With a dozen short stories, the author accurately describes the effects of war with all its ramifications. Touching on Viet Nam and Afghanistan, it concentrates on Iraq, covering the corruption and hypocrisy of those in charge as well as the honor and bravery of the soldiers following their orders. It is very movingly portrayed. Events are brought to life in the simplicity of a soldier’s voice as he describes what he experiences and feels in several situations. Witnessing the death of fellow soldiers, the death of the enemy, the destruction of family ties, friend’s betrayals, and suicides, often threatened the very sanity of the returning soldiers. They were wounded not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. Once experienced, the field of battle alters one’s life and perceptions, irreversibly. The strain of war often catapults the soldier into a dark place. When he returns home it is hard to be in a normal world, without weapons, especially without the support of family and friends. Some soldiers returned to their homes and found their wives absent; they had no home, and no one waiting for their return.

As I read the stories, I began to feel as if the book was either designed more for a male reader, or perhaps it was simply more suitable for men because they make up the bulk of the fighting force or because the language is crude, the sex is cheap, the drinking is excessive and the experiences of war, with the blood and guts, the fear and the courage, are overt. The reaction of the soldiers is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes distant and cold, but because the stories are trying to define the combat experience, it can’t be criticized for its harshness, crassness or straightforward expression of the message. It touches not only on the encounter of the battlefield, but also on the painful experience soldiers are faced with when they return home to a different set of rules, a totally different reality than the one in the field of conflict. Upon return, they are expected to fit back into society, obey standard rules, give up their weapons, and yet, for some it is impossible to go back, to return to what we consider a normal way of life. Sometimes the people are changed so much it is impossible to resume the same relationships, and sometimes, the injuries are too grave for them to fit back into what once was their real world.

I was sometimes uncomfortable with the descriptions of women simply as sex objects and by the fact that the men thought it was the right way to behave toward women. I was surprised by the idea that the cruelty often shown toward the enemy, unnecessarily, was totally acceptable, perhaps even encouraged, and with the idea that drugs and drinking excessively should be the norm in the battlefield setting. If these behaviors are lauded in one place, how can a soldier return to a reality where the polar opposite values exist? How can the soldier settle back in without trauma?

Basically, the book concentrates on the negative aspects of the war, not the pride or the nationalism or the courage. It trashes war and its effects on the soldiers, their families their communities, the enemies and all involved, probably justifiably.

The book is certainly anti-war, and it is more critical of the right than the left in its attitude about wars, even though the idea of going into conflict was usually non partisan. It is only the Monday morning quarterbacking that changes the story to suit a particular political party or purpose. Whether any of the wars were carried out effectively, who won and who lost, or whether or not the Weapons of Mass Destruction were found, were hidden or ever existed will be decided by future historians. Still, the author seems to label the right as the war mongers and the left as the peaceniks.

Although each soldier joins up for different reasons, each has a valid reason. Some join up because of intolerable family situations, some because of love of country, some to get an education later on, and some, simply because they don’t know what they are getting into, have no idea what else to do or love the fog of war. The utter futility of the conflicts, the incompetence of those at the top, the inadequate preparation, outdated weaponry and equipment, the shock of the brutality or even the lack of being directly involved in the actual fighting, has vast emotional effects on each man and woman. The rules of engagement that favored an enemy not interested in following those same rules are exposed using individual tales of struggle.

The U.S. didn’t understand the cultures they were at war with, they didn’t understand the mindset of the people who resented their efforts and thus didn’t appreciate what they were trying to do for them. One side always gained while another side lost so that the battle lines were drawn all over again. Often those in power abused their power and were as deceitful and dishonest as the people ousted. Could there be any overriding reasons that would justify the deaths and the catastrophic injuries to Americans that would justify their capture and/or torture at the hands of the enemy in these unending and unwinnable crusades to rid the world of evil despots and bring their masses to democracy other than our own national security? Are these people even ready for our form of democrcay, and do they even want it?

Those killed in action, those who survive, those who receive medals, they all see the war through different eyes and their reactions are based on their backgrounds and the perceptions they bring with them in addition to their experiences in the war zone. The book describes all of the corruption and hypocrisy along with the honor and bravery of the soldiers whose job it was to carry out the orders and question nothing only to return home to a country that questioned them.

