Why No One Could Capture the Experience of Junior Enlisted Marines Like 'Generation Kill' Author Evan Wright

HBO's "Generation Kill" is probably the best show ever made about modern warfare told from the perspective of those who fought it, and it's not hard to figure out why. The Emmy Award-winning television series was adapted from The Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning book of the same name, which was based on a series of articles in Rolling Stone magazine called "The Killer Elite" that saw journalist Evan Wright embed with U.S. Marines from the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That series earned Wright a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Reporting in 2004.

Wright was a prolific writer and reporter who rightfully earned the trust and admiration of those he worked with, including the Marines depicted in "Generation Kill." His reporting wasn't limited to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but because of the show, it's perhaps the work for which he was best known.

Wright died by suicide at age 59 on July 12, 2024, his wife confirmed to Rolling Stone.

In a 2011 interview with his hometown newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Ohio native explained that he got into writing because he failed at everything else, calling journalism "a refuge for rogues and miscreants" that "exceeded his expectations." After graduating from Vassar College in New York with a degree in medieval and renaissance studies, his first paid writing gig was reviewing porn movies for Hustler in 1995.

While Wright's regular work for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Time magazine meant profiling famous personalities such as Shakira and Quentin Tarantino, he felt an affinity for those whose lives took them outside of the cultural mainstream. He called it a "kinship with big flaming [screwups]" to The Los Angeles Times upon the release of his second book, "Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe, Wingnut's War Against the Gap, and Other Adventures With the Totally Lost Tribes of America," in 2009.

But it was his work with Rolling Stone that led him to what would arguably become his master work: "The Killer Elite" series that would later form the book and television series "Generation Kill." While the self-proclaimed "miscreant" never served in the military, Wright had a visceral ability to translate the lived experiences of Marines in the Iraq War for a broader audience. Nowhere is that more clear than the pointed criticism of the characters in the first episode of "Generation Kill."

"All are bellicose [by definition] and bloodthirsty [by necessity], with one expressing regret that he hadn't been around to pilot the Enola Gay," Slate's Troy Patterson, whose surprised tone suggests he's never been in a war with junior enlisted personnel, wrote in 2008. "'Generation Kill' is most interested in the protracted moments before the action and the numb ones after. The series conveys tweaked anxiety, stifling alienation, and, not entirely on purpose, elaborate boredom."

Patterson criticized the show, created by "The Wire" scribes David Simon and Ed Burns, for lacking the substance and newsworthiness of the original magazine series. Yet Wright contributed to the show's scripts, contributions Simon would deem "elemental" while eulogizing the author on X.

"We've lost a fine journalist and storyteller," Simon wrote. "Evan's contributions to the scripting and filming of 'Generation Kill' were elemental. He was charming, funny and not a little bit feral, as many reporters are. So many moments writing in Baltimore and on set in Africa to remember."

But perhaps there's no greater tribute to Wright's ability to capture the essence of Marines at war than those from the Marines themselves.

"I knew Evan as a good and gentle guy in a place that was neither good nor gentle," Nathaniel Fick, who was featured in all the iterations of "Generation Kill," wrote on LinkedIn. "He wasn't a Marine, but many of us who spent March and April, 2003 alongside him have thought of Evan for the past two decades as one of us. Rest in peace, brother."

Veterans and service members experiencing a mental health emergency can call the Veteran Crisis Line, 988 and press 1. Help also is available by text, 838255, and via chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net.

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