As You Were

Christian Davenport

Description

A powerful, enraging, tear-jerking reminder of how so few Americans have sacrificed so much during the so-called' war on terror'. the best kind of war book. - Alex Kershaw, author of The Bedford Boys and Escape from the Deep

"Through the voices and experiences of five very diverse members of the Virginia National Guard, As You Were gives the great majority of Americans who have not been sent to war a sense of the experiences of our citizen-soldiers and the family, employment, and health problems they face reentering American society after experiencing combat." - David R. Segal, Drector, Center for Research on Military Organization, University of Maryland

"A sad, stirring, sometimes maddening story. Christian Davenport writes not so much about combat, but rather the home front--the struggles of the families left behind while their providers go off to war and of the solders themselves as they stagger back to a civilian world that declines to reward, or even betrays, their sacrifice." - Fred Kaplan, "War Stories" columist, Slate; author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

Sujets

• Histoire
• Iraq War
• As You Were
• Military
• History
• 9
• 11

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620458976
• Langue: English

Extrait

As You Were
To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard
CHRISTIAN DAVENPORT


John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Copyright 2009 by Christian Davenport. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Davenport, Christian, date.
As you were : to war and back with the Black Hawk battalion of the Virginia National Guard / Christian Davenport.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-37361-3 (cloth)
1. United States-National Guard-Biography. 2. Iraq War, 2003-Biography. 3. Soldiers-United States-Biography. I. Title.
UA42.D23 2009
956.7044 33092273-dc22
[B] 2008045528
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my mother,
to my wife,
and to the citizen-soldiers, who go when called
Nostalgia, it comes from the Greek.
I researched it: straight from the Greek. Algos means pain. Nostos means to return home.
Nostalgia: the pain of returning home.
- Tim O Brien, Going after Cacciato
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE: MOBILIZATION
1. Miranda: No One Likes a Sulky Soldier
2. Ray and Diane: Hurry Up and Wait
3. Kate: Be All You Can Be
4. Mark: Sir, I m a Citizen-Soldier
PART TWO: IRAQ
5. Miranda: The Terrorists Ate My Homework
6. Ray and Diane: Keeping Up Appearances
7. Kate: Jody s Got Your Cadillac
8. Miranda: Graduation Day
9. Craig: Welcome to Game Time, Lieutenant Lewis
10. The National Guard: The Nation s Best Defense Bargain
PART THREE: HOME
11. The 2-224th: Don t Take the War Home with You
12. Miranda: Learning to Talk about War
13. Kate: Practicing Normalcy
14. Mark: Keep Your Boots On
15. Ray and Diane: Seeing Suffering
16. Craig: The Two O Clock Lull
17. Miranda: The Pedicured, Door-Gunning Ivy League Veteran
Epilogue: Citizen-Soldiers: The Conscience of a Nation
Index
Acknowledgments
When I started this project I wanted to be the first journalist to extend the Pentagon s embedding program from Iraq to the home front. The best way to do that, I figured, was with a unit from the National Guard, which is, I believe, one of the most important, and most overlooked, American institutions; the Guard s citizen-soldiers face a sacrifice all together different from the active duty. They come home not to large military bases but to their old civilian lives and try to pick up where they left off, to be as they were.
I m thankful, first and foremost, to the soldiers who allowed me to document their lives in this book. They signed on with gusto, and their faith in the project and their patience with me only reaffirmed my commitment to get it right. This is their story, and this book belongs to them: Mark Baush, Kate Dahlstrand (n e Broome), Ray and Diane Johnson, Craig Lewis, and Miranda Summers.
By spending nearly two years writing about them, I entered not only their lives but those of their family and friends as well, who were to a person gracious and kind.
Colonel Robert E. McMillin II generously allowed me to embed with the 2-224th for three weeks near the end of its tour, and encouraged me to get to know as many of his soldiers as possible.
I m also thankful to Lieutenant Colonel James W. Ring and Command Sergeant Major Susan G. Bentley (Retired), who kept the door open long after the battalion came home. Lieutenant Colonel Chester Carter (Retired) of the Virginia National Guard s Public Affairs office helped a great deal in arranging for me to meet up with the battalion. With the 2-224, I d also like to thank Captain Aaron Loy, Major Walter Keith Nunnally, Chief Warrant Officer-4 R. J. Smith and Sergeant David Testa.
