‘Surviving Iraq,’ ‘Warrior Writers’ - Book Reviews: Entertainment for the Marine Corps - Marine Corps Times

‘Surviving Iraq,’ ‘Warrior Writers’

It’s easy to want to compare the stories in Elise Forbes Tripp’s “Surviving Iraq: Soldiers’ Stories” with reporter Trish Wood’s book of interviews called “What Was Asked of Us” (Little, Brown), a combat narrative told in many voices thanks to Wood’s journalistic and editing skills.

But Tripp is a historian, not an editor, and “Surviving Iraq” does not aspire to be more than a collection of one-on-one interviews with 30 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines — 25 men and five women — who tell their stories from recruitment to deployment and after. If only for its documentation, “Surviving Iraq” has merit. In addition, the book has occasional moments of grace, including the closing chapter, an oral history of the late Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey as told by his parents:

“[Combat veterans] don’t sleep, [parents] don’t sleep. When you have a man or a woman going through [post-traumatic stress disorder], you’ve got to believe that the family is going through PTSD.

“Way back to the Civil War, they called it the irritable heart; [in other wars], they called it battle fatigue, combat syndrome, the soldier’s heart. In Jeff’s case, my belief is he had a sensitive soul, and all of a sudden he saw sights and had experiences which compromised his humanity.”

Those experiences are a source of perplexity and pride for former Army Sgt. Andrew J. Simkewicz, now a Massachusetts veterans counselor:

“There’s nothing like wearing that uniform and being over there, testing yourself and seeing what you’re made of.

“It’s an amazing feeling — you’re giving of yourself and sacrificing, but at the same time, it’s an adrenaline thing.”

‘Warrior Writers’

Poetry, essay, memoir and a handful of images are in this collection developed during the Iraq War or submitted to the Iraq Veterans Against the War’s Warrior Writers Project, which conducted five workshops in 2007.

The paperback has the look and feel of a literary quarterly and has a unique table of contents that cross-references workshop activities and assignments.

What you find in this publication is very little praise for the Bush administration, which is no surprise given the publisher. Instead, you find work by 42 contributors that is thoughtful, respectful of fellow warriors, often evocative and occasionally downright powerful.

Some of those warriors were merely “targets in uniform,” one poet writes. But in some of the pieces in this book, a few service members demonstrate that they themselves can hit a bull’s-eye. Former Marine Evan R. Moodie offers this personal memory of two never-ending deaths:

“there is this ball of fire that is constantly on my mind

“one that sneaks up on me any hour of the day

“an enormous explosion that ended the lives of two marines.”

At the beginning of the book is a poem by former soldier Drew Cameron that earns its placement and worthily provides the volume with its subtitle:

“It begins

“We shall build on the literary tradition

“of veterans who open that

“capsule of burden

“swallowed whole, absorbed fully

“certain memories will come

“to bear on the consciousness

“of us all

“re-making sense.”

———

“Surviving Iraq: Soldiers’ Stories.” By Elise Forbes Tripp. Olive Branch Press, 274 pages, $18.

“Warrior Writers: Re-Making Sense.” Edited by Lovella Calica. Iraq Veterans Against the War, 208 pages, $20