Youngblood
by Matt Gallagher shows the daily life of a soldier fighting
in Iraq just before the troop withdrawal in 2011. It is a
fictional journal that depicts the complexities of war with
very vivid descriptions. Gallagher follows up on his successful
first book, the memoir Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a
Savage Little War (2010), with this Iraq War novel that
speaks to the perspective of a US soldier and the Iraqi people.
The narrator of
the book is Lieutenant Jack Porter, who is leading a platoon
of men in the last stages of the war. America is nearing the
end of its involvement in Iraq with the new Iraqi Army being
trained to takeover. Porter’s war deals with the internal
power struggles of the town surrounding his outpost, paying
off local men and appeasing those whose lives have been affected
by the ongoing violence in their country. It is his job to
keep a lid on the fragile peace that has been etched out by
those who have come before him, including his older brother.
He is assisted by Sergeant Dan Chambers who is determined
to get all his men home. Porter also has become obsessed with
a Romeo and Juliet type of love affair between an American
soldier and a local sheikh’s daughter, Rana.
Gallagher commented,
“In many ways Jack and I are quite different. When in
Iraq I was hot tempered and thought in the moment. Jack takes
his time in making decisions. Chambers is the one who gets
things done, an attribute I admire in people. He focuses on
the task of accomplishing the mission, almost Machiavellian.
I think I put pieces of myself in all my characters.”
Porter is portrayed
as a newly minted lieutenant struggling to accept the brutality
around him while at the same time attempting to be sensitive
to the Iraqi culture. Assigned to his company is Chambers,
an aggressive soldier who wants to make sure the rules of
engagement do not cost any of his men their lives. The scene
involving the fight between a scorpion and a camel spider
can best explain their attitudes. As the spider gnawed on
the scorpion’s head the scorpion rammed its stinger
right into the spider’s eye. As Chambers comments to
the men, “That’s what happens when you hesitate…
Don’t be that camel spider. Be the scorpion.”
The author stated
he wrote this scene to emphasize how Chambers had a “noble
purpose to get his men home. They needed to stay aggressive
and stop being lackadaisical. The stage is set for the rest
of the novel where the attitude was to do what is necessary
to stay alive within the moral code.”
Youngblood
allows the reader to feel they are in Iraq with the soldiers.
They experience the deployment, the camaraderie, fear, exhaustion,
and boredom. This is a story of men and women trying to do
their jobs, survive, and to return home in one piece.
|