GENERATION KILL -- Evan Wright

GENERATION KILL: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the new face of American war
G.P. Putnam's Sons -- hc
New York -- ©2004 -- 354pp
ISBN: 0-399-15193-1

A reporter imbedded with the Marine First Recon team, is among the first American's into Iraq at the outset of the Iraq war.

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I'm not quite sure why I picked this book up in the first place, and am not sure what to make of it.

it is well written, making it a quick read. i did lose track of who some of the people were. So many names of soldiers and officers, I had trouble keeping them straight, and a reference list of who's who and their rank, and their charge 9which division, which command, etc) would have been incredibly useful.

The book is billed as a look at the new generation of soldiers and their attitude toward killing. I was expecting more of an association with the violent video games and movies and so forth, but I didn't get any of that. There was a brief mention in the beginning about how many of the soldiers who died during the Invasion of Normandy hadn't even fired their guns, but that in the battles in Iraq, that was not a question or concern. But there the association seemed to end.

What I got from the book was that the ranking officers in charge of the invasion of Iraq were mostly incompetent. Poor decisions were constantly being made (when made at all) -- starting with the fact that the first team into Iraq was the Marine First Recon team. First Recon is a highly trained marine group, akin to the Navy Seals. They are trained for MANY kinds of battle situations. What they are NOT trained for is riding in humvees in open territory. What they were asked to do was ride in humvees in open areas. Oddly enough, there IS a group of military personnel trained for riding in humvees inopen territory -- a division of the Rangers. They did NOT do this in Iraq. And of course it goes downhill from there.

Humorously (sadly) the driver of the lead humvee doesn't even have a license for driving a humvee, and during a battle jokes about whether or not he's got enough driving hours now to get his license.

This book simply pointed out to me, in a finer detail, how ill-prepared we were to start this ill-advised war.

THE ROAD -- Cormac McCarthy

Alfred A. Knopf -- hc
New York -- ©2006 -- 241pp
ISBN: 0-307-26543-9

A man and his son wander along the road in search of ... anything ... in a bleak apocalyptic world.

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This was an incredibly depressing novel.

Set in the not-too-distant future, with the earth (as far as we know) covered by a cloud of ash (presumably from destructive nuclear bombs), a man and his son wander, seeking merely to exist.

Cannibalism among the few survivors we meet, is rampant, with people eating their newly born children.

The boy .. about eight to ten years old ... is constantly seeking reminder that they are the good people, in search of other good people. His father assures him that is the case, but by the end of the book, the boy begins to see that his father's own distrust of anyone and everyone around has put them in a position somewhere between the good and the bad people.

The boy never loses hope or his identity of being good, and that is the ONLY aspect of this novel that offers any sense of goodness or promise. Unfortunately, it is not enough, and it comes too late. My sense of unease and disgust had already taken over.

The storytelling itself was crisp and sharp and kept me reading, even when I felt filthy and disgusted at what I was reading.

Perhaps it's because I am a father, with boys that age, that I could put myself there. I could understand everything the father said and did. And although the father comes off, finally, as perhaps too distrustful, he was acting the only way a father could act in that situation.

And just what the hell is up with books that seem to bear "literary merit" (let's not get me started on that discussion again) that they don't feel the need to follow the rules of punctuation anymore?! More and more I find that books are often considered to have "literary" merit when they break convention. Frankly, I think it's bullshit. Capitalize the first letters at the beginnings of sentences! Use quotation marks when someone is speaking! It's the right thing to do!

I could not read this book at night because it left me feeling so uncomfortable. Certainly the author's ability to move me so thoroughly speaks highly of his talent, but I did not enjoy being moved in this way.

I just can't recommend this novel.