I am thinking about veterans today, so I thought I would post about a few of the books I’ve read over the years that share some of our modern veterans’ stories.
Given my demographic, it may not surprise many that I have always looked toward the military genre for a reading fix. In grade school I was enamored with Dean Hughes’ Soldier Boys. As I became older, the content changed.
In college I read Eric Greitens’ The Heart and The Fist. Since then he has gotten himself into trouble, and may be a more complicated figure than this book lets on (see: sexual assault charges). That said, this book details his humanitarian work in some tough places in the world, his evolution to a Rhode’s Scholar, and eventual training and service as a Purple Heart-awarded-Marine. His message that there is evil in the world, and that oftentimes it can’t be negotiated with, is incredibly powerful. I really enjoyed The Heart and The Fist.
I believe I was a sophomore in college when I read David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers. I broke up my Game of Thrones book-devouring with this Pulitzer prize winner. It was a tough read. Finkel is a reporter that followed a battalion of US Army Rangers stationed in Iraq during the surge. He did not sugar coat anything he saw, and I struggled to read some of the scenes and experiences that our modern veterans went through not so long ago. The violence I’ve read in fiction paled in comparison to the real-world devastation that our bravest lived in Iraq. This is a well written, gripping, and difficult read.
In early 2018, I set out to find a book that would make me better informed about our involvement in the middle east. In my mind, as long as soldiers are fighting overseas, we are not in peace time. Yet I had come of age in an America that didn’t want to think about Iraq and Afghanistan, and I found myself ignorant of the How’s and Why’s. The Mirror Test by J. Kael Weston was the perfect insight I was looking for. Weston worked for the State Department alongside soldiers every day, and brings a thoughtful, big picture perspective to intimate scenes of struggle in Iraq and Afghanistan. In The Mirror Test, Weston details the journey he took to pay respect to many of the dead and wounded he worked with, and details his own struggles with Washington’s decision making and those it affected.
I deeply encourage you to join me today in paying respect to the fallen; thanking those we are lucky enough to still be able to thank; and giving time or resources to those stateside heroes that help our country’s bravest and their families. Our opinion’s of our politicians’ decisions do not change or void the experiences of those who take up arms in our honor.