My War: Killing Time in Iraq - Softcover

Buzzell, Colby

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425211363 ISBN 13: 9780425211366

Publisher: Dutton Caliber, 2006

Synopsis

Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army-and ended up a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the bloody insanity surrounding him, he started a blog about the war and how it differed from the government's official version. As his blog's popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the Army couldn't control-despite its often comical efforts to do so.

The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the Iraqi woman crying uncontrollably during a raid on her home; the soldier too afraid to fight; the troops chain-smoking in a guard tower and counting tracer rounds. Drawing comparisons to everything from Charles Bukowski to Catch-22, My War depicts a generation caught in a complicated and dangerous world-and marks the debut of a raw, remarkable new voice.

About this title

About the Author

Before enlisting in the U.S. Army at age twenty-six, Colby Buzzell lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. He served over two years, including a year in Iraq.

From the Back Cover

A raw, edgy, yet intimate new voice from the front lines in Iraq-the most authentic we have had yet from the war, heralding this generation's Catch-22.

Like many of his generation, Colby Buzzell was jumping from one dead-end job to another, a paycheck away from moving back home. He spent his time skateboarding and killing as many brain cells as humanly possible. Tired of the monotony, he found himself in front of an army recruiter. Within months he was in Iraq, a machine gunner in the controversial Stryker Brigade Combat Team, an army unit on the cutting edge of combat technology, and the first of its kind.

This is the startlingly honest story of a young man and a war. Trapped amid "guerilla warfare, urban-style" in Mosul, Iraq, Buzzell was struck by the bizarre, absurd, often frightening world surrounding him. He began writing an online web log describing the war-not as it was being reported by CNN or in briefings on Capitol Hill, but as he experienced it. The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the fierce firefight in which the resistance came from "men in black"; chain-smoking in the guard tower, counting the tracer rounds fired over the city; the raid on an Iraqi home during which a woman couldn't stop screaming as her husband was being taken away; and the hesitation of a young soldier who had been passed around from platoon to platoon because he was too afraid to fight. As the popularity of his "blog" grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the army couldn't control despite its best-and often hilarious-efforts to do so.

My War is the debut of a fresh and remarkable voice, and it is already being compared to the classics of youth and combat Herr's Dispatches and Heller's Catch-22. But My War is much more than a war story; it is the story of a generation caught between the hyper-reality of a technological age and an ever more complicated and dangerous world.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Caliber
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0425211363
• ISBN 13: 9780425211366
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368