This is an amazing and important book and I’m surprised more people haven’t read it. Trish Wood interviewed 29 Iraq War veterans who served in the military between 2003 and 2005 and then edited their stories. The interviews are arranged chronologically and show how the war progressed from the huge success of the initial invasion to the chaos of the insurgency.

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.” ( )

For readers wanting a powerful look into the minds of the average soldiers who found themselves enmeshed in the Iraq War, I'm not sure there's a better work out there. This collection doesn't attempt to give a full history lesson or background, but it succeeds at giving a broad and varied view to the minds of soldiers--from the foot soldiers to the snipers to the clergy and the medics and the officers on the ground. Rather than get wrapped up in policy or protest, the various voices amount to an unbiased collection of ideas, with no single writer's section lasting more than 15 pages or so, and many inclusions being only 2-4 pages. As the many represented soldiers report their experiences, and in some cases how they ended up signing up for military service, readers are confronted with every side of the Iraq War and the issues wrapped up therein, each presented by the single powerful remembrance of someone directly engaged by the war.

All of that said, this isn't a book you'll want to sit down and read in one sitting. Some of the sections are repetitive, simply because of the nature of the work (though, not as many as you might expect because such an effort has been made to include varied voices who took part in the war at different times and in different roles). And, many of the sections present horrifying material that will make you, very simply, need a break from the remembrances included. But, the work as a whole is necessary and powerful, and absolutely worth reading. Even if you've read a great deal about the war, and stayed engaged with the news as it was being fought, this book will present you with new sides of the stories at hand. And, I would say, the fact that the work as a whole leans neither toward the left or the right is part of what makes the work so worthwhile.

Absolutely recommended. ( )

Excellant book. Gives many different views of the war by the soldiers actually fighting in it, not by the media or political views. You just gotta read the book ( )

It was refreshing to read something about Iraq that wasn't all about the politics. The soldiers' stories were sometimes very raw, other times bordering on sentimental. An amazing mix of perspectives and experiences. Couldn't put it down until the last word was read. ( )