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Summary
Summary
"The American betrayal of Afghanistan took twenty years. Elliot Ackerman, a participant and witness, tells the story with unsparing honesty in this intensely personal chronicle." --George Packer
A powerful and revelatory eyewitness account of the American collapse in Afghanistan, its desperate endgame, and the war's echoing legacy
Elliot Ackerman left the American military ten years ago, but his time in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Marines and later as a CIA paramilitary officer marked him indelibly. When the Taliban began to close in on Kabul in August 2021 and the Afghan regime began its death spiral, he found himself pulled back into the conflict. Afghan nationals who had worked closely with the American military and intelligence communities for years now faced brutal reprisal and sought frantically to flee the country with their families. The official US government evacuation effort was a bureaucratic failure that led to a humanitarian catastrophe. With former colleagues and friends protecting the airport in Kabul, Ackerman joined an impromptu effort by a group of journalists and other veterans to arrange flights and negotiate with both Taliban and American forces to secure the safe evacuation of hundreds. These were desperate measures taken during a desperate end to America's longest war. For Ackerman, it also became a chance to reconcile his past with his present.
The Fifth Act is an astonishing human document that brings the weight of twenty years of war to bear on a single week, the week the war ended. Using the dramatic rescue efforts in Kabul as his lattice, Ackerman weaves a personal history of the war's long progression, beginning with the initial invasion in the months after 9/11. It is a play in five acts, the fifth act being the story's tragic denouement, a prelude to Afghanistan's dark future. Any reader who wants to understand what went wrong with the war's trajectory will find a trenchant account here. But The Fifth Act also brings readers into close contact with a remarkable group of characters, American and Afghan, who fought the war with courage and dedication, and at great personal cost. Ackerman's story is a first draft of history that feels like a timeless classic.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
A veteran ponders America's "harried withdrawal" from Afghanistan in this haunting memoir. Journalist and novelist Ackerman (Dark at the Crossing) served in Afghanistan as a Marine and CIA officer until 2011; here he recounts his efforts last summer during the Taliban's takeover of Kabul to help Afghans who worked with the U.S. to flee the country. It's a harrowing portrait of chaos and collapse: working mainly by text message from Italy, Ackerman--with the help of an improvised personal network of journalists, officials, and sympathetic Marine buddies--helped thread evacuees through a gauntlet of Taliban checkpoints, desperate crowds, and suspicious American sentinels to get to flights out of Kabul's besieged airport. The nerve-wracking operation frames his recollections of weathering firefights in Afghanistan, witnessing the deaths of comrades, and agonizing over dangerous missions to recover their bodies. Writing in evocative, gripping prose--"Blood, like spilled paint, stained the side of the hood and wheel well.... The major sat inside the RG-33, dazed like a prizefighter between rounds, clutching a radio handset he wasn't talking into"--Ackerman provides a clear-eyed indictment of America's failures in Afghanistan while paying homage to the soldiers who fought there. The result is a moving elegy for a blighted struggle. Photos. Agent: P.J. Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Aug.)
Booklist Review
Ackerman, an acclaimed novelist (2034, 2021) and memoirist (Places and Names, 2019), breaks down his involvement in Afghanistan into five phases that focus on his combat deployments in-country as a marine infantry officer, as a CIA paramilitary officer overseeing Afghan commandos and counterterrorism units, and his coordinating with colleagues to oversee our Afghan allies' evacuation from the airport the week before the Taliban took power in August 2021. The Taliban victory was really more of an unconditional surrender by the U.S., Ackerman notes. This book, while not a comprehensive analysis of the full 20 years of war in Afghanistan, is powerful testimony to what went wrong despite the bravery of American military personnel and our Afghan allies. Ackerman reflects on his personal and professional journeys in Afghanistan; his analysis says much about America and why the way the nation fights twenty-first-century wars has little impact on the general public and why there is so little accountability for failure. Ackerman's tales are compelling and heartfelt; this title will stand the test of time as a warning against further military misadventures.
Library Journal Review
A former U.S. Marine and CIA paramilitary officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ackerman deepened our understanding of war with three novels, including the National Book Award-nominated Dark at the Crossing, and two Andrew Carnegie long-listed works of nonfiction. Here he documents the end of the longest war in U.S. history as he explains how he converged on the Kabul airport with friends, journalists, veterans, and former colleagues to help negotiate the safe evacuation of hundreds of Afghan nationals who had assisted U.S. military and intelligence communities. What results is a view of 20 years' worth of conflict, encompassed in a week and highlighting the commitment of those who fought.