As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard [Hardcover]

Christian Davenport (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2009 | ISBN-10: 047037361X | ISBN-13: 978-0470373613 | Edition: 1

"A powerful, enraging, tear-jerking reminder of how so few Americans have sacrificed so much during the so-called' war on terror'. the best kind of war book." - Alex Kershaw, author of The Bedford Boys and Escape from the Deep 

"Through the voices and experiences of five very diverse members of the Virginia National Guard, As You Were gives the great majority of Americans who have not been sent to war a sense of the experiences of our citizen-soldiers and the family, employment, and health problems they face reentering American society after experiencing combat." - David R. Segal, Drector, Center for Research on Military Organization, University of Maryland

"A sad, stirring, sometimes maddening story. Christian Davenport writes not so much about combat, but rather the home front-the struggles of the families left behind while their providers go off to war and of the solders themselves as they stagger back to a civilian world that declines to reward, or even betrays, their sacrifice." - Fred Kaplan, "War Stories" columist, Slate; author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following the experiences of five members of 2-224th Aviation Regiment, Virginia Army National Guard, from federal activation through a one-year deployment in Iraq and back again, Washington Post reporter Davenport reveals the heroism and sacrifice of citizen-soldiers across the country. Like thousands across the country, these five find their lives violently shaken by notice of activation, pulled from families, careers and, for Miranda Summers, a senior year at William and Mary. In Iraq, they found a war zone waiting encountering insurgent gunfire flying into Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi; on rescue missions; or flying an "angel flight", the first leg escorting a fallen soldier home. Davenport, embedded with the regiment on their 2005-06 deployment, follows up on his story with accounts of home-side challenges. This book honors well the citizen-soldiers of the National Guard and the Army, Navy and Marine Corps Reserves, while giving readers a vivid sense of life before, during and after engagement in a far-off war.
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Review

Following the experiences of five members of 2-224th Aviation Regiment, Virginia Army National Guard, from federal activation through a one-year deployment in Iraq and back again, Washington Post reporter Davenport reveals the heroism and sacrifice of citizen-soldiers across the country. Like thousands across the country, these five find their lives violently shaken by notice of activation, pulled from families, careers and, for Miranda Summers, a senior year at William and Mary. In Iraq, they found a war zone waiting encountering insurgent gunfire flying into Baghdad, Fallujah and Ramadi; on rescue missions; or flying an “angel flight”, the first leg escorting a fallen soldier home. Davenport, embedded with the regiment on their 2005-06 deployment, follows up on his story with accounts of home-side challenges. This book honors well the citizen-soldiers of the National Guard and the Army, Navy and Marine Corps Reserves, while giving readers a vivid sense of life before, during and after engagement in a far-off war. (May) (Publishers Weekly, April 20, 2009)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047037361X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470373613
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #976,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Christian Davenport (www.christian-davenport.com) is the author of "As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard" and is a staff writer at The Washington Post, where he was on a team of reporters that was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in National reporting for coverage of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

In 2007, he was awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship in journalism and spent a month embedded with the Virginia Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment in Iraq. He then spent a year chronicling the lives of five of the unit's soldiers returning to civilian life after the war. The stories of these five soldiers are featured in "As You Were," which was released in May, 2009.

During his nine-year career at the Post, he's covered everything from hurricanes to political campaigns to the Washington area sniper shootings. He's embedded twice with American troops abroad and has written extensively about the lives of soldiers and marines fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent reporting has covered topics such as the new GI Bill, Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the arrival of the war dead to Dover Air Force Base, the passing of the World War II generation, veteran unemployment and homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder, military recruiting and the role citizen-soldiers are playing in today's all-volunteer military.

Before coming to The Post, he worked for Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Austin American-Statesman. A graduate of Colby College, he lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife. Find him at facebook.com/christiandavenport or twitter.com/davenportchris.