The Bodies in Person
An Account of Civilian Casualties in American Wars
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Narrated by:
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Nick McDonell
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By:
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Nick McDonell
About this listen
Since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, uncounted thousands of civilians have died in the fighting and as a result of the destruction. These are deaths for which no one assumes responsibility and which have been presented, historically, as fallout. No one knows their true number.
In The Bodies in Person, Nick McDonell introduces us to some of the civilians who died, along with the rescue workers who tried to save them, US soldiers grappling with their deaths, and everyone in between. He shows us how decent Americans, inside and outside the government and military, looked away from the mounting death toll, even as they claimed to do everything in their power to prevent civilian casualties.
With a novelist's eye—and hundreds of hours of recorded interviews—McDonell brings us the untold story of the innocent dead in America's ongoing wars, from leveled cities to drone operation centers to Capitol back rooms. As we follow him around the world, The Bodies in Person raises questions not only about what it means to be an American but about the value of a life, what it means to risk one, and what is owed afterward.
©2018 Nick McDonell (P)2018 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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The Forever War
- By: Dexter Filkins
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, we witness the chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.
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A memorable "read"
- By TCinDC on 02-16-09
By: Dexter Filkins
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The Operators
- The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan
- By: Michael Hastings
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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An explosive, behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the U.S. war in Afghanistan that lifts the curtain of the world stage to reveal the devastating greed, waste, and failure surrounding this unwinnable war.
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VERY INTERESTING STORY
- By Professor on 01-04-13
By: Michael Hastings
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The Prince of the Marshes
- By: Rory Stewart
- Narrated by: Rory Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Told from Stewart's distinctly Western perspective, The Prince of the Marshes chronicles his time acting as the deputy governor of two southern Iraqi provinces.
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A View From The Real Iraq
- By James on 11-24-07
By: Rory Stewart
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No Good Men Among the Living
- America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes
- By: Anand Gopal
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent, a U.S.-backed warlord who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power, and a village housewife trapped between the two sides who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.
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Outstanding book, remarkable narrator
- By captainramius on 04-05-19
By: Anand Gopal
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Where Men Win Glory
- The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
- By: Jon Krakauer
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Like the men whose epic stories Jon Krakauer has told in his previous bestsellers, Pat Tillman was an irrepressible individualist and iconoclast. In May 2002, Tillman walked away from his $3.6 million NFL contract to enlist in the United States Army. He was deeply troubled by 9/11, and he felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Two years later, he died on a desolate hillside in southeastern Afghanistan.
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Good book, painful narration
- By Daniel on 09-23-09
By: Jon Krakauer
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Killer in the Kremlin
- By: John Sweeney
- Narrated by: John Sweeney
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In Killer in the Kremlin, award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes listeners from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine. In a disturbing exposé of Putin's sinister ambition, Sweeney draws on thirty years of his own reporting—from the Moscow apartment bombings to the atrocities committed by the Russian Army in Chechnya, to the annexation of Crimea and a confrontation with Putin over the shooting down of flight MH17—to understand the true extent of Putin's long war.
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Nothing new. Author has zero credibility
- By MICHAEL W. SHOEMAKER on 12-08-22
By: John Sweeney
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Black Ops
- The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior
- By: Ric Prado
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism.
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Impressive and Inspiring!
- By medardo on 03-12-22
By: Ric Prado
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Code Name: Johnny Walker
- The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs
- By: Johnny Walker, Jim DeFelice
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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>In this illuminating and informative memoir, an Iraqi translator who risked his life working with American Sniper author Chris Kyle and the Navy SEALs tells his remarkable and inspiring story, offering a refreshing new perspective on the Iraq War. As the insurgency in Iraq intensified following the American invasion, U.S. Navy SEALs were called upon to root terrorists from their lairs. Unsure of the local neighborhoods and unable to speak the local languages, they came to rely on one man to guide them and watch their backs. He was a "terp" - an interpreter - with a job so dangerous they couldn't even use his real name.
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Outstanding and real
- By Noel C. Stanhope on 06-05-14
By: Johnny Walker, and others
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We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
- Stories from Rwanda
- By: Philip Gourevitch
- Narrated by: Philip Gourevitch
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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An unforgettable firsthand account of a people's response to genocide and what it tells us about humanity. This remarkable audiobook chronicles what has happened in Rwanda and neighboring states since 1994, when the Rwandan government called on everyone in the Hutu majority to murder everyone in the Tutsi minority.
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Things you'd never imagine
- By LEE on 12-27-19
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The Good Soldiers
- By: David Finkel
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it "the surge". "Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic Army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers.
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Honest opinion folks
- By james on 11-06-11
By: David Finkel
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Pumpkinflowers
- A Soldier's Story
- By: Matti Friedman
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Using humor, pop culture, and even musical references, Michael Friedman re-creates the wartime experience in a narrative that is part memoir, part journalism, part military history. The years in question were pivotal ones, seeing the perfection of a type of warfare that would eventually be exported to Afghanistan and Iraq and has come to seem like the only kind of warfare in existence - wars in which there is never any clear victory, but not quite enough lives are lost to rally the country against it.
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Israeli Defense Fighter’s Story of War in Lebanon
- By Debbie on 05-02-19
By: Matti Friedman
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My American Journey
- An Autobiography
- By: Colin Powell
- Narrated by: Colin Powell
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - including Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, and Desert Storm - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.
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Audio book is abridged!
- By Lydia on 02-11-21
By: Colin Powell