Overview

In June of 1990, Paul Crenshaw shipped out to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for Basic Training. By August the world was preparing for war. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, and each day brought more news of mobilizing forces. For weeks Crenshaw was told he was going to war, but after graduation he went back home to Arkansas and watched CNN every night, lying about how much he wished he were there.   Later, after he had gotten out of the Army, he began to question the wars we fight and attempt to understand how those who served were affected by them. The essays here follow his time in the service, from Basic Training to weekend National Guard drills, and they reflect deeply on American culture and military life. How easily we buy into ideas of good versus bad, us versus them. How we see soldiers as heroes when more often than not they are young boys who barely shave. How they come home broken, and we only wave our flags instead of trying to fix them, and the ideas that sent them to war.

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9781469651071

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Crenshaw's prose is elegant, nicely paced, and carefully constructed. This thoughtful meditation on war is worth lingering over.--Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Paul Crenshaw is the author of This One Will Hurt You. His essays and short stories have appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Pushcart Prize, Oxford American, Glimmer Train, and Brevity, among others.

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