicle

A vivid set of portrats of modern combatants written in prose taht moves with speed and heat.” — Edward Tick, Ph. D., codirector of Soldier's Heart and author of of War and Soul

“Riveting and emotionally raw...These gripping stories...are evidence of a profound desire to heal.” — Publishers Weekly

“This is tough stuff, as many of the experiences recounted here are graphic, cruel, and bloody, but they offer an intimate look at the costs of war on a personal, elemental level.” — Booklist

“In sensitive, honest prose, the author emphasizes that this is a book about hope. An important book for warriors and the communities that send them to war.” — Kirkus Reviews

A gritty look at postwar distress, including veterans’ personal accounts, by a journalist with his own intimate perspective on the subject. — Shelf Awareness (Bruce Jacobs of Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, KS

From the Back Cover

What is it like to kill?  What is it like to be under fire? How do you know what's right? What can you never forget?

In The Things They Cannot Say, award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites asks these difficult questions of eleven soldiers and marines, who—by sharing the truth about their wars—display a rare courage that transcends battlefield heroics.

For each of these men, many of whom Sites first met while in Afghanistan and Iraq, the truth means something different. One struggles to recover from a head injury he believes has stolen his ability to love; another attempts to make amends for the killing of an innocent man; yet another finds respect for the enemy fighter who tried to kill him. Sites also shares the unsettling narrative of his own failures during war—including his complicity in a murder—and the redemptive powers of storytelling that saved him from a self-destructive downward spiral.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0089LOKE4
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; 1st edition (January 29, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 29, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2197 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 432 ratings

About the author

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Kevin Sites

Kevin Sites

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Website - http://kevinsiteswrites.com/

Award-winning journalist and author Kevin Sites is considered a pioneer in the field of backpack journalism, reporting mostly solo from 30 different conflicts and natural disasters in the course of his career.

Sites worked as a network news producer and correspondent for ABC, NBC, and CNN but left broadcast television in 2005 to become the first Internet correspondent for Yahoo! News.

In his groundbreaking Hot Zone project, he covered nearly every war in the world in one year earning a dozen awards, including the 2005 Wired Rave Award 2006 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism.

He’s the author of three books on war, all published by Harper Collins imprint, Harper Perennial.

These include:

• In the Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars.

• Swimming with Warlords: A Dozen-Year Journey Across the Afghan War

• The Things They Cannot Say: Stories Soldiers Won’t Tell You About What They’ve Seen, Done or Failed to Do in War

His debut novel, The Ocean Above Me will be published by Harper in the summer 2023.

Sites was chosen as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University in 2010 and in 2012, was selected as a Dart Fellow in Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University. Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism inducted Sites into their Hall of Achievement in 2008.

From 2012 until 2022 he lived and worked in Hong Kong as an Associate Professor of Practice at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong.

He’s been a contributor to many print and online publications including, Vice News, Salon, Aeon, Men’s Health, Wired, Popular Science, Parade, Alert Diver and The Small Wars Journal.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
432 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

E. Moodie
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read if..
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
If you want to read various stories from troops of all ranks, branches, and backgrounds, then this book is well worth the read. Easy to follow and good flow. Though maybe a bit too sentimental to the authors own personal story at times, it doesn't necessarily seem out of step with the overall idea of the book- it's not just the fighters that experience war. And while the references to other books seemed a bit overused sometimes, they too were helpful and added a deeper understanding to the story. In fact, it has given me a good source for further reading.
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ERB
5.0 out of 5 stars To really care how a story ends, you should be there at the beginning
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2013
Verified Purchase
There are no certainly no shortages of compelling accounts about soldier's experiences over the last 10 years. It's difficult for readers to sift through it all and pick out the few that offer something new and vital.

This series of individual accounts by long-time conflict reporter Kevin Sites accomplishes exactly that - by following up with soldiers and veterans that he first met several years ago, he can tell a much fuller story than even the best embedded narratives are able to offer. As the title indicates, his subjects offer fairly negative accounts from their past, but with the perspective from a few years of reflection.

