My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner

A story of working through trauma, but above all it's a book about a man, a country, even a species beleaguered by a terrible attachment to war., Moments of candor and existential longing break open to expose a world of truths.Brian Turner is a born storyteller., In Brian Turner's extraordinarily capable hands, language is war's undoing, in the sense that his words won't allow absurdity and terror to be anything less than real. exceptional., A book.about the haunted past and a haunted man. Brian Turner is a born storyteller., One of the most important memoirs to come out of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want to know what modern soldiers see when they look at their world, read this book., Turner is the rare soldier-writer who takes a deep interest in Iraqis-their language and literature, their past, their daily doings, their inner lives., Turner's voice is prophetic, an eerie calm in the midst of calamity.Achingly, disturbingly, shockingly beautiful., Moments of candor and existential longing break open to expose a world of truths. In Brian Turner's extraordinarily capable hands, language is war's undoing, in the sense that his words won't allow absurdity and terror to be anything less than real. My Life as a Foreign Country is lyrical and restless, both ironic and profoundly empathetic., Brian Turner has given us not so much a memoir as a meditation, rendered with grace and wit and wisdom. Through it all, he paints a devastating portrait of what it means to be a soldier and a human being. Turner also offers something that is truly rare in a memoir of violent conflict-he sees through the eyes of the enemy, imagining his way into the experience of the other. Across time, he seeks parallels in the histories of others who have gone to war, especially his taciturn grandfather (World War II), father (Cold War), and uncle (Vietnam). Free of self-indulgence or self-glorification, his account combines recollection with the imagination's efforts to make reality comprehensible. In this breathtaking memoir, award-winning poet Brian Turner retraces his war experience-pre-deployment to combat zone, homecoming to aftermath. Now he lies awake each night beside his sleeping wife, imagining himself as a drone aircraft, hovering over the terrains of Bosnia and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe.

In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner crossed the line of departure with a convoy of soldiers headed into the Iraqi desert.

My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner