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The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror in the Afghanistan War
A thrilling and emotional story about the bonds forged in war and good intentions gone wrong.
In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his to get rich off the sudden infusion of foreign attention and cash.
In this gripping adventure story, Stern writes of how he and Aimal navigated an environment full of guns and danger and opportunity, and how they forged a deep bond.
Then Stern got a call that changed everything. He discovered that Aimal had become an arms dealer, and was ultimately forced to flee the country to protect his family from his increasingly dangerous business partners.
Tragic, powerful, and layered, The Mercenary is more than a wartime drama. It is a Rashomon -like story about how politics and violence warp our humanity, and keep the most important truths hidden.
In the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his to get rich off the sudden infusion of foreign attention and cash.
In this gripping adventure story, Stern writes of how he and Aimal navigated an environment full of guns and danger and opportunity, and how they forged a deep bond.
Then Stern got a call that changed everything. He discovered that Aimal had become an arms dealer, and was ultimately forced to flee the country to protect his family from his increasingly dangerous business partners.
Tragic, powerful, and layered, The Mercenary is more than a wartime drama. It is a Rashomon -like story about how politics and violence warp our humanity, and keep the most important truths hidden.
- GenresWarHistoryNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
Published March 21, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 22, 2023
Let's start with the good. The Mercenary by Jeffrey Stern has some amazing story elements. It follows the friendship of the author and his friend, Aimal. Aimal is an Afghani who starts as Stern's driver in his war torn country but ultimately becomes entangled with some shady characters. When the book focuses on Aimal and his tribulations, it truly shines. Aimal is a layered character and his coming of age during the War on Terror raises some very complicated and fascinating questions.
However, I did not enjoy this book because of two major flaws. First, Stern's writing is overwrought and distracting. His sentence structure often seems like he's jamming multiple thoughts together. In the beginning, it seemed as if he tried to insert alliteration as often as possible for reasons I didn't understand. These curious choices happen multiple times on every page and it was truly difficult to pay attention to the plot.
Stern also makes himself part of this book. On the face of it, this is not a deal-breaker. There are a few instances where he highlights some aspects of Afghanistan that Aimal's story would not. However, Stern's story takes way too much time away from Aimal. In fact, the entire first portion of the book is dedicated to his point of view before going over the same time period from Aimal's point of view.
This book ended up being a huge disappointment because there is an amazing story at its center, but the missteps were too much to overcome. If Aimal was the star of the show and Stern wrote more clearly, then this book would have been a must read.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and PublicAffairs.)
However, I did not enjoy this book because of two major flaws. First, Stern's writing is overwrought and distracting. His sentence structure often seems like he's jamming multiple thoughts together. In the beginning, it seemed as if he tried to insert alliteration as often as possible for reasons I didn't understand. These curious choices happen multiple times on every page and it was truly difficult to pay attention to the plot.
Stern also makes himself part of this book. On the face of it, this is not a deal-breaker. There are a few instances where he highlights some aspects of Afghanistan that Aimal's story would not. However, Stern's story takes way too much time away from Aimal. In fact, the entire first portion of the book is dedicated to his point of view before going over the same time period from Aimal's point of view.
This book ended up being a huge disappointment because there is an amazing story at its center, but the missteps were too much to overcome. If Aimal was the star of the show and Stern wrote more clearly, then this book would have been a must read.
(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and PublicAffairs.)
May 23, 2023
So appreciate the thoughtful, open, and honest way the author reflects on his own story, and creates space to share another's. Unlike anything else I've read in how deeply it questions and provides multiple perspectives on the narrator's experience, and it's also such a powerful retelling of the War in Afghanistan through the eyes of multiple people with such different experiences of it. Really glad I had the chance to read it.
May 23, 2023
This book was incredible! Thrilling from the start to the finish. Through the story of Aimal and himself, Jeff paints an accurate and very human picture of Afghanistan, and what went wrong in the country. Must read.
July 18, 2023
Charmingly imperfect.
May 27, 2023
Salman Rushdie once commented that those who are displaced by war are the shining shards that reflect the truth. With so many people fleeing wars and ecological collapse in our world today, and more to come, we need acute truth-telling to deepen our understanding and recognize the terrible faults of those who have caused so much suffering in our world today. The Mercenary has accomplished a tremendous feat inasmuch as every paragraph aims to tell the truth.
In The Mercenary, Jeffrey Stern takes on the appalling disaster of war in Afghanistan and in doing so extols the rich and complicated possibilities for a deepening friendship to grow in such an extreme environment. Stern’s self-disclosure challenges readers to acknowledge our limits when we build new friendships, while also examining the terrible costs of war.
Stern develops the two main characters, Aimal, the friend in Kabul who becomes like his brother, and himself, in part by telling and then retelling particular events, so that we learn what happened from his perspective and then, in retrospect, from Aimal’s substantially different point of view.
