The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq - Softcover

9781594482014: The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq
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In the tradition of Michael Herr's Dispatches, a National Guardsman's account of the war in Iraq.

John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition, willingly exchanging one weekend a month and two weeks a year for a free education. But in Autumn 2002, one semester short of graduating and newly married—in fact, on his honeymoon—he was called to active duty and sent to the front lines in Iraq.

Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began recording what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced. Those stories became The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell—a haunting and powerful, compellingly honest book that imparts the on-the-ground reality of waging the war in Iraq, and marks as the introduction of a mighty literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.

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From the Back Cover:
"I picked up Crawford's book and with the first paragraph I was hooked. I put it down at the half way point so I would have the pleasure of reading the rest later. It's f***ing dynamite. A young man pushed beyond endurance. Is a good book worth what he saw, felt, experienced? There are some bad things people know and wish they didn't. And I can just see it all: Something very dark in the human heart and it cannot be vanquished. War after war. I finished the book thinking this is like Vietnam all over again. And like Michael Herr in Dispatches, Crawford really has it down. He's got it nailed."
-Thom Jones, author of Pugilist at Rest

"This may well be the last true story John Crawford ever tells, but it's enough. He has written a vital book. Vital because we need to read it, vital because it reveals some truths about the war in Iraq that we have not seen, the human truths of young men waging war, vital because it's honest, raw and alive. It's a heartbreaking and perversely beautiful book that should join Catch-22 and The Things They Carried as this generation's defining literary expression of men at war."
-James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell is a savage, gritty, and compelling work that reveals the true cost of the Iraqi Adventure, the price paid by young soldiers. It's not about heroism, but about heroic endurance against the desert, the war-torn neighborhoods, and the lies of their commanders, lies that will echo the rest of their lives. It's a major account of the Iraqi War, without pretense, without an axe to grind, and without complaint. A story about the heart of all wars - not politics, not principles, not money - your buddies. I was touched and overwhelmed.
-James Crumley, author of One to Count Cadence, The Last Good Kiss and The Right Madness

"This book blew me away. Powerful, haunting, hilarious, searingly honest, and shot through with all sorts of sorrow and rage and grief. It reminded me a little of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, but the truth is you've never read anything quite like this before. Mr. Crawford does a beautiful job of conveying the modern infantryman's torn heart, and our nation's war literature is richer by one outstanding book. Thank you, Mr.Crawford." -Gabe Hudson, author of Dear Mr. President

"Crawford's writing pulses with urgency, and, gloriously, his story of being an American soldier in Iraq is shattering and relentless. Most chillingly for us readers in our early twenties, Crawford's story universalizes the accidental way in which this war has affected us all." -David Amsden, author of Important Things That Don't Matter

From the Inside Flap:
John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition, willingly exchanging one weekend a month and two weeks a year for a free education. But in fall 2002, one semester short of graduating and newly married-in fact, on his honeymoon-he was called to active duty and sent to the front lines in Iraq.

We crossed the berm the same day as the Army's Third Infantry Division, leading the invasion of Iraq. When the Third Division was sent home, our National Guard unit was passed around the armed forces like a virus: the 108th Airborne, First Marine Expeditionary, 101st Airborne, and finally the First Armored Division. They were all sent home, heroes of the war. Meanwhile, my unit stayed on, my soul rotting, our unit outlasted by no one in our tenure there.

Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began writing nonfiction stories about what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced.

The world hears war stories told by reporters and retired generals who keep extensive notebooks and journals. They carry pens as they walk, whereas I carry a machine gun. War stories are told to those who have not experienced the worst in man. And to the listener's ears they can sound like glory and heroism. People mutter phrases like, "I don't know how you did it." And they look at you wondering how you have changed, wondering if you have forever lost the moral dilemma associated with taking another person's life.

In a voice at once raw and immediate, Crawford's stories vividly chronicle the daily life of a young soldier in Iraq-the excitement, the horror, the anger, the tedium, the fear, the camaraderie. But all together, the stories gradually uncover something more: the transformation of a group of young men, innocents, into something entirely different.

I have too many stories to tell, and if just a few of them get read, the ones that real people will understand, then maybe someone will know what we did here. It won't assuage the suffering inside me, inside all of us. It won't bring back anyone's son or brother or wife. It will simply make people aware, if only for one glimmering moment, of what war is really like.

Those stories became this book, a haunting and powerful, brutal but compellingly honest book-punctuated with both humor and heartbreak-that represents an important document revealing the actual experience of waging the War in Iraq, as well as the introduction of a literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.

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  • PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
  • Publication date2006
  • ISBN 10 1594482012
  • ISBN 13 9781594482014
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages240
  • Rating

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