English graduate student Hugh Martin of Ohio University authored “Some Notes: an Iraq War Veteran Reads about the Iraq War” at Mixed Sign.
In Night Draws Near, Anthony Shadid, the Lebanese-American journalist, documents his time from March 2003-June 2004 living with and among Iraqis. His accounts overlap, somewhat, with my time in the country—roughly late February 2004-December 2004. While deployed as a twenty year-old specialist in the Army National Guard, I was aware of the British occupation after WWI but I had never heard about this well-known line from Maude. I imagine most Americans have not. If Shadid emphasizes anything, it’s how that the longer he stays in Iraq, the more complicated and complex the country and the war becomes. Before deploying, as a nineteen year-old trying to understand the gravity of my situation, I started reading, when time permitted, about Islam, Iraqi history, Saddam Hussein and his family, among other things.
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