Purchase
American Soldiers' Voices from Afghanistan
University of Virginia Press
April 2013
On Sale: April 8, 2013
178 pages ISBN: 0813934117 EAN: 9780813934112 Kindle: B00BNGJZNS Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
A riveting collection of thirty-eight narratives by American
soldiers serving in Afghanistan, Outside the Wire
offers a powerful evocation of everyday life in a war zone.
Christine Dumaine Leche—a writing instructor who left her
home and family to teach at Bagram Air Base and a forward
operating base near the volatile Afghan-Pakistani
border—encouraged these deeply personal reflections, which
demonstrate the power of writing to battle the most
traumatic of experiences. The soldiers whose words
fill this book often met for class with Leche under extreme
circumstances and in challenging conditions, some having
just returned from dangerous combat missions, others having
spent the day in firefights, endured hours in the bitter
cold of an open guard tower, or suffered a difficult phone
conversation with a spouse back home. Some choose to record
momentous events from childhood or civilian life—events that
motivated them to join the military or that haunt them as
adults. Others capture the immediacy of the battlefield and
the emotional and psychological explosions that followed.
These soldiers write through the senses and from the soul,
grappling with the impact of moral complexity, fear,
homesickness, boredom, and despair. We each, writes
Leche, require witnesses to the narratives of our lives.
Outside the Wire creates that opportunity for us as
readers to bear witness to the men and women who carry the
weight of war for us all.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|