The seeds of this book began with stories I wrote for the Washington Post , my professional home since 2000. My editors, Leonard Downie, Philip Bennett, Robert J. McCartney, R. B. Brenner, Lynn Medford, and Phyllis W. Jordan, generously allowed me the time to pursue this project and encouraged me throughout.
Lynda Robinson of the Post s Sunday magazine first suggested I spend a year following reservists coming home from war, and her faith and enthusiasm kept me going. Others at the Post , including David Fahrenthold, Marc Fisher, Mary Hadar, Peter Perl, David Rowell, and Suzanne Wooton, lent clear eyes, kind words, and inspiration.
By selecting me as one of its 2007 fellows, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, under Peggy Engel s excellent stewardship, allowed me the time to immerse myself fully in the book, without distraction.
I m also indebted to Lieutenant Colonel Les Melnyk, who opened up his files, not only at the National Guard Bureau but at his home as well. Our discussions about the military in general and the Guard in particular helped shape the tone and structure of the book. Chief Warrant Officer-2 John W. Listman Jr. (Retired), a historian with the Virginia Army National Guard Historical Collection, helped illuminate the long, grand history of the Virginia National Guard. Renee Hylton and Manny Pacheco of the National Guard Bureau were also immensely helpful.
In researching the Guard, I relied on many sources, none more so than Michael Doubler s definitive history, Civilian in Peace, Soldier in War: The Army National Guard, 1636-2000 . I also relied on Lewis Sorley s biographies of Generals Creighton Abrams and Harold Johnson, and Laura Fairchild Brodie s fine work on the Virginia Military Institute.
My agent, Rafe Sagalyn, saw well before I did that my idea could indeed become a book, and helped greatly in shaping it. Eric Nelson, my editor at Wiley, immediately saw the full arc of the story and became not only a masterful editor, but a counselor and partner as well. Production editor Rachel Meyers and freelance copy editor Eric Newman cleaned up my unruly prose with their careful copyediting.
Through his close readings, my father, Gary, kept me, and the text, honest. My mother, Marolyn, was there, as always, with her sound judgment and encouragement.
Finally, I m thankful to my wife, Heather, an unerring critic, who patiently read through several drafts and improved every one. She is my best friend and my love, always.
Introduction
In the spring, along the grand boulevards designed by a Frenchman to mimic Paris, all the nation s capital blooms with what seems an overnight Technicolor force-flowering pear trees, tulips, daffodils, and, of course, the famed cherry blossoms, which line the Tidal Basin like so many low-hanging pink and white clouds. It s a time of transition, spring heralded by the bloom.
Like thousands of other tourists descending on the city that day in April 2007, Miranda Summers and two friends had come to Washington, D.C., for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. There was only a hint of cool in the air. The sun was bright. It was a wonderful day for sightseeing. But unlike her friends, Miranda had come for something besides the flowering trees. In her pocket was a patch that she had worn on the left shoulder of her flight suit while in Iraq, and she planned to lay it at the foot of the World War II Memorial.
Had Miranda shown the patch to her friends-both civilians who had never served in the military-they could have easily mistaken it for a frivolous ornament, the sort of thing you would stitch to a denim jacket next to a peace symbol or a Grateful Dead logo. The patch was round and bore what looked like the Chinese symbol of duality, yin and yang, with two tadpolelike swirls, one dark, one light.
In fact, the patch was the insignia of the Twenty-ninth Infantry Division, one of the oldest and most vaunted Army National Guard units in the country. During World War I, it suffered 5,500 casualties in France s Argonne Forest. In World War II, the Twenty-ninth stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. Designed in 1917 by an army major, the patch represented how the division was composed of units that had fought on both sides of the Civil War: one half was blue, the other gray. But for the soldiers in Miranda s unit-the Virginia Army National Guard s Second Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment-the patch was brown and tan, the better to blend with the Mesopotamian desert.
T