ePluribus Media’s Journal today publishes The Stories They Tell: Iraq War Vets Bear Witness, a review of author and award-winning reporter Trish Wood’s new book What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It
You are invited to read it at: ePluribus Media - Reviews
In What Was Asked of Us, Wood lets 29 young men and women who fought in and returned from the Iraq War speak without anyone spinning, packaging, cherry-picking, or pre-digesting their words. Some of the voices are convinced of America's rightness to be in Iraq; others are less sure. Some are angry; some feel guilt. And chillingly, others admit to missing the adrenaline rush of the fire fights, the "fun" of posing dead bodies for photographs--and even the killing.
"There is also a heroism in telling the unvarnished truth about war." – Bobby Muller, Vietnam veteran and co-founder of Veterans for America
Ilona Meagher, Editor
PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within
Pre-order: Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops
PTSD Combat-Insight
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Some Excerpts:
Davis concludes:
What makes us always right? That's what I always ask myself: America, what makes us always right? In the Christian tradition, it is very clear that if you've sinned, acknowledge your sin. And even if that's not enough, you go to your brothers and your sisters, and they help lift you up. But if you will not admit your sin, God will shine his light on it and show you. Someone's got to stand up and take the blame for this war and say. . . we're sorry (p 99).
According to a poll reported by CNN, only 37 percent of 18 -24 year old Americans polled could even find Iraq on a map. Only 12 percent could find Afghanistan. Troop reaction to this ignorance is swift and unflinching:
"It really pisses me off when people don't have an understanding of Jalal Talabani. Who's the prime minister of Iraq? Who's the president of Iraq? When did we assault Falluja? A lot of people died during those times." -- Benjamin Flanders, New Hampshire Army National Guard (p. 238).
Dominick King, a Marine who served in Falluja during the second taking of the city, provides another example of the impatience some troops have for our simplistic slogans on war and freedom:
"When we got back from Iraq, me and my friend Tabor were in the car driving to Dunkin Donuts or something in the morning, and we were at the stop sign with a car in front of us saying, 'Freedom Is Not Free,' and he just looks at me. He goes, 'Can you believe this? Freedom's not free, what has he paid?' " (pp. 230-231)
These men and women do not make their memories pretty for our consumption, and in their halting words and repetition, we can sense the depth of the horror that even now their subconscious won't let go:
•
"You don't want to look at your friend who's just been shot. You know, it's sort of a
hard thing to digest ... I didn't want to look at him ... You know, you just ... but once
you see it, I mean ... I mean, it's not a good expression on their face." (p.226-227).
• "I pulled the poncho liner off him, and his head was missing. He just had half --
he just had a quarter of it where the hair was and that's what was showing" (pg.167).
• "By that time, you know -- everyone -- everyone in the crew except for two died, drowned.
... I heard the pounding. ... They were pounding on the side of the tank. You could hear
them pounding on the doors" (p.245).
• "There was one little kid that was -- his whole family, mother and father, sister --
they were all killed, and he was all by himself. I kind of ... That takes a toll too. Seeing
stuff like that, especially little kids, kind of ... It bothers you. It takes a toll" (p.12).
Unlike the 63% of Americans polled who couldn't find Iraq on a map, those who finish this book will be intimate with the names of Iraq towns, provinces and the horrific battles that took place in them: Tall Afar, Kirkuk, Nasiriya, Baquba, Samarra, Karbala. Falluja. Readers will experience firefights at ground level, through the soldiers' eyes: hand-to-hand combat in cemeteries, in suburban streets, on the banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates and in the scorching desert.
He served in Iraq during an explosive period, arriving just two months before one of the bloodiest months of the war, April 2004. He was there during the kidnapping and brutal public execution of four contractors in Falluja. He was in Iraq during the second taking of the city in November of 2004. And he was in-country during the Abu Ghraib scandal, which he says hurt their collective effort:
In the first Gulf War, hundreds of Iraqi soldiers just laid down their arms and joined the American side. They surrendered. That's not happening anymore. They're fighting to the death. No Iraqi, no insurgent, wants to be captured by American forces now because they envision themselves in Abu Ghraib (p.192).
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