Literary nonfiction. Adrian was deployed two times to Afghanistan, first as an executive officer and then as a captain skirmishing with Taliban forces. Throughout his time overseas, he wrote letters to friends, fellow soldiers, and his family. Showing vulnerability to some and steadfastness to others, these letters form AFGHAN POST and chronicle his identity as it splinters under the strain of modern warfare. This epistolary memoir is a daring look into the mind and experiences of an Afghanistan war veteran. Its form allows readers to explore, along with Adrian, the social, emotional, and physical consequences of mental compartmentalization. As one blurber put it, AFGHAN POST is "the story of a sensitive, intelligent young man as he comes to terms with conflict, privilege, duty, and ultimately himself."

A thrilling account of the rescue of RAF crewmen after their aircraft crashes in Afghanistan in 1919. This is the story of an unknown incident during the little-known Third Afghan War. An aircraft from the No. 20 Squadron RAF was lost while investigating gathering tribesman. The crew were rescued, and most of the aircraft was recovered by the Kurram Militia and the 22nd Battery Motor Machine Gun Service. It was an all-arms action—the lives of two airmen were saved at the cost of an Indian Militiaman and an unknown number of Afghan tribesmen. It also illustrates the experience of a virtually unknown group of soldiers, the 22nd Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Service. They had volunteered to serve as Motor Machine Gunners in France, had been through an intense, competitive, and sometimes costly selection process, and had now suddenly found themselves dispatched half way round the globe to the heat, dust, snows and monsoons of India and the North-West Frontier. This book examines the conflict’s background, the Kurram Militia, the history of the squadron and the lives of the key players. While this was not the only action the 22nd Battery of the Motor Machine Gun Service fought during the Third Afghan War, this one was recorded in the account of A/Sjt Ernest “Bill” Macro, who was in charge of the section of 22nd Battery dispatched to Badama Post in late July 1919. This is his story, and the stories of the other men for whom the climax of their experience in the Third Afghan War came during the action at Badama Post

A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 ​The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.