As he introduces us to Aimal, Stern lingers, crucially, over the relentless hunger afflicting Aimal in his younger years. Aimal’s widowed mother, strapped for income, relied on her innovative young sons to try and protect the family from starvation. Aimal gets plenty of reinforcement for being cunning and becoming a talented hustler. He becomes a breadwinner for his family before he reaches his teen years. And he also benefits from an unusual education, one that offsets the mind-numbing boredom of living under Taliban restrictions, when he ingeniously manages to gain access to a satellite dish and learn about the privileged white people portrayed in western TV, including the children whose fathers prepare breakfast for them, an image which never leaves him.
I recall a brief film, seen shortly after the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, which depicted a young woman teaching elementary students in a rural Afghan province. The children sat on the ground, and the teacher had no equipment other than chalk and a board. She needed to tell the children that something had happened very far away, on the other side of the world, which destroyed buildings and killed people and because of it, their world would be severely affected. She was speaking of 911 to bewildered children. For Aimal, 911 meant that he kept seeing the same show on his rigged-up screen. Why did the same show come no matter what channel he played?
Why were people so concerned about descending clouds of dust His city was always plagued by dust and debris?
Jeff Stern tucks into the riveting stories he tells in _The Mercenary_ a popular observation he heard while in Kabul, characterizing expats in Afghanistan as either missioners, malcontents or mercenaries. Stern notes he wasn’t trying to convert anyone to anything, but his writing changed me. In about 30 trips to Afghanistan over the past decade, I experienced the culture as though looking through a keyhole, having visited just one neighborhood in Kabul, and mainly staying indoors as a guest of innovative and altruistic teens who wanted to share resources, resist wars, and practice equality. They studied Martin Luther King and Gandhi, learned basics of permaculture, taught nonviolence and literacy to street kids, organized seamstress work for widows manufacturing heavy blankets which were then distributed to people in refugee camps, - the works. Their international guests grew to know them quite well, sharing close quarters and trying hard to learn each other’s languages. How I wish we had been equipped with Jeff Stern’s hard-earned insights and honest disclosures throughout our “keyhole” experiences.
The writing is fast-paced, often funny, and yet surprisingly confessional. Sometimes, I needed to pause and recall my own presumptive conclusions about experiences in prisons and war zones when I had recognized a defining reality for me (and other colleagues who were parts of peace teams or had become prisoners on purpose), which was that we would eventually return to privileged lives, by virtue of completely unearned securities, related to the colors of our passports or skins.
Interestingly, when Stern returns home he doesn’t have that same psychic assurance of a passport to safety. He comes close to emotional and physical collapse when struggling, along with a determined group of people, to help desperate Afghan flee the Taliban. He’s in his home, handling a barrage of zoom calls, logistical problems, fundraising demands, and yet is unable to help everyone who deserves help.
Stern’s sense of home and family alters, throughout the book.
With him always, we sense, will be Aimal. I hope a broad and diverse number of readers will learn from Jeff’s and Aimal’s compelling brotherhood.
In The Mercenary, Jeffrey Stern takes on the appalling disaster of war in Afghanistan and in doing so extols the rich and complicated possibilities for a deepening friendship to grow in such an extreme environment. Stern’s self-disclosure challenges readers to acknowledge our limits when we build new friendships, while also examining the terrible costs of war.
Stern develops the two main characters, Aimal, the friend in Kabul who becomes like his brother, and himself, in part by telling and then retelling particular events, so that we learn what happened from his perspective and then, in retrospect, from Aimal’s substantially different point of view.
As he introduces us to Aimal, Stern lingers, crucially, over the relentless hunger afflicting Aimal in his younger years. Aimal’s widowed mother, strapped for income, relied on her innovative young sons to try and protect the family from starvation. Aimal gets plenty of reinforcement for being cunning and becoming a talented hustler. He becomes a breadwinner for his family before he reaches his teen years. And he also benefits from an unusual education, one that offsets the mind-numbing boredom of living under Taliban restrictions, when he ingeniously manages to gain access to a satellite dish and learn about the privileged white people portrayed in western TV, including the children whose fathers prepare breakfast for them, an image which never leaves him.
I recall a brief film, seen shortly after the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, which depicted a young woman teaching elementary students in a rural Afghan province. The children sat on the ground, and the teacher had no equipment other than chalk and a board. She needed to tell the children that something had happened very far away, on the other side of the world, which destroyed buildings and killed people and because of it, their world would be severely affected. She was speaking of 911 to bewildered children. For Aimal, 911 meant that he kept seeing the same show on his rigged-up screen. Why did the same show come no matter what channel he played?
Why were people so concerned about descending clouds of dust His city was always plagued by dust and debris?