The most haunting story is Sites' own. He relates filming a wounded, unarmed, captured insurgent begging for help - who was later summarily executed by US forces in Fallujah. Sites could have helped - probably could have saved the man - but he didn't care, and he didn't bother. As his narrative explains, there's a price one pays for days like that. Never mind the sick feeling a reader gets at seeing how deeply our own soldiers descended into that violent pit.

I wouldn't say any of the stories of the men he met end on an entirely uplifting note, but some are much better than others. James Sperry took a shell fragment to his brain and faced a long struggle and broken marriage - but he came through it to work with the Wounded Warrior Regiment, and pose with President Obama. That's one simple example.

The stories themselves, of Sperry or others, are not unique. Most readers of war-related news will have seen many similar accounts. What IS new and important is Sites' ability to tell these stories as complete packages. Because he met most of the men at previous times, it is all much more personal and visceral than an after-the-fact account would have been. The guys he's interviewing know that Sites shares a little of their own experience, and that clearly helped Sites storytelling and reporting dig a little deeper.

The weakest parts of the books are where he steps away from that. A couple veterans from other eras are included. These other stories are certainly interesting, but they lack the intensity and personal touch that the more recent chapters have attained.

Sites refers a lot to Karl Marlantes'  What It Is Like To Go To War . While that is an excellent book, I think Sites' work is superior because he focuses on the more-relatable present day; he doesn't have the sometimes overly-nostalgic tone of Marlantes work.

In years to come, there will be fewer and fewer books that add much new to the discourse of Iraq and Afghanistan. No shortage of books - just not as many that truly matter. Because of the during-war and post-war scope of these stories, and the high quality of Sites' reporting and writing, this seems like a volume that should get notice for a long time to come.
21 people found this helpful
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Terry
4.0 out of 5 stars A story that must be told, and retold, and retold.
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2014
Verified Purchase
OK, Kevin isn't Walter Cronkite and he does dwell on his own problems a bit (although journalists end up with severe PTSD as well) but he tells the stories of the troops who are fighting today's wars with sympathy and a beginning-to-end completeness. I was impressed that he didn't alter the stories to fit his theories. Some recovered from PTSD, some managed to make a life, some failed to recover from their invisible wounds.

This nation is going to face a tsunami of mental anguish from the magnificent army that has been fighting for the past 10 years and it's not a criticism of the men and women, of the their officers, or even the civilian leaders who put them in harms way. It's just a fact and the fast that the rest of us understand and prepare to deal with it (WE cannot solve it--only the warriors can do that.) the better off we'll be when we come out of it. They aren't monsters, they aren't drunken crazies, they are wounded veterans who the system has largely cast off--like sending a guy with his leg blown off to walk home and then blaming him for not making it.

This book is one, there are many others. In a democracy, we all stand responsible when we send our fellow citizens out to war. Right or wrong, whether you disagreed or agreed--we all have a deep and eternal responsibility to then when they return.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Sccott
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in Canada on September 23, 2023
Verified Purchase
As an Afghan veteran, it is something I can relate to
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Sanjay Vaidya
5.0 out of 5 stars Eyeopener.
Reviewed in India on October 5, 2019
Verified Purchase
Birds eye view into the horrors of war. Profit for some devistation all around for the rest. No wonders the future in war is robotics.
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Client d'Amazon
4.0 out of 5 stars acaht livre
Reviewed in France on June 6, 2018
Verified Purchase
bien recu le livre, correspond a l'article présenté, en bon etat, délai respecté, suffit juste maintenant de le lire! Merci
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Chloe M
5.0 out of 5 stars and was so happy with the book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2017
Verified Purchase
Got it for my dad as a gift; as ex-army this was right up his street. He has asked for it; and was so happy with the book. Recommend to anyone, in forces, our forces, not even to do with force and. Such a great book and insight.
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Arlene
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Author
Reviewed in Canada on December 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
Didn't read yet.ooking forward.
He is a very good author
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