I wound up on the battle field right alongside Michael.  ~ Sheila

Mass Casualties

“Look around,” the drill sergeant said. “In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”

It was Week 7 of basic training . . . eighteen years old and I was preparing myself to die.

They say the Army makes a man out of you, but for eighteen-year-old SPC Michael Anthony, this fabled rite of passage is instead a dark and dangerous journey. After obtaining his parents’ approval to enlist at seventeen, Anthony begins this journey with an unshakeable faith in the military based on his family’s long tradition of service. But when he finds himself in a medical unit of misfits as lost as he is, Anthony not only witnesses firsthand the unspeakable horror of war, he experiences the undeniable misconduct of the military. Everything he’s ever believed in dissolves, forcing Anthony to rethink his ideals and ultimately risk his career—and his freedom—to challenge the military that once commanded his loyalty.

This searing memoir chronicles the experiences that change one young soldier forever. A seasoned veteran before the age of twenty-one, he faces the truth about the war—and himself—in this shocking and unprecedented eyewitness account.

If this book comes as surprise review out of my “genre” comfort zone to you…. you would be right.  I do not enjoy books about war.  Yet when this book was offered to me for review I had to look at Michael’s story a little closer and came to the conclusion that I didn’t know how I could not read it.

Michael takes us as readers right into his own personal war zone.  Month by month he journals life in the Army as a medic.  A real close up look from the friends he has made… the ones he has not, from sleep or lack there of and grueling work shifts.  Sometimes funny, sometimes horrifying, Michael puts it all in this book.

This was a side to to serving our country I had never deeply thought about.  Michael brought this to life in this book and gave me a close up of what it is like on the inside.

An Iraqi Man is staring at us; I see him; he wears a black and white turban, which I know means he’s been to Mecca. I’m not sure if I’ve seen skin tone like this before; it’s golden auburn.  I notice that it is the same color as the buildings, and the buildings are the same color as the sand blowing in my face.They’re the same color as the sky.  I think that if I were fifty feet away and there was a pile of sand, a building, and a naked Iraqi man, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them.  They all looked like they belonged together: the tiny buildings, the man with the face that’s tired, the sand, the sky, and the sun.

Biography

Michael Anthony (MA) seemed destined to serve from the day he was born.  The youngest of seven children, Michael has four brothers and two sisters, all but one of whom joined the military. His father and two grandfathers were also in the Military.

After graduating high school, he joined the Army Reserves, went through basic training, and then went through job training to become an Operating Room Medic. One year later he returned home and enrolled in college to begin his first semester. Almost immediately upon finishing his first semester he was shipped off to Wisconsin to train for four months before he would leave and spend his next year in Iraq. Michael is now back in the States and working toward a Bachelor’s Degree in creative writing.

*Note:  This book contains some strong language and some sexual references.

My Amazon review

This book fits into the following challenges:

2010 100+ Reading Challenge

I received my copy from Pump Up My Blog Tour