Ben Kesling – Company, an Afghanistan Deployment

Ben is a Midwest correspondent with The Wall Street Journal in the Chicago bureau where he also focuses on domestic security and veterans issues. He was previously a national security and veterans issues reporter at the Journal's bureau in Washington. He also has experience as a foreign and combat correspondent.

Ben's book is called Bravo Company: An Afghanistan Deployment and Its Aftermath it's available on Amazon at amzn.to/3U1kY1r

n Bravo Company, journalist and combat veteran Ben Kesling tells the story of the war in Afghanistan through the eyes of the men of one unit, part of a combat-hardened parachute infantry regiment in the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

A decade ago, the soldiers of Bravo Company deployed to Afghanistan for a tour in Kandahar’s notorious Arghandab Valley. By the time they made it home, three soldiers had been killed in action, a dozen more had lost limbs, and an astonishing half of the company had earned Purple Hearts.

In the decade since, two of the soldiers have died by suicide, more than a dozen have tried, and others admit they’ve considered it. Declared at “extraordinary risk” by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Bravo Company was chosen as test subject for a new approach to the veteran crisis, focusing less on isolated individuals and more on the group.

Written with an insider’s eye and ear and drawing on extensive interviews and original reporting, Bravo Company follows the men from their initial enlistment and training, through their deployment and a major shift in their mission, and then on to what has happened in the decade since, as they returned to combat in other units or moved on with their lives as civilians, or struggled to.

This is a powerful, insightful, and memorable account of a war that didn’t end for these soldiers just because Bravo Company came home.

This is Ben's first appearance on the Break It Down Show with Pete A Turner. Joining Ben and Pete is Director David Kniess who's moving the Gift drops in Dec 2022. It's already getting raves!!!