|
|
Executive Times |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
2008 Book Reviews |
|||
|
|
War
Journal: My Five Years in Iraq by Richard Engel |
|||
|
Rating: |
*** |
|||
|
|
(Recommended) |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Gloom Richard
Engel’s memoir, War
Journal: My Five Years in Iraq, presents a riveting account of the
journalist’s experiences in Iraq. The book progresses in ways similar to how
the war has gone: a steady realization that the situation is gloomier than
most ever imagined. Engel’s initial enthusiasm to be in the place of the
biggest story of his generation begins to devolve into a morose sense that he
could die in Iraq. His marriage ends, and his work becomes more intense. The
personal story alongside an inside view of the war makes for a rich reading
experience. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 13, pp. 174-178: About
two years into the war, I was starting to get nervous and show signs of
stress. I was getting beat down. I'd come to Iraq, to the war, gung ho,
feeling bulletproof. But the constant gunshots, explosions, fear of
kidnapping, and all the bodies all the roadkill—were taking a toll. Too much
adrenaline had passed through my blood, which like acid was slowly burning it
sour. I'd had too many bad mornings. At
7 A.M. two weeks before the elections, a giant
explosion jolted me awake in my room in the Hamra. It was a deep rumbling
crash, much bigger than the mortars I usually heard at daybreak. Insurgents
often fired mortars just after sunrise and at dusk, when it was light enough
for them to aim, and while traffic was flowing quickly so they could make a
fast escape. Stop and drop, shoot and run. But this sounded different. It was
a truck bomb. I first saw the blast before I opened my eyes.
The bright orange light from the ball of fire shone through my closed
eyelids. I saw my room glow red for a split second before my eyes snapped
open. I was instantly in the zone, adrenaline pumping. The muscles in my back
and legs tightened, bracing for another explosion, "a secondary."
It never came. When
I opened my eyes, the room was full of dust and smoke. I could barely see. I
rolled off the bed and crawled toward the door, elbowing past shards of
shattered glass. Several of the ceiling panels had come crashing in. The
sliding glass door leading to the balcony was pushed in, ripped off the
frame. The concrete wall around it was cracked. Ducking down, I crept to the
balcony, stepped over the broken door, and peered outside. I wanted to see
what had exploded. It was a stupid move. Curiosity killed the cat. But I
wanted to see. Several
cars were burning across the street. I saw the twisted remains of the truck
bomb, which had driven into the Australian embassy a few hundred yards away.
My room was a straight line from the explosion. I
had a small video camera in my room. Since I arrived in Iraq, I'd been
keeping a video journal, turning the camera on myself at pivotal and
emotional moments, trying to capture what I saw and how I was feeling. This
was one of those moments. My
voice was shaky. I was unshaven, tired and wild-eyed. "When
the explosion happened, I thought ... finally this was it, that they'd blown
up a bomb right in the basement," I said into the camera. "I thought when it
exploded that—that they'd done what they had been threatening to
do." I
thought it was curtains. It
was my third hotel room that had been destroyed. At the Palestine hotel
during the 2003 invasion, a bullet had come through my balcony door, missing
my head and digging into the ceiling. Less than a year later, a madman
inspired by Moqtada al-Sadr had exploded a bomb at our first bureau, thinking
we were Jewish settlers moving in to steal Iraq's oil and occupy the
country. Now this truck bomb had trashed my room at the Hamra. I saw a piece of shrapnel on the floor, a sharp,
heavy chunk of metal about the size of an egg. It had come flying through my
window, bounced off my bed, and landed on the carpet. It
was still hot, and melted the synthetic fibers of the cheap industrial
wall-to-wall. I
was lucky, but started to ask myself, "How often can you get lucky? How
many times can you push it?" I looked into the camera again. "It makes you wonder, how
much more can you do of this? How much more is worth it? Obviously today I am
not traumatized, we've had these types of explosions in the past ... but you
wonder all the time, is the next one going to be the one that gets you? "It has a toll on you. It
has an impact—a weight that I don't know how long is going to take to wear of
I've
absorbed so much violence, so many scenes, so many ugly things since when I first
came to Iraq ... I am more jumpy than normal. I'm more skittish. “Am I just lucky so far, and
how far can you push your luck? When do you decide that this is just not
worth it? This is not my country, not my conflict, not my problem.. . but I
do feel attached to it to a certain degree. I've been covering it for so
long. "On a morning like this,
you wonder if we've gotten anywhere since I
first arrived. "Iraqis were living under
the terror of Saddam. Now they are living under the terror of
militant
groups, Islamic fundamentalist groups. "Obviously things have
changed, but I am still cheating death. That's what it feels like. I'm not
trying to overstate, but it really feels that way. I have a toast that I
sometimes say to people. I say, `Here is to getting away with it.' That is
what it feels like every time you are here. It feels like you are trying to
pull a fast one on history, that you are trying to get away with it, get out,
sneak out, get information, and get back without being kidnapped or losing
an eye or a limb. It feels like you are trying to get away with it. "Today with this
explosion, I got away with another little bit ... but how many more times can
you get away with it? I don't know." I
was slowly becoming paranoid. I saw danger everywhere, and had tied an escape
rope to a drainage pipe off the balcony. If trouble came, I would scale down
the building. I started to dream—sometimes at night, but mostly while
awake—about how I would be remembered if I died. I wondered if anyone would
notice, or care, and if so, for how long? I assumed my life and death would
be reduced to a mention on the Nightly News. I gave myself half a news
cycle. I'd be a three-day story, if it was a slow week. I have a theory that all reporters go through
four stages while covering war zones. Stage One: I'm invincible. Nothing can hurt
me. I'm Superman. Stage Two: What I'm doing is dangerous. I
might get hurt over here. I'd better be careful. Stage
Three: What I'm doing is really dangerous. I am probably going to get
hurt over here no matter how careful I am. Math and probability and time are
working against me. Stage Four: I have been here too long. I am
going to die over here. It is just a matter of time. I've played the game too
long. I
was changing stages. I arrived in Baghdad in Stage One, twenty-nine years old
and cocky as hell. I moved to Stage Two once the bombs started to fall during
Shock and Awe. I surfed that for about two years. Now I was creeping into
Stage Three, and it was affecting me and my relationships. I couldn't relate
to friends and family in the States anymore. I couldn't relate to my wife.
Our relationship had been on the rocks for over a year. She was my college
girlfriend, and my best friend. Now we were getting a divorce. She
couldn't understand what I was doing, or why. She kept telling me that I
didn't understand that life is for living and creating a family. I told her
life is about exploring, a giant road trip, and that I was lucky enough to
have a front seat as the train of history crashed through the Middle East. I
was able to see raw human nature, unpolished and unrestrained by laws. I was
fascinated and addicted. We couldn't resolve our marriage. The paperwork was
being finalized. I felt alone, but I was able to bury myself in
work. Iraq was popping. The Sunnis were going crazy. I was busy, up from 9 A.M.
to 3 A.M. filing stories. No matter what your position in about the war
in Iraq, War Journal will give you impressions and insights that you could
gain no place else. Steve
Hopkins, October 20, 2008 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Go to Executive Times Archives |
||||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/War Journal.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