Jeff Stern tucks into the riveting stories he tells in _The Mercenary_ a popular observation he heard while in Kabul, characterizing expats in Afghanistan as either missioners, malcontents or mercenaries. Stern notes he wasn’t trying to convert anyone to anything, but his writing changed me. In about 30 trips to Afghanistan over the past decade, I experienced the culture as though looking through a keyhole, having visited just one neighborhood in Kabul, and mainly staying indoors as a guest of innovative and altruistic teens who wanted to share resources, resist wars, and practice equality. They studied Martin Luther King and Gandhi, learned basics of permaculture, taught nonviolence and literacy to street kids, organized seamstress work for widows manufacturing heavy blankets which were then distributed to people in refugee camps, - the works. Their international guests grew to know them quite well, sharing close quarters and trying hard to learn each other’s languages. How I wish we had been equipped with Jeff Stern’s hard-earned insights and honest disclosures throughout our “keyhole” experiences.
The writing is fast-paced, often funny, and yet surprisingly confessional. Sometimes, I needed to pause and recall my own presumptive conclusions about experiences in prisons and war zones when I had recognized a defining reality for me (and other colleagues who were parts of peace teams or had become prisoners on purpose), which was that we would eventually return to privileged lives, by virtue of completely unearned securities, related to the colors of our passports or skins.
Interestingly, when Stern returns home he doesn’t have that same psychic assurance of a passport to safety. He comes close to emotional and physical collapse when struggling, along with a determined group of people, to help desperate Afghan flee the Taliban. He’s in his home, handling a barrage of zoom calls, logistical problems, fundraising demands, and yet is unable to help everyone who deserves help.
Stern’s sense of home and family alters, throughout the book.
With him always, we sense, will be Aimal. I hope a broad and diverse number of readers will learn from Jeff’s and Aimal’s compelling brotherhood.
June 8, 2024
In the eyes of a local Afghan driver and fixer named Aimal, journalist Jeffrey E. Stern found a trusted guide and friend. Stern seems to have stumbled into Afghanistan as an amateur war journalist fresh out of college. The first half of the story is a focus on Stern's journey and it is purposely written as a bit out of touch with the Afghan reality. While Stern has light suspicions that Aimal may be more than just a driver, he doesn't know. Where I found the book to take off is when the point of view shifts to Aimal and his tale. A story of survival, despair, and ingenuity. Aimal became a fixer and ultimately a gun runner and arms dealer. The sheer scale of Aimal's operation is unbelievable. There is immense tragedy to the fallout of the War in Afghanistan, we must read the stories of those who lived it. Aimal was many things, but ultimately a war dropped on him, and he responded accordingly. The Mercenary was a fascinating and insightful read.
June 18, 2023
This is a beautifully written, very personal and intimate, story. Stern's voice is poetic, engaging and inviting while also providing Aimal his voice. The organization of the book's parts as "Passenger" and "Driver" is, well, brilliant. We read a story and then read it again from a different perspective, with more context and insight. The foundation laid in the first part makes the second part addictive. I couldn't put it down. I think there are many books written as forms of personal therapy. Some just seem to want to parade their pains before the world. This feels like the opposite: a true invitation into two lives in an indescribably awful time and situation. At the end, we are better because of what we learned and felt. Recommended.
March 16, 2023
It reads like an immersive thriller, but is more compelling because the events are true! With echoes of Rashomon and The Great Gatsby, THE MERCENARY is an incredible story of an unlikely friendship. Tragic, riveting, and layered, the book is more than a wartime drama. I couldn't put it down. I loved it.
June 5, 2023
The 1st 3/4 of the book I really enjoyed. The last part seemed rushed and it went a little off the rails.
Great storytelling. Interesting characters including the author. Not a fan of writers interjecting themselves too much in the story. He found the right balance. The part about his mom was very good.
I have a lot of questions about some parts of the story. Overall I enjoyed it.
Great storytelling. Interesting characters including the author. Not a fan of writers interjecting themselves too much in the story. He found the right balance. The part about his mom was very good.
I have a lot of questions about some parts of the story. Overall I enjoyed it.
March 27, 2024
Vividly Written Story of A War Zone Friendship and Its Aftermath
A wonderful story of hardship and indifference sets against the backdrop of Afghanistan. Amail, the true central character, a man without enough skills to be considered the kind of refugee or immigrant some western countries want finds his souls in taking care of other people. But does the author?
A wonderful story of hardship and indifference sets against the backdrop of Afghanistan. Amail, the true central character, a man without enough skills to be considered the kind of refugee or immigrant some western countries want finds his souls in taking care of other people. But does the author?
October 22, 2023
Truly stunning, especially in the end, which felt a bit liked a tacked-on extra book. The author, in addition to being a talented writer and reporter, is remarkably humble and willing to interrogate his own motives and shortcomings.
November 4, 2023
An independent journalist's account of his time in Afghanistan covering the war and his connections and friendship with the locals. Eye-opening! So sad about the sudden US exit and all those left behind.
March 21, 2023
Wonderful book - incredible true story Jeffrey E Stern
July 1, 2023
Honest and brave - a must read for understanding the situation in Afghanistan, and really any refugee situation.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews