Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq

Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq [Jason Christopher Hartley] on leondumoulin.nl *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.
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Specialty Booksellers Interest-specific online venues will often provide a book buying opportunity. International Customers If you are located outside the U. About Product Details Praise This is not your father's war This is Iraq, where a soldier's first duty is reinforcing his Humvee with sheet metal and sand bags. Whether you're for or against the war in Iraq, this is essential reading. HarperCollins e-books On Sale: Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher. On Europe by Margaret Thatcher.

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Flash forward to every morning since I met Kirk. Homeboy plays Godsmack and all manner of macho rock you can imagine, twenty-four-seven. So I guess I lied. I worked at John F. She seemed more attractive every night I watched her. Those bewitching Persian eyes, that aristocratic Iranian nose, breasts too small to preclude her from the category of sophisticated beauty. But of course they have to broadcast from Atlanta. How will I ever be able to visit? What the hell is in Atlanta anyways? While I was at the airport I emailed CNN a few times asking them if they could set up a service that would email fans of Rudi each day what she would be wearing the next day.

I got no response. So I would stare at the TV waiting for that fleeting moment when the ticker at the bottom of the screen would drop just before or after a commercial break, revealing her body below her armpits. Willy was my roommate for those eight months and found my Rudi obsession amusing and slightly troubling.

In my last post I promised you an entry about our last field exercise. Sometimes I bore the hell out of myself with my repetitiveness. The training was miserable. On the first day out, another dick managed to fall from the sky and hit Juan square on the head. Juan recently had a temporary cap put on a missing front tooth and he was really psyched to go home for Christmas and show his wife his new choppers.

Apparently it was filed down to the size of a baby tooth in preparation for a permanent cap that never seemed to find its way into his mouth.

Just Another Soldier » About the Book

This cap was attached to the mini-tooth. Well, while Juan was eating a frozen power bar on that freezing afternoon, his tooth snapped off. This is the kind of thing that I literally have nightmares about. Shaking his head in frustration, Juan looked utterly dejected, holding his tooth in his fingers for me to see.

What remained of his mini-tooth was all but gone now, severed at the gum. That night it snowed a foot and a half. We began to build shelters to stay outside, but once the leadership realized that too many of the guys had no idea at all how to handle this kind of weather, we retreated to a building and holed up there for the next few nights. To really boil it down, all we did was guard some stuff, ran some traffic check points, and the coital moment was a semi-permissive raid on a town that turned into an off-off-off-broadway production.

This exercise was the last one we would perform at Fort Drum, the second-to-last exercise before going into combat and the first exercise being performed on a battalion level. About a hundred-and-fifty real Iraqis were shipped in to play the part of, um, Iraqis. So we laid in the snow just outside the town watching and listening to the chaos that took place in the town as each actor put on the performance of his or her life.

There were even Iraqi children atop buildings throwing snowballs at the Humvees that passed underneath. There were so many things that made this exercise seem utterly disorganized on a battalion level. Communication between companies seemed to vary from bad to non-existent. But boy, did it seemed hosed from the perspective of the lowly grunt. All I can say is that combat is going to be very interesting with these guys.

An infantryman spends an enormous amount of his time laying on the ground in the prone position. This gives him the opportunity to analyze nature on a very intimate level. This is my view of some moss on a dead log. The snow had not yet begun to fall. As we prepared to move out it started to snow. And it continued to snow.

The hooch Juan and I built. Anthony amid the snowscape.

See a Problem?

The ground beneath the eighteen inches of snow was icy and slick. It was virtually impossible to walk anywhere without falling on your ass at least twice. After a while I just stopped wiping my nose and it started to look not unlike the back of this Humvee. This is the view I had of the town as I laid for hours in snow that would melt beneath me from my body heat then refreeze. For once I wished I were wearing briefs.

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Can you find the four soldiers in this photo? The view from the back seat of a humvee. The turret gunner is the guy on the right.


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Shortly before our holiday leave, we started wearing the desert camouflage uniforms. It has nothing to do with training, the Army or Iraq. How far does the rabbit hole go? My roommate, Erin thinks you should follow the rabbit…. Today we were issued the Interceptor Body Armor. The only thing that is important about this is the kevlar dickflap. This entire post is dedicated to it. Before the dining-in was to begin, an initiation ceremony was to be performed for all the new NCOs sergeants that were recently promoted. But before that was to take place, everyone hit the bar.

Ah, the evening was off to a spectacular start. Me and Willy enjoying some Fort Drum microbrew. And then the initiation ceremony began. We then shook the hands of all the new sergeants.

Just Another Soldier

And a few were females. I had no idea there were any females in my beloved infantry battalion! Try to imagine what it must have been like for the servers of this event. These are only about a third of all the attendees.

IRAQ FALLUJA TANK HIT

Each table had to create a centerpiece. A few inside jokes here: Not only was our centerpiece the most creative, but it was probably also the most fitting. By the time midnight finally rolled around I had become silly drunk, had stolen two additional dinners from the servers using shameless trickery, had passed out on a couch during one of the scheduled breaks when they woke my ass up I announced that I was Buddhist and was merely meditating and now I had finally toasted the new year. As we left, I took the toy Humvee out of our centerpiece and put it in one of the display cabinets in the foyer.

Okay, so it was only on the cheek, but close enough. Happy New Year everyone! We finally left Fort Drum. No hard feelings, right? Our ruck sacks are in a truck and have been weighed. Turns out we were pounds overweight. So eighteen guys including me get bumped from the flight and have to take the next one. Yes, 18 guys and their gear weigh three tons. We go back to the barracks, shower, check email one last time, masturbate one last time, and take short naps then head back to the RPC.

We get weighed, sit around, then get in line to board the plane. During our delay that old bastard Fort Drum had one last bit of spite in him. The temperature dropped something wicked. Jason Christopher Hartley's memoir "Just Another Soldier" is less about what happens, and more about how it feels to be on the ground in Iraq.

The book is a shock to read, as a civilian, but I couldn't put it down and looked forward to reading each new entry as a window into his world in the service. My father was a veteran of WWII, but was also opposed to war. The stories soldiers tell have changed a lot since that time. Jason is a great story teller.

I highly recommend his book for readers who Jason Christopher Hartley's memoir "Just Another Soldier" is less about what happens, and more about how it feels to be on the ground in Iraq. I highly recommend his book for readers who want to think deeply about what we are doing as a country, by going to war, and how it changes the young men who become soldiers. Jan 22, Lillian rated it really liked it. Reading this book gives a noncombatant an intimate view of the Army's day to day life in Iraq.

Jason's writing style is harsh, and brutally honest about others as well as himself. Which of course lends to an interesting and enlightening read that forces some introspection on the reader as well. Basic Info about the book- created from a series of blog entries posted while Jason was a soldier in the US Army in Iraq, year 2oo4. A lot of controversy surrounded the blog and he was forced to take it d Reading this book gives a noncombatant an intimate view of the Army's day to day life in Iraq.

A lot of controversy surrounded the blog and he was forced to take it down a couple of times by the Army, but now it is accessible to everyone in this book. Jan 20, Michio Papers rated it it was amazing. The book provides an in-depth, no-frills honest perspective from the eyes of a US grunt on the ground. Hartley's documentation of his deployment was first posted on his blog site while he was in Iraq.

After coming back to the States, however, he decided to compile his entries into a book format.

The resulting string of entries covers his entire wartime experience, from the training he "Just Another Soldier" is a true story of events following the author, Jason Hartley, through his tour in Iraq. The resulting string of entries covers his entire wartime experience, from the training he received in the Eastern United States prior to deployment all the way till after he gets back home.

Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq

The author is a Sergeant during the time of his deployment, and is in charge of his own "team" of soldiers. The reader gets to know these soldiers' personalities and traits as the book goes on. Hartley does a great job of personifying each different character, and it is easy to remember the various last names of the soldiers he served beside.

The author brings a range of different emotions to the table throughout the novel.

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He describes humorous moments while practicing how to dismantle a machine gun during training, but then later on describes how it feels to have a member of his platoon seriously injured while on patrol. The whole book has a very honest and at some times brutal feel to it. It is easy to tell that Hartley is holding nothing back in his entries, and this truth, in a sense, is comforting to know.

The book is not about combat or the horrors of war. It covers much more than that. Over the course of the novel, the reader learns about the long periods of waiting in the base, the brief moments of terror from IED's Improvised Explosive Device's , the midnight raids on empty houses, some of the back-door politics that the public doesnt hear, and how Hartley even goes through a legal battle with the military regarding his "controversial" blog posts.

For many, "Just Another Soldier" will provide a fresh and revealing look into what the daily life of a deployed US soldier in Iraq looks like. The broad range of moods and emotions brought forth during the novel can conjure up both laughter and tears, or anguish and curiosity. Jason Hartley neatly ties his experiences together into this book, creating both an enjoyable and informative read. Sep 16, tygrys rated it it was ok. Apr 07, Desiree rated it it was amazing Shelves: I really enjoyed reading this book.

I think it offers a good perspective for someone who is not in the military - what life can be like for our soldiers. Yes, those in the military may take issue with Jason writing his story and may take issue with some of his actions. I do not sit in a position to judge him or his actions. I see this book as an account of what his life was like, not a document with which to judge him. I find that he has a self-deprecating sense of humor. He admits his mistakes - I really enjoyed reading this book. He admits his mistakes - when he does something stupid, he makes fun of himself. That's one of the reasons that I enjoyed this book.

It's real, not some sanitized version of what he think he should write or how he should portray himself. I'd read his book again and that should say a lot and I would recommend it for anyone wanting a better idea of the challenges those in our military face when serving our country.

Jul 13, Natalie rated it really liked it Recommends it for: I picked up this book because I wanted to have a better understand of a friend's experience serving overseas, as well as I wanted to read something entirely different than I have read all year. Not too far into reading it I discover, surprisingly, not only Hartley grow up about 20 minutes from where I did, he is also a former Mormon as well! So this book had familiar neuances that made it extremely enjoyable My favorite would be how he described answering the phone for one of his duties.

He answ I picked up this book because I wanted to have a better understand of a friend's experience serving overseas, as well as I wanted to read something entirely different than I have read all year. He answered it like mormon kids close their prayers, all in one breath one long word strung together; "inthenameofjesuschristamen".