“Outlaw Platoon” by Sean Parnell and John Bruning – Heroes of Today

Throughout human evolution there are few constants to which one can hang on to, but without a doubt one of them is our propensity for war and violence.

Though our methods may have changed over time, the need, demand and desire for humans to become warriors remains strong, leading many to take the path of the soldier.

Whether or not war itself is an integral part of our humanity is a question which I will leave out of this… however, I do believe that the people who selflessly put themselves at risk to fight for what they believe in do deserve our attention. That is why I would like to point your attention towards Outlaw Platoon by Sean Parnell and John Bruning.

Before getting into the book, I’d like to highlight the fact that Sean Parnell is a former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger who served with the legendary 10th Mountain Division. The book is a true recounting of his experiences and is comprised of nothing but facts (perhaps there are a few “approximate facts”, but none of them are truly important). John Bruning himself is an award-winning journalist who actually volunteered to be embedded with the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade in Afghanistan to experience it all first-hand.

In any case, the book recounts the events which occurred during a period of sixteen months as Rangers of the 10th Mountain Division were entrenched in the mountains of Afghanistan, being subjected to virtually constant fighting. Sean Parnell is one of those Rangers, and his goal is to bring to us the truest experience possible, to make us feel, hear, smell, taste and see the war they fought.

The pages are filled with as many breathtaking descriptions of the landscape as they are with tragic as well as inspiring stories. The authors don’t pull any punches and bring to us the good with the bad, showing what their hell looked like and how important their plight is.

There are plenty of gunfights and “action scenes” so to speak, and the authors plunge you straight into them, recreating the events with astonishing detail. Though these moments are certainly intense and even frightening at times, a lot of attention was also paid to delivering the human side of the story.

We get to meet the soldiers as regular people rather than fierce warriors, each one with hopes, dreams and aspirations for a better tomorrow. On the whole it conveys the sacrifices and horrifying realities these soldiers face as well as any classics of the genre.

All in all, if you are looking for a book that will show you without holding back the reality of war today from a first-person, human perspective through which the experience is lived in the mind, then I definitely recommend you check Outlaw Platoon out.

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Sean Parnell Sean Parnell is currently an author and a former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger who had the distinction of serving in the 10th Mountain Division. At the moment he retired, Parnell had been awarded the Purple Heart as well as two Bronze Stars. As is very often the case, Parnell did not forsake military life after retirement, serving as an ambassador to a veteran’s charity called the Boot Campaign. So far he wrote one book, co-authored alongside John Burning: Outlaw Platoon.

John Bruning John Bruning is a recipient of the coveted Thomas Jefferson Award for Journalism and either author or co-author to fifteen books, all of them from the realm of non-fiction. Those include Outlaw Platoon (co-authored with Sean Parnell) and Shadow of the Sword (co-authored with Jeremiah Workman).