Audiobook7 hours
What the Taliban Told Me
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
About this audiobook
An “essential” (Kevin Maurer, #1 New York Times bestselling author) memoir of a young Air Force linguist coming-of-age in a war that is lost.
When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force at eighteen, he did so out of necessity. He hadn’t been accepted into colleges thanks to an indifferent high school career. He’d too often slept through his classes as he worked long hours at a Chinese restaurant to help pay the bills for his trailer-dwelling family in Lake City, Florida.
But the Air Force recognizes his potential and sends him to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan. By 2011, Fritz was an airborne cryptologic linguist and one of only a tiny number of people in the world trained to do this job on low-flying gunships. He monitors communications on the ground and determines in real time which Afghans are Taliban and which are innocent civilians. This eavesdropping is critical to supporting Special Forces units on the ground, but there is no training to counter the emotional complexity that develops as you listen to people’s most intimate conversations over the course of two tours, Fritz listens to the Taliban for hundreds of hours, all over the country night and day, in moments of peace and in the middle of battle. What he hears teaches him about the people of Afghanistan—Taliban and otherwise—the war, and himself. Fritz’s fluency is his greatest asset to the military, yet it becomes the greatest liability to his own commitment to the cause.
Both proud of his service and in despair that he is instrumental in destroying the voices that he hears, What the Taliban Told Me is a “fraught, moving” (Kirkus Reviews) coming-of-age memoir and a reckoning with our twenty years of war in Afghanistan.
When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force at eighteen, he did so out of necessity. He hadn’t been accepted into colleges thanks to an indifferent high school career. He’d too often slept through his classes as he worked long hours at a Chinese restaurant to help pay the bills for his trailer-dwelling family in Lake City, Florida.
But the Air Force recognizes his potential and sends him to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan. By 2011, Fritz was an airborne cryptologic linguist and one of only a tiny number of people in the world trained to do this job on low-flying gunships. He monitors communications on the ground and determines in real time which Afghans are Taliban and which are innocent civilians. This eavesdropping is critical to supporting Special Forces units on the ground, but there is no training to counter the emotional complexity that develops as you listen to people’s most intimate conversations over the course of two tours, Fritz listens to the Taliban for hundreds of hours, all over the country night and day, in moments of peace and in the middle of battle. What he hears teaches him about the people of Afghanistan—Taliban and otherwise—the war, and himself. Fritz’s fluency is his greatest asset to the military, yet it becomes the greatest liability to his own commitment to the cause.
Both proud of his service and in despair that he is instrumental in destroying the voices that he hears, What the Taliban Told Me is a “fraught, moving” (Kirkus Reviews) coming-of-age memoir and a reckoning with our twenty years of war in Afghanistan.
Author
Ian Fritz
Ian Fritz was an Airborne Cryptologic Linguist in the United States Air Force from 2008–2013. He became a physician after completing his enlistment and is the author of What the Taliban Told Me.
Related to What the Taliban Told Me
Related audiobooks
Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman's Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thank You for Your Service Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sleeper Agent: The Atomic Spy in America Who Got Away Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World's Most Famous Revolutionary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThey Called Us ""Lucky"": The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whistles from the Graveyard: My Time Behind the Camera on War, Rage, and Restless Youth in Afghanistan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Operation Pineapple Express Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Remember Ben Clayton Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Will Have to Die Now: Mosul and the Fall of the Caliphate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in Benghazi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands, as Written by the People Who Lived Through It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Betrayal in Berlin: The True Story of the Cold War's Most Audacious Espionage Operation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire in Paradise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Opium Nation: Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman's Journey Through Afghanistan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Way Down: Life and Death on K2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Our Bodies, Their Battlefields: War Through the Lives of Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Getting Out of Saigon: How a 27-Year-Old Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Military Biographies For You
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Seven Pillars of Wisdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Amelia: The True Story of the Earhart Disappearance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scars and Stripes: An Unapologetically American Story of Fighting the Taliban, UFC Warriors, and Myself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unbroken Bonds of Battle: A Modern Warriors Book of Heroism, Patriotism, and Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Clear Thinking: A Stealth Fighter Pilot's Timeless Rules for Making Tough Decisions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lives of the Twelve Caesars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things I'll Never Forget: Memories of a Marine in Viet Nam Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary: Can't Hurt Me - Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Killing School: Inside the World's Deadliest Sniper Program Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SEAL of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alexander the Great Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Here, Right Matters: An American Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for What the Taliban Told Me
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
1 rating0 reviews