REVIEWED BY MICHELLE GREEN
CRITIC'S CHOICE
NONFICTION
They may be unlikely literary heroes, but the American soldiers who serve as narrators in Wood's stunning oral history of the Iraq war are chillingly eloquent about life in a world where going to work can mean shooting a child or seeing a platoonmate blown to pieces. Officers, medics and tank gunners reveal as much about themselves as about the surreality of combat when they talk about facing IEDs in unarmored Humvees or photographing charred Iraqi corpses. In the words of Travis Williams of the 4th Marine Division ("The Fighting Dead"), "War turns you into what your mother wishes you would never be." Sniper Garett Reppenhagen put it this way: "At the end of the day, you feel more like a murderer than a soldier." Powerful and unflinchingly honest, Wood's book deserves to be a best-seller.
