REVIEW | 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi by Mitchell Zuckoff

This book has been on my reading list for a while.

I have watched the movie with John Krazinski, and really like it, several times. However, as is the case more often than not, the movie did not do this book, or the operators who were involved, justice.

I'm not sure where things sit in DC with everything surrounding the attacks that occurred in Benghazi in 2012 and, honestly, I really don't care.

Was there some sort of cover up? Who knows.

Was the American public kept in the dark about certain things that happened? Probably.

Could the U.S. government done more to aid those working in Benghazi that could have prevented or, at the very least, lessened what happened? Yes.

There was extensive media coverage of this disaster and the subsequent Congressional hearings that followed. Zuckoff researched this coverage and pulled information out of public documents that were released. But he also did what no one else did - he talked to the operators that were there. The ones that were "in the suck." He tells the story of what happened at the CIA Compound and Annex building using information from the men who were downrange putting their lives on the line to protect their country men and women.

I really like the way Zuckoff used what he learned from the operators and all his other research to craft his narrative. The reader can tell that Zuckoff tries to keep the story to as close to what he was told as possible, not taking any creative liberties. In some places I chuckled because the reader can tell that the way Zuckoff describes whatever he's talking about is actually the way he was told the description by the operator.

Zuckoff also does a good job in telling the operators' stories in correlation to the other members of the security team. I could see where an author might want to focus a chapter on one operator, then go to a different one and so on, cycling back through each and working from the beginning of the conflict to the end. But the way Zuckoff breaks his chapters into key "events" that take place during this 13 hour ordeal is really well done. In any particular chapter, we get one operator's account of what happened during a particular 10-minute period then we get a page break and immediately get to read the account of a separate operator during the same timeframe. I've never been in combat and don't ever want to be, but by presenting the narrative in this way, Zuckoff shows the reader how chaotic things are when the train comes off the tracks.

Zuckoff also does a really good job of capturing the humanity of each of the operators. From Jack Silva having to constantly pull himself back to the mission because his mind drifts to his pregnant wife and other kids to "Tig" letting his frustrations be known to anyone within earshot, Zuckoff reminds the reader that these are ordinary men who are just like the rest of us but acted with extraordinary bravery and courage in a hellacious circumstance.

If you're a fan of modern military history, I really recommend this book.

I'll admit that I didn't really know a ton about what happened in Benghazi. I saw the news stories, but, sadly, didn't really give them much thought. In my mind, I just said, "Here's another mess in another country that U.S. citizens are getting pulled into." To those who were there and made it out and to the families of those who didn't, I apologize for my ignorance. I couldn't have done anything to help from where I was, except send up prayers...and I should have.