Books like The Lonely Soldier

This is the gold standard of military memoir written by and about women. Published in 2006, and surrounded by male after male written war memoirs, this is the book that showed me women can write military memoirs, too. It proved to me that our voices matter and people want to hear from us women, as well. It’s powerful, gripping, and poignantly balances on the paradoxical line of the rage women carry towards the Army, but also the love. Filled with humor, camaraderie, as well as the everyday struggles of women in uniform, this is a must-read, penned by an intelligent and extremely accomplished woman.

This incredibly well-researched and powerfully written anthology does the one thing I always want to remind people: that women have always served and fought for our country. Women are usually invisible when it comes to military representation, especially in a historical sense. Either ignored or forgotten, our existence has continuously been minimalized. Bell and Crow’s anthology, with acute detail, tells stories of women who served from the birth of our nation up to modern day. In excerpts from diaries, letters, oral histories, published and unpublished memoirs, generations of women reveal why and how they chose to serve their country, often breaking the social norms, even to great personal peril. An excellent reference guide to get that one, random guy to shut up when he complains “women don’t belong in the military.”    

Band of Sisters gives us a book full of heroism, valor, combat action, and real sacrifices of women fighting in a foreign war. For me, this book beautifully portrays why women continue to serve—it highlights comradery, the willingness to put oneself in danger for another, the pride in a job well done, the ability to continue on after the unthinkable. Especially after reading a book such as The Lonely Soldier, Band of Sisters shows what The Lonely Soldier is missing—that women, too, want to fiercely fight and fiercely protect. It also proves that there are no front lines in modern war, and that women engage in combat, proving themselves well-suited for the role. A must-have to shut up those people who say, “Well, women don’t actually see combat.”   

There is a very good reason this book has been adapted into a movie—it tells the very real story of women who circumvent Congressional law to fight alongside Army Rangers, Navy SEALS, and other special operations teams in Afghanistan. Female Engagement Teams (FET) take part in secret missions, under the dark of night, “attached” to special ops and not only proving they can keep up, but they are mission essential. It’s about friendship, loss, the bonds made in war, and a march towards equality, as combat roles weren’t open to women at the time—but these women did it anyway. Great to counter those people want to lavish praise on Rangers, SEALs, or Special Ops because they’re “the best of the best” and “only men.” Surprise! Women do it, too. 

The story of Shoshana Johnson is one that most people have never heard. In fact, when Johnson was taken as a prisoner of war in Iraq, news outlets initially proclaimed that just four American men had been detained. 

Other women were involved that day in 2003 near Nasiriyah when their supply convoy made a wrong turn. Lori Piestewa was the first Native American female soldier killed on foreign soil. Jessica Lynch was seriously injured, captured by Iraqi soldiers, and finally rescued by U.S. special operations forces. In the meantime, Johnson was taken prisoner after a 22-day ordeal and became the first African-American woman to be a POW.

A single mom, Johnson joined the Army to earn money to attend culinary school. During the battle, she suffered bullet wounds to both ankles. Like Lynch, Johnson received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart for her service in Iraq.

While Lynch’s deeds… show more.

During America’s recent wars, Americans who felt they had few career prospects enlisted. Some were looking for a steady paycheck. Others for adventure and a chance to see the world. Many signed up out of a sense of patriotic duty after the events of 9/11. Goodell volunteered for Mortuary Affairs. She and her peers processed the bodies of those killed in combat. The title comes from instructions given by her commanding officer to members of his unit who are sketching the bodies as they arrive: when a body part is missing, “shade it black.” Harrowing and poignant, Shade it Black reminds us of the innocence of those we send to war.

A sequel to The Good Soldiers, which told the story of an infantry battalion through some of the bloodiest fighting of the war during the “Surge” in Baghdad, David Finkel’s Thank You for Your Service follows the soldiers on their return to the United States. All are marked forever by the experience of combat; many have devastating physical wounds while others struggle mentally and emotionally with what they have seen and done at their country’s call. Life after war can be harder than life in war, and Finkel unpacks how and why with an unsparing but compassionate eye. This book should be read by every politician with responsibility for sending troops to combat—before they start America’s next war.

In To Start a War, Robert Draper investigates how it was that the US came to invade Iraq in 2003. A gifted writer, he reveals the paranoia and fear that led to the collecting of ‘intelligence’ that confirmed the biases of senior US officials – but which was often fabricated and false. 

My fifth book is not a novel but a true story about modern politics and warfare. 

This book is about Doctor David Kelly, a biologist like me. Kelly led the search for biological weapons in Iraq before the Iraq war. Unfortunately, he didn’t find enough evidence to suit the government of the day, but they still went ahead by issuing a now famous ‘dodgy’ and ‘sexed-up’ dossier that was the excuse to invade Iraq. Shortly afterward, on a July afternoon in a quiet part of Oxfordshire, England, Kelly went for a walk and never returned. He was found dead, slumped against a tree. 

Kelly’s death and the unanswered questions it left behind still bother me, but if you want to understand a quiet, sensitive man and the machinations of a government desperate to find a reason to declare war, then this book is a good start.

My War is a true story set in 2004 post-invasion Iraq told by a US Army grunt on the bottom of the totem pole.

As a former infantryman near the bottom myself, I could relate to the rollercoaster ride war grunts endure that can go from extreme boredom and amp up to fierce combat in an instance. Buzzell’s language is grunt speak which is unrefined and full of profanity, not for everyone, but it’s the perfect dialect for describing everything from battles to talking trash with other grunts.

I also appreciated that Buzzell guided us through his life as a struggling twentysomething, before joining the army, rather than taking the reader straight to battle. Gen Xers will love \m/.