Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Finkel spent eight months in Iraq with Battalion 2-16, between January 2007 and January 2008. The 2-16 was deployed to Baghdad as part of President Bush’s new strategy for Iraq, a drastic troop increase and counterinsurgency effort known as “the surge.” The unpopular president, committed to an unpopular war, had once again made an unpopular decision and, as the country engaged in heated debates, the 2-16 went to war. The Good Soldiers isFinkel’s deeply personal and heartbreaking account of the surge and of the nature of warfare in general. But it is the devastating loss of life and welfare that renders The Good Soldiers unforgettable.