Trish Wood
Forfatter af What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It
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What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It (2006) 110 eksemplarer
Ted Bundy: enamorada de un asesino 1 eksemplar
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I listened to a discussion online from CSPAN’s video library from November 3, 2007 of Trish Wood and two of the soldiers who contributed to the book (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/WasAs). Wood said she wanted to write this book because she felt that Iraq War veterans were invisible to most people and struggled with feeling disconnected once they returned to the U.S. The two marines that appear with her had vastly different experiences adjusting to being back home. One, Major Chris Toland, seemed pretty much at ease with how things had gone despite witnessing one of the worst IED attacks on his own squad. The other, a medic named Paul Rodriquez, had numerous problems--traumatic brain injury and PTSD being just two of them. It’s an interesting discussion if you have time to listen to it (it’s about an hour long).
This can be a very tough book to read because almost all the stories concern death or, worse in some ways, traumatic injuries that soldiers survived. Sometimes I had to put the book aside and other times I couldn’t put it down. What was interesting to me was that each interview looks at the details of a soldier’s experience and with maybe one or two exceptions those experiences are very intense. There are no detached, big picture discussions. Many of the stories are heartbreaking but the soldiers respond differently to what happened to them. Most of them want nothing more than for themselves and their buddies to survive the war and get back home. They’re not concerned with the bigger reasons the war is being fought. There are some though who love being in the war not so much for political reasons but because they love the job.
One thing these interviews drive home is how confusing, frustrating and devastating it was to fight an insurgency the soldiers weren’t prepared for and what a scourge IEDs (improvised explosive devices or roadside bombs) and suicide bombers were. The first suicide bombing of US soldiers in Iraq was in March 2003. That and the failure of the coalition forces to provide the Iraqis with basic services after the fall of Baghdad led to a situation where the two sides couldn't trust each other. Trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis under these conditions turned out to be impossible.
Despite this book being a tough read, I would highly recommend it. It gave me a sense of what it was like to be in the Iraq War that I never got from the news. Probably the most valuable thing to me was hearing the variety of points of view on why a soldier would choose to go to war, how those views changed (or didn’t) once they got there, and how some of these soldiers adjusted (or didn’t) once they got home. As an example of the different points of view, here are two of the interview titles (which are quotes from the soldiers telling their stories): “In war, the best of you shines” and “War turns you into what your mother wishes you would never be.”… (mere)