Living through the Iraq War compelled me to honestly challenge who I was, what I had believed in, and reshape who I am. One aspect to emerge from that is the belief that there is no good war. War is the worst of all endeavors, born from fundamentally weak minds that are blind to imagination and vision. But while I have had a passion for writing about war and speaking out against it, I feel it’s important for people to look beyond my work as just another veteran writing just another war book. In both of my books, the war is a character more than anything else.
By F. Scott Service
As an only child isolated within a troubled family, F. Scott Service found solace in fantasy and imagination, until a fateful day led to the discovery of his father’s Korean War field jacket. What began as innocent emulation and approval, eventually spiraled into a calamitous loss. Faced with a grievous divorce, post-traumatic stress, homelessness, substance abuse, and failure, one night communing with a loaded pistol became the mechanism for self-clarity.
Playing Soldier powerfully captures the unlearning of expectation, the celebration of individuality, and the nourishing of self-acceptance once buried by cultural stamps of approval and societal convention. Braided with humor, courage, fear, despair, and hope, his unflinching story of passage into adulthood and beyond stands as an inspiring example of how he re-forged his true, original self.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Baron Wormser
Never in my life have I read a book that so closely echoed my heart and mind as an Iraq War veteran, unsettled wayfarer, and conscientious objector. It was a true reflection of my soul as I was searching for meaning within my own life and a fractured America.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Michael Herr
From the opening pages, his writing knocks your britches off and never relents, driving at you, into you, paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, word after word. So authentic and immediate is his writing, that when I closed the book after finishing it, I discovered I had been transported back to and into my own war.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Bruce Weigl
This is a story of new beginnings and it shook my preconceived notions of what a memoir embodies. By going back to Vietnam years after the war, the author illustrates how love and time can change our opinions… that hate is the easy way out… that differences can allow us to understand how truly precious we all are… that we can come full circle, out of the darkness and into the light.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By William Styron
A whammy of a book and a knockout for the conscience of the soul. Not only does it explore the deep, darker recesses of the heart that are often filled with regret and self-loathing, but it examines humanity, humanity in all its raw coarseness, inelegance, frailties, shortcomings, and tragedies.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
By Jack London
While admittedly not a “war” book, Jack London’s masterful novel illustrates notions associated with war and society in an artful way. And he does it within two characters… a truth seeker and a believer in the establishment. From the rich and powerful to the impoverished with no voice, he clearly understood what is behind the masks we don in society. Fantastic read.
When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.
