My War: Killing Time in Iraq

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Overview

An underemployed, skateboarding party animal, Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army—and ended up as a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the absurd and frightening events surrounding him, he started writing a blog about the war—and how it differed from the government’s official version. But as his blog’s popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the Army couldn’t control—despite its often hilarious efforts to do so.

The result is an extraordinary ...

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My War: Killing Time in Iraq

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Overview

An underemployed, skateboarding party animal, Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army—and ended up as a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the absurd and frightening events surrounding him, he started writing a blog about the war—and how it differed from the government’s official version. But as his blog’s popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the Army couldn’t control—despite its often hilarious 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; the first, fierce firefight against the “men in black.” 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.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
With this relentlessly cynical volume, Buzzell converts his widely read 2004 blog into an episodic but captivating memoir about the year he spent serving as an army "trigger puller" in Iraq. Posted to Mosul in late 2003, Buzzell's platoon was ordered "to locate, capture and kill all non compliant forces." Accordingly, his entries describe experiences pursuing elusive guerrillas (aka "men in black"); enduring sniping, rocket and mortar attacks; and witnessing the occasional car bomb. Face-to-face fighting almost never occurs. No matter: though the combat scenes are exciting, this book is actually more engrossing as a portrait of the day-to-day life of a young American soldier who has "read, and re-read, countless times, every single one of [Bukowski's] books." Like Bukowski, Buzzell appears to be a sentimental misanthrope; he pours scorn on everyone from cooks to generals to President Bush. He also despises the media, the antiwar movement and everyone who thinks they understand what's happening in Iraq. That his superiors kept their hands off his blog for several months, however, shows they understood that-despite its foul language, griping, insults directed at higher officers and occasional exposure of dirty linen-Buzzell's work never really wavers in its portrayal of American forces as the good guys in a dirty war. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
At age 25, Buzzell had already led a life that embraced alcohol, drugs, a minor criminal record, and a series of dead-end jobs. Enlisting in the U.S. Army, he set his focus on "Being All That You Can Be" as an infantryman, spending most of 2003 in Iraq assigned to the Stryker Brigade Combat Team. He began sharing his experiences through a blog, thus providing more truth than CNN or the army could or would. Here, Buzzell cleverly prepares a text that is part memoir, part diary entries, and part email messages. War veterans will understand the episodic nature of his narrative, the confusion of described battle, the brutality of his life, and the rawness of his prose. With Buzzell's return to the States and the close of an effective soldier's life, neither he nor the reader is sure that he has not come full circle and returned to his civilian life of loss. Recommended for public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/05.] Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A slacker goes to war and returns no more fit for the workaday world than before, but with tales to tell. The recruiter didn't have to sell him hard: Buzzell, a young punk skateboarder, clearly bright but clearly unmotivated, was still living with his parents and doing data-entry temp work at the age of 26. The promise of a signing bonus and whatever job he wanted was enough for Buzzell, who wasn't alone in seeing the military as an escape from the doldrums; as he writes, "I was sick of living my life in oblivion where every fucking day was the same fucking thing as the day before, and the same fucking routine day in and day out." There's no end of routine in the Army, of course, but Buzzell's days were made interesting when he was put to work fighting the Iraqi insurgency. Buzzell is fond of quoting Full Metal Jacket, evidently the coin of the realm among his fellow soldiers, and if his narrative doesn't come close to matching the work of Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford, on which that movie was based, he does a good job of capturing the daily absurdities and occasional terrors of life on the front, where even a trip to the mess hall is likely to result in a wound. Some of the sharpest writing comes from the author's blog, which earned him celebrity beyond Iraq (and the chance to write this book) and got him in plenty of trouble with the brass. Without blog and book, his options would have been narrow: Toting a machine gun for a year didn't prepare him for much in the postwar world, and as for "having a boss yell at me for showing up to work five minutes late or tell me that I'm not smiling enough at the customers"-well, impossible. If military recruitment is down now, wait till the kidsread this book.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780641829123
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
  • Publication date: 10/6/2005
  • Pages: 336
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet 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.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
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Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review
  • Anonymous

    Posted December 9, 2007

    Great Book!

    I bought this book a few weeks ago, great purchase ever.. I am persuing a career in the US Air Force, and my recruitor told me about this book, never heard of it in my life. he told me to read it and then decide if it's still what i wanted to do, i have yet to finish the book, i work 2 jobs so reading time is hard but ive read the majority of it and so far it's an outstanding book! i've had the opportunity of talking to Mr.Buzzell personally through e-mail and he's a great all around guy! i'd say buy the book! you wont regret it :) -Crystal

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