 | The Beast
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $1.99 A cheap knockoff of "Platoon" -- ignore the Russians and focus on the Mujaheddin and the way they idealize their code and culture.
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 | Islam for Dummies by Malcolm Clark
Buy new: $14.95 / Used from: $1.03 The quick and dirty - just learn the basic tenets of the religion, its customs (so nothing takes you by surprise), and how not to offend people. Almost any book on Islam will work as long as it's not titled "The Sword of the Prophet," "A Deviant Culture" or some crap like that.
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 | The Kite Runner Illustrated Edition by Khaled Hosseini
Buy new: $18.87 / Used from: $5.15 A good starter on Afghanistan and its culture, although a good chunk of it is set in America. Has one scene of graphic child rape and other of pedophilia -- that alone should tell you all you need to know.
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 | The Man Who Would Be King
Buy new: $17.49 / Used from: $11.08 We're not the first people to invade Afghanistan. Over a hundred years ago several thousand British soldiers marched all the way to Kabul -- only one came back alive. This movie is set during that time period and focuses on the misadventures of a pair of British NCO's in eastern Afghanistan (Then known as Kafiristan).
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 | On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society by Dave Grossman
Buy new: $10.87 / Used from: $9.13 To most infantrymen it does seem a little retarded that you can do an academic study about something so simple. However, without going into details, you need to learn how to break this most sacred taboo without going nuts and breaking a bunch of others in the process.
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 | War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007 (Textbooks of Military Medicine)
Buy new: $71.00 / Used from: $93.85 This is a very technical book, but the pictures speak for themselves. There's a good chance you're going to see blown up bodies and spend at least one afternoon shoveling someone into a trash bag. Most people don't know how to handle such things. You might as well start getting used to it.
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 | Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $4.25 |
 | The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan
Buy new: $37.92 / Used from: $43.32 |
 | Osama
Buy used from: $1.92 |
 | Afghan Guerrilla Warfare: In the Words of the Mujahideen Fighters by Ali Ahmad Jalali
Buy new: $15.25 / Used from: $13.99 |
 | Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times by George Crile
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $0.01 |
 | The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) by Lawrence Wright
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $7.29 |
 | The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan by Gregory Feifer
Buy new: $20.15 / Used from: $8.95 |
 | Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by H. John Poole
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $6.49 |
 | Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Robert D. Kaplan
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $3.14 |
 | Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
Buy new: $12.24 / Used from: $10.00 |
 | Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $4.80 |
 | Drugs in Afghanistan: Opium, Outlaws and Scorpion Tales by David Macdonald
Buy new: $27.30 / Used from: $20.85 |
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