War Business

The Hired Guns of Helmand Province

By: Matthew Brunnemann

Narrated by: Terry Schappert

The U.S. Marines were tasked with the bloodiest fight of Afghanistan: conquer Helmand Province in just two years.

Helmand was a Taliban stronghold and home to ninety percent of the world’s heroin supply. The bloody fight required the Marines to butcher Taliban in exchange for every acre, kill for each compound. The mission would only be accomplished when there was no one left to fight.

Sergeant Matthew Brunnemann spent a year fighting in Helmand Province. After that first deployment, he had a deep and unsettling desire to get back in the battle. He hadn’t installed enough tracking devices, 400 helicopter-borne raids were not enough, he hadn’t captured enough Taliban… there was still a fight to be had. So he returned to the Graveyard of Empires, spending a total of five hundred days in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2012.

But despite his hope of finding meaning and filling the warrior’s void, he instead felt as though he lost what was left of his soul.

WAR BUSINESS is a visceral journey into the soul of a warrior. What does it cost a warrior to earn their keep? How far would you go to protect your brothers and how many lines would you blur to accomplish the mission? Brunnemann’s words are no tale of glory or romanticized heroism; his story is a raw, unfiltered narrative that captures the essence of what it means to be a warrior in the modern age, and a testament to the United States Marine Corps’ capacity for bravery, sacrifice, and brotherhood.

©2023, 2025 Matthew Brunneman (P)2025 WarGate Books

Telling account of the second phase of the Afghan war

Raw storytelling and a glimpse at the frustrations felt by most lower level GWOT soldiers

Loved every second.

I thought this book was great from start to finish!The book provided a great perspective from the enlisted man during the Afgan war.

Excellent

Raw and unfiltered look into modern counter-insurgency. The writing is good and the narrator did an excellent job.

Holy crap the “beep” volume is 9dB louder than the narrator!

The story is amazingly raw and real. The narration superb.

They had to “bleep out” certain names or words for security reasons however the volume level of the beep sound is at least 3-4 times the volume of the narrator. The sound is also identical to almost every modern vehicles alarm tone. The net effect is if you are listening while driving you get a random, extremely loud, alarm/warning tone that seems to come from your vehicle warning of an impending collision. If you are listening with your earbuds you get the occasional, over the top, “beep” tone that’s 9dB louder than the comfortable listening level. It is ear piercingly loud.

Walt, you gotta fix the sound level of the beep to match the narrator. It’s killing me. If it can be fixed I’ll change my review.