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War is hell, and Iraq is no exception.
Too often, however, we get caught up in debating the politics of war, and we forget about the soldiers who are fighting for us on the front line. As you know, some of them come from our area. (See today's Opinion page A4 for a letter from Iraq from Ryan Muessig, 24, of Grass Valley).
A new book has been published that compiles accounts of the Iraq war by the soldiers who have served in it. Twenty-nine Iraq veterans are quoted at length in "What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It." As in all wars, letters from the front - and nowadays, blogs - add poignancy to any discussion.
"What Was Asked of Us" was compiled by a Canadian journalist, Trish Wood, who tracked down the vets and talked with them in informal settings - at the kitchen table, a cramped workstation or a "forgettable" hotel room somewhere in America, as she puts it.
Some excerpts (warning: this is war, so some of you might consider this material too graphic. Other excerpts from the book are much more graphic):
• "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 look at him. I didn't want to look at him." - Mike Bonaldo, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment
• "If I died, I died. That's my job. If I died doing something that I liked to do, people should just be happy for me. We're protecting freedoms all over the world." - Joseph Darling, flag presenter, Connecticut Marine Corps Funerals.
• "Because as the war got on and the antitank mines got worse, that type of gruesomeness multiplied. ... We're going to get them home, but they're not going to get that closure of seeing their husband or their wife or their son in the casket." - Daniel Cotnoir, Mortuary Affairs, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
• "There was a piece of shrapnel; . . . It was huge and it fell out of the sky and landed right in front of where I was facing. It was a piece of the car." - Adrian Cavazos, "Outlaw" Platoon, 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment
"No matter how many hours of cable news and political speeches you may have seen, it's the men and women who were there who can tell us the most," said Erik Gustafson, director of the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, on Amazon.com's Web site. The book can be purchased or ordered at local bookstores.
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To contact Editor Jeff Pelline, e-mail jeffp@theunion.com or call 477-4235.
Too often, however, we get caught up in debating the politics of war, and we forget about the soldiers who are fighting for us on the front line. As you know, some of them come from our area. (See today's Opinion page A4 for a letter from Iraq from Ryan Muessig, 24, of Grass Valley).
A new book has been published that compiles accounts of the Iraq war by the soldiers who have served in it. Twenty-nine Iraq veterans are quoted at length in "What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It." As in all wars, letters from the front - and nowadays, blogs - add poignancy to any discussion.
"What Was Asked of Us" was compiled by a Canadian journalist, Trish Wood, who tracked down the vets and talked with them in informal settings - at the kitchen table, a cramped workstation or a "forgettable" hotel room somewhere in America, as she puts it.
Some excerpts (warning: this is war, so some of you might consider this material too graphic. Other excerpts from the book are much more graphic):
• "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 look at him. I didn't want to look at him." - Mike Bonaldo, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment
• "If I died, I died. That's my job. If I died doing something that I liked to do, people should just be happy for me. We're protecting freedoms all over the world." - Joseph Darling, flag presenter, Connecticut Marine Corps Funerals.
• "Because as the war got on and the antitank mines got worse, that type of gruesomeness multiplied. ... We're going to get them home, but they're not going to get that closure of seeing their husband or their wife or their son in the casket." - Daniel Cotnoir, Mortuary Affairs, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
• "There was a piece of shrapnel; . . . It was huge and it fell out of the sky and landed right in front of where I was facing. It was a piece of the car." - Adrian Cavazos, "Outlaw" Platoon, 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment
"No matter how many hours of cable news and political speeches you may have seen, it's the men and women who were there who can tell us the most," said Erik Gustafson, director of the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, on Amazon.com's Web site. The book can be purchased or ordered at local bookstores.
ooo
To contact Editor Jeff Pelline, e-mail jeffp@theunion.com or call 477-4235.
