Has anyone else read this book?
http://www.amazon.com/House-David-Bellavia/dp/1416574719/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0I'm about half way through it right now (in a day) and it's breathtaking. The intense descriptions and imagery of war get your own blood pressure on the rise and heart racing from just reading the book. You get sucked into Bellavia's breach on Fallujah, the events that lead to that moment, and the missions that follow. EXCELLENT book so far and highly recommended for those that like true stories of war.
Forgive the extended post but I have to put an excerpt here from the book...I love this page:
Combat distilled to its purest form is a test of manhood. Who is the better soldier? Who is the better man? Which warrior will emerge triumphant and which will lie in a heap in the street? In modern warfare, that man-to-man challenge is often hidden by modern technology - the splash of artillery fire can be random, a rocket bomb or IED can be anonymous. Those things make combat a roll of the dice. Either you die, or you don't; your own skill doesn't have a lot to do with it. But on this street and in these houses, it can be man-to-man. My skills against his. I caught him napping and he died. That is how the game is played. Tomorrow, I might be the corpse in a heap on the street. But tonight I am alive, and I rejoice in that fact.
I scream at the top of my lungs. It is a victory cry. I am euphoric. I have killed the enemy and survived. Infantrymen live on the edge. We are hyperalert, hyperaware of our own mortality. It makes us feel more alive, more pwerful. Death is every-present, our constant companion. We can use it or be victimized by it. We either let the violence swallow us whole or it will drive us insane. There is no room for Chaplain Brown out here.
As infantrymen, our entire existence is a series of tests: Are you man enough? Are you tough enough? Do you have the nuts for this? Can you pull the trigger? Can you kill? Can you survive? YES!
I feel loose inside, like my vital organs have been rearranged by the euphoria that consumes me. I scream again. Battle madness grips me. Combat is a descent into the darkest parts oft he human soul. A place where the most exalted nobility and the most wretched baseness reside naturally together. What a man finds there defines how he measures himself for the rest of his life. Do we release our grip on our basic humanity to be better soldiers? Doe we surrender to the insanity around us and ride its wave wherever it may take us? YES!
I embrace the battle. I welcome it into my soul. D*** the consequenses later, I am committed, and there's no road back.
I cup my hands to my mouth and take a long breath. "You can't kill me!" I rage into the night, "You hear me, f***ers? You can't kill me! You will never kill me!"
The whole book is like this. Read it!
