What are you searching for when you read a military memoir? Is it entertainment? Nostalgia? To better understand your own experience in combat? All of the above? Which war memoir gave you what you were looking for?
If I Die In A Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien is my choice. Short and poignant. Honest storytelling. I read memoirs to gain insight into my personal experience with war and its effects on the mind and soul. Above all, I love recognizing myself in someone else's words. Two words: Shared Experience.
Rudine Bishop -a literary scholar- argues that books give us “windows” and “mirrors” into other experiences. That is, a window into an experience outside of our worldview; a mirror reflects what we see, it allows us to see our lives on the page. When we see mirrors in the literature we read, it’s that shared experience you’re describing.
Likewise, memoirs also inform, entertain, and persuade us (similar to all writing, I guess). When I read memoir, I’m first trying to be informed (or learn) / look through the window into the author’s lived experience. Sometimes, that window ends up being a mirror; then I’m able to walk away with a new perspective.
My favorite memoir would be With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge. It was the first book I read in the Marines and it really made me consider the legacy that new generations are tasked to uphold.
Thanks for the awesome response. Could not have been said better. Sledges tale is on my list 💯
I’m a fan of Hooligans of Kandahar by Joseph (or Joe, it’s not sitting in front of me) Kassabian. He glosses over a lot of the fighting that took place during that deployment, focusing instead on the boring, infuriating, and bizarre aspects of a deployment. Also, totally worth adding, I was on the deployment so I’m a little biased.
You recognize yourself in those pages. That’s the magic, right there. Will add it to my list.
I try to read a wide range of things, but military memoirs always draw me back. I'm with Mikey- its hard to beat With The Old Breed, Sledge set the gold standard. If I Die In A Combat Zone is in my Amazon cart as we speak, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I recently re-read The Things They Carried and was blown away. Not a memoir, but a military classic for sure. I read it first in high school and didn't think much of it, but the 2nd read hit totally different. Any books you guys have gone back to and come away with a totally different experience than the first read?
The Call of the Wild. Beautifully simple writing. And more beautiful than I had remembered.
"One Bullet Away" by Nate Fick was a great memoir that made me realize how vastly different the situation in Iraq was compared to when we got there (just a few years after his unit had made the push through). It was also a reminder of the qualities in leadership that our warriors should seek to emulate.
On the other hand, I re-read Richard Marcinko's "Rogue Warrior" (a book I had read and enjoyed as a teenager) and couldn't even get 1/4 of the way through. Marcinko comes off as a total blow hard that can't get enough of his own accolades. Humility is a virtue that every leader should have, and there wasn't a shred of that on display in his "memoir".