***Winner of 2014 National Book Award for Fiction

Nonfiction Winner: Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China - Evan Osnos 

Fiction Winner: Redeployment - Phil Klay 

Poetry Winner: Faithful and Virtuous Night: Poems - Louise Glück 

Young People’s Literature: Brown Girl Dreaming - Jacqueline Woodson 

Veteran's Day- November 11th

To all our War Veterans: with tremendous appreciation and pride, a heartfelt Thank You for your bravery and steely character not just on the battlefield, but in resuming Life after it.

There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad. Guys like it funny, with lots of gore and a grin on your face when you get to the end. Girls like it sad, with a thousand-yard stare out to the distance as you gaze upon the horrors of war they can't quite see.
- Phil Klay: Redeployment

The Iraq conflict is clearly emerging as the war narrative of our country. With its highly sophisticated and damaging weaponry, our veterans are left with the intense stories of the ill-gotten, complex myriad of physically and psychologically devastating injuries. Redeployment is a raw, gut wrenching, dis-embowelling short story collection focused on the Marine's tour in Fallujah: a window through which to view the Iraq experience from the most important perspective - through the eyes of those who served there.

These vivid portraits detail palpitating combat action in the call of duty, undeniable courage and loyalty to one's fellow soldier; intense stories of the war hero, who is sometimes the antihero; his disenchantment from the glorified myth: that the 'American soldier went to war and came back all the stronger for the experience'; the dehumanization effect of war indelibly sketched between the lines; the devastating battle wounds and deep psychological scars; the shattering impact and permanent damage to both soldiers' and civilians' lives; stories that end in the silent question of the soldier's intact morality and wholesome future.

In the streets: firefights, sniper attacks, gore and guts, gas-bloated dead hajji in the sun, unseeing eyes bulging toward the sky. It could have been you but he got fucked.

Insurgent hiding in the stinking pool of liquid shit, waiting to fire on you as you turn your back. You saw him first, so he got fucked.

Little Iraqi faces peering out a window, the mother screaming in horror, the fourteen year old kid obliterated by your rifle fire. Never-mind he was holding an AK, it was either him or you, and he got fucked.

You did what you had to do to survive; maybe injured civilians in the process. Bombs, missiles, IED's, bone shattering rounds, torture, scattered limbs, seared flesh. You survived, but you still got fucked.

Home now. No sleep. When it fitfully comes, you return to the battlefield in dreams and odd memories. "When I thought back on it, there were the memories I had, and the stories I told, and they sort of sat together in my mind, the stories becoming stronger every time I retold them, feeling more and more true."  Wounds too deep, so much pain, it hurts too much. "A human being in enough pain is just a screaming animal."

No one comes home from the war unchanged.

On coming home, did our governmental institution expect it to be a calm and easy transition into the 'after' life for you? You're now an unemployed or unemployable war vet; have they nonchalantly condemned you to subsist on the inevitable artificial life support of Disability or the stuporous numbness of perpetual inadequate medical management?

Phil Klay noticeably avoids taking political positions that would have interfered with his true purpose - the human experience of the war itself. Quite frankly, too many troops did not fully grasp why they were even there. Klay contrasts the gravity of this war of ambiguous missions, with the injection of some levity, for example: revealing the farcical projects like building irrelevant, flawed infrastructure; or the circumlocution in providing medical care and jobs for Iraqi women still in an oppressed society based on their religion. Klay's writing is powerful and compelling, most of all, realistic.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. Redeployment might probably become a modern war classic. In any event, it has my vote.

If you ever wanted proof that war doesn't make sense, here it is.

Phil Klay's short stories from the trenches of the Iraq war show that no matter how you look at it, war is hell.

He's been there, so he knows, but this isn't only Klay's story. Drawn from his own experience and interviews with others, these stories take a variety of perspectives. We hear from new recruits, eager boot camp graduates, stunned soldiers in their first firefight, old hands numb to the violence, chaplains trying to make a difference, and many more. Klay shows us what a soldier sees, both in combat and after the unsettling return to "normal" at home.

Strongest when transcribing straight from a soldier's mind, Klay captures the combination of heightened awareness and psychological numbing that gets the men through the day. I was especially struck by the endless stream of acronyms that let the men talk about people, places, and actions without ever using a specific name or description. It's all initials. I heard shades of Orwell in this language that serves to distance men from their actions.

Klay uses the first person throughout, and his own voice permeates most of the stories, making some of them less distinctive than they might be. A few stories run together in such a way that you may not immediately realize that the perspectives have changed. It's a surreal effect, and while confusing at times, also captures the underlying message that all of these stories are, at heart, about the same thing: disillusionment and the attempt to make sense of some of the most powerful experiences a human being can go through.