War Business

The Hired Guns of Helmand Province

De: Matthew Brunnemann

Narrado por: 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