3 Wild War Stories You Won't Believe Are True

The Spy and the Traitor*: This is one of the best I’ve read this year. It tells the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB agent who became disgusted with communism and ended up working with the British in order to expose the secrets of the Kremlin’s inner workings. He was the first person western allies ever had inside the Kremlin and the partnership took years to actually pay off. His intelligence was so valuable that it ended up going directly to prime minister Margaret Thatcher and US president Ronald Reagan. His intel even prevented a near catastrophe when the US toned down their military exercises in Europe after the Soviet Union mistakenly thought they were real and mobilized multiple fighter jets with nuclear warheads so they could preemptively strike the allies.

Spy are just wired differently. On top of living a double life, they’re constantly putting themselves in life or death situations stealing confidential documents and breaking into places. Not to mention risking getting caught by a country like the Soviet Union, who allegedly cremated double agents alive to deter their peers from getting any ideas.

Can’t help but admire the bravery of these people. Looking forward to seeing how this one pans out. I have a bad feeling it won’t end well for Oleg though. Usually what kills these guys is they don’t know how to quit when they’re ahead, but knowing how they’re wired I doubt they could live with themselves if they didn’t die trying to push the boundaries. Reminds me of another good spy story that was made into a Netflix show, definitely worth checking out as well.

The Shadow World*: Really interesting read that goes into the history of the global arms trade. Essentially looking at the shady deals that go down when governments are supplying each other with weapons. For example, we protect Saudi Arabia in exchange for oil, and then they take the money we gave them for the oil and purchase our US made weapons in return.

Some of the stories that stuck out in the beginning were a $40B deal between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems that Margaret Thatcher personally visited the crown price to close, and a passage that described how the lobbyist group AIPAC was so powerful during the Jimmy Carter administration that they knew they could count on 60-75 votes in the senate when there were topics they felt strongly about.

Company K*: Incredible book. Published in 1933, this was written by a highly decorated WW1 veteran who fought on the front lines in France against the Germans. Although the book is technically fiction, it is based upon his actual experiences in the war.

Each chapter is about a page or two long and told from the perspective of a different soldier, both while he was on the battlefield and after he returned home from war. It really made me grateful for everything I have and I would definitely choose quarantine over trench warfare any day. 

Imagine you’re a lieutenant and you order your troops to camp out in a bush that’s within enemy range. They try to convince you its suicide, and against their wishes you order them to follow your command. 20 seconds after they secure the position, incoming artillery shells blow them to pieces. You run over after the barrage of bullets and can’t believe what you just did. Now you have to live with that forever. That is just one of the many stories in the book that highlight the horrors of WW1.

Another great excerpt was about two brothers. One brother was fighting for 8 months, constantly facing death day in and day out. The other brother ended up being deployed near the end of the war, and saw his first action 3 days before the armistice was signed. On that first day of action, the second brother was grazed by a piece of shrapnel and sent home. While the other brother continued to fight, as he had for the last 8 months.

The first brother returned home to a hero’s welcome. Everyone wanted to stop by and lift his spirits. He was “wounded” after all. By the time the second brother returned back, no one seemed to care about the war anymore. Not even his parents or sister wanted to hear about his experiences. All the glory went to his younger brother, who spent mere hours at war, and it crushed him. 

These stories are told in such vivid detail that you feel like you’re there, back in time watching these scenes unfold, and you realize that the realities of the WW1 are much different than what you saw in your 6th grade history textbook.

Not only did the soldiers have to worry about air raids and shootouts, but the trenches were usually filled with streams of water after heavy rain, which resulted in creatures like rats and lice making themselves at home with the troops. Not to mention there wasn’t much food either. 

The chances of surviving on the frontlines were very slim, couple that with vermin crawling all over you and going to bed hungry every night, and you have a recipe for hell on earth.

So feel free to read the book if you’re starting to get upset about your current circumstances. I guarantee your perspective will shift overnight.