Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army’s Flikr Photostream
I decided to push myself away from the qualitative research textbooks I’ve been nerding out on and break in the Kindle my girls got me for Christmas with some “recreational” reading. And, of course, I didn’t stray too far from the themes surrounding my thesis that I’ve been digging into.
The guys over at On Violence have a running series on war memoirs that I’ve been following. One of the top picks they suggested was The War I Always Wanted, by Brandon Friedman. I’m just a little way into the book and the writing has really grabbed me. The start of the book has Friedman staging as part of the invasion force into Iraq in 2003, having already served a tour in Afghanistan. He rolls out of the gates from Camp New Jersey, Kuwait in his Humvee when the air raid sirens start wailing and a call comes across the radio saying there’s an Iraqi rocket inbound. The rules say Friedman is supposed to dismount his truck and take cover – somewhere – but all of the previous air raid warnings have been anticlimactic. He just hops out of his truck and stands out in the open waiting for the sirens to stop so they can start moving again. This time, though, is a little different. Here’s some great writing:
And then, with sirens singing in the distance, it hit with a dull whoomp. It was far enough away that I didn’t see it come in; it was near enough to have gotten my full attention.
The old pang of fear was back. I was being targeted. It is a queasy feeling, unlike anything else, and it comes in waves. Spend enough time in a war and you will become familiar with it. You’ll feel it eat slowly at your mind like battery acid, corroding more and more each day.
Before the wars, I had always been afraid of things like failing a test in school. Or that I’d be late. I was afraid that people at the party would think I looked stupid, or that I’d say something stupid. I was afraid that, when I left the bar, I’d find my car window broken and all my CDs gone.
But fear in war is not like that. This is the type of fear that only comes when you know your life could end at any moment, and you’d never see it coming. This is fear in its purest form.
And it ends up staying with you, too. Because even when the war is over for you, and you’re back at home with your family and you no longer fall asleep to the sound of cascading gunfire, that’s when you’ll notice just how uncomfortable you are when there is seemingly nothing out there in the darkness of which to be afraid.
That last sentence is powerful (emphasis added).
{ 0 comments }
