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Kade Soderstrom

Mrs. Stanford

AP English

19 May 2019

Generation Kill Character Analyzation

Evan Rite is an exceptional writer who is unmatched at describing characters. This book

is about Operation Enduring Freedom- Afghanistan. The young men thrown into the front lines

come from various broken backgrounds. They were America’s first group of “dispensable’

warriors and the generals treated them as such. They were thrown into dangerous situations

and utilized to map out the hidden ambushes strung out across the desert landscape. The depth

of character description in Generation Kill is what creates the theme that the men were

dispensable and meaningless to their war leaders.

The first character that will be analyzed is a Marine named Colbert also known as “The

Iceman”. Evan Wright spent a great deal of time describing him in the beginning of the book due

to the fact that he was a main character throughout the book. In Generation Kill is says:

Though he considers himself a “Marine Corps Killer,” he’s also a nerd who listens

to Barry Manilow, Air Supply and practically all the music of the 1980’s except rap, He is

passionate about gadget. He collects vintage video-game consoles and wears a

massive wristwatch that can only properly be “configured” by plugging it into a PC. He is

the last guy you would ever picture at the tip of the spear of the invasion forces in Iraq.
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The description of “Iceman” brings a face to the soldier and gets the audience emotionally

invested right at the beginning of the book. The men were used as a disposable force so as the

story grows so does the character. It humanises the soldiers, even though the generals used

them as living targets.

General Mattis is also introduced in this story early on as to show the “executive” side of

the military. Generation Kill described Mattis as a, “small man in his mid-fifties who moves and

speaks quietly, with a vowel-mashing speech impediment that gives him a sort of folksy

charm…. His goal was not to shield his Marines from chaos, but to embrace it.” This gives a

surprising face to the top general of the Marines. People picture a General as an outspoken

man with an alpha male mentality. Furthermore the book also says referring to the front line

that, “they would be would be at the forefront of a grand American experiment in maneuver

warfare.” This just goes to shows how the top Officers view these marines, as experiments and

as disposable entities. It contributes to the author's purpose that the way they treat these men’s

lives is inhumane.

The character Flick is a commander for Bravo Companies Second Platoon. In

Generation Kill it say this about Flick, “Despite his cavalier humor, Fick finished at the top of his

class in Officer Candidate School and near the top of Marine Corps’ tough Basic

Reconnaissance Course. He is also something of a close idealist.” The book also adds that he

is an ivy league graduate and being a Marine Officer requires you to earn the respect of the

Enlisted men. This character paints the picture of how the Enlisted men see the lower ranking

officers in the Marines. There is a lot of tension between Enlisted and Officers. It contributes to

the theme because the author's main purpose is that he is trying to explain how disposable

these men are to their superiors. This is the closest relationship the disposable enlisted men
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have to the officers that send them into battle to die and their relationship and attitude towards

them.

The description of Characters perfectly explains the relationship between the men in

charge and the young soldiers fighting for their lives that are meaningless to the inconsiderate

generals and leaders. General Mattis shows us that he is careless with the young men and used

them as guinea pigs for his war strategy theories. Flick creates the illustration of the tension the

Enlisted men have for their Officers. Colbert is able to show us that he is the man everybody

looks up to because he does more than just send everybody towards their deaths he guides

them and fights for everybody's lives right along side of them. All of these relationships tie

together into the theme that the Enlisted men in this war were used as human targets that were

expected to die. This was deemed as inhumane by the authors and everybody who reads the

book because of the emotional connection the author makes between the characters and the

reader.
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Works Cited

Wright, Evan. Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of

American War. G.P. Putnams Sons, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016.