Sixty years makes a difference. It is a long way in American history between 1945 and 2005, when this profane and uncertain Marine memoir begins. Recruit (fill-in-the blank), Past-me, Person thing (some of the ways the author refers to himself here) keeps wondering why the hell he volunteered for this. Ironically, he is assigned to mortars and trained at Pendleton, just like Sledge. He's off to Iraq in January 2006. You fly from California, to Maine, to Frankfurt, to Kuwait filled with fear, anxiety, self-loathing and more fear. " I feel like an animal in a trap waiting for some hunter to come put a slug between i's eyes." After being in-country for a while, they occupy part of a village. "The house is a terrarium of horror; we are being eaten alive. Our feet and hands split and puss and crust, and sleep does not come." "We pray for a barrage of mortars to wipe us away." In April, the Humvee he is in is flipped by an ied. Two of his comrades are sent away never to come back; he is concussed, confused, in the hospital and soon back on duty. After eight months in the sand, you get to go back to Camp Pendleton and merit some leave time. Drink yourself insensitive as much as you possibly can. Fuck anything that will let you, while feeling bad about your fiancee back in Indiana. By September of 2007, the battalion is back in the exact same place they left the previous year. But, it is different this time - there is little if any shooting going on. Back to the states for more drinking, fucking and fighting in bars. He volunteers for a third tour and convinces the ready-to-be-convinced psychiatric officer that he is ready to go. No sir, I don't smoke, I don't have nightmares, I don't get into bar fights, I don't drink, I don't take drugs, my family is behind my decision. No sir, I do not dream of being devoured by decaying dogs. The third time's a charm. At the HQ security detail, there's hot food, air-conditioned barracks, a swimming pool and a Burger King. "There are no more tactical firing ranges, no more sun-bleached camouflage utilities, no mud, no detainees." It's a quick 12 week tour and back to California, to do steroids with Hang Ten Tony. Barely surviving and staying out of the brig, his enlistment is up.
Unlike Sledge, Young did not have his proverbial shit together when he joined up. Sledge was half-way through college, came from normal family and knew what he was doing when he joined. Young was a crazed, angry teen from a broken family who escaped a drink and drug filled life of failure when he enlisted. Is that the reason for the difference? Was it generational? Was it the mission? I do not know. Either way, loyalty to comrade is the constant. Marines are exemplary in their commitment to each other. The author pulled his life together, married, went to Oregon State, obtained a Masters at the University of Miami and has written a helluva story here.
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