Customer Reviews

Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and ... in jobs for which they lacked qualification..

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I can't remember how this book was brought to my attention, but I am glad that it was. I took a break from "Cobra II", "Fiasco", and other "big books" about the war to get these guys' "off the beaten path" perspective. I'm a longtime independent traveler and, although Baghdad is not on my list of current destinations, I can readily understand how and why these guys blundered into Baghdad. The book is great fun because of the "slacker" attitude and the perspective that's outside the usual journalistic channels. My guess is that "the guys" had a lot of help writing this. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little embellishing, but I'd also guess that some of the wildest stories are the most credible.

Essentially, two professional screw-ups decided that their love of dangerous destinations warranted a trip to Baghdad. Despite the security measures in place there, the guys made it across the border and took up residence, initially outside the Green Zone. The book is full of soldiers of fortune, NGO workers, courageous Iraqis, and the mix of US military personnel, embassy types, military contractors, and journalists. The guys eventually wind up running a small aid operation as part of the effort to set up a viable NGO infrastructure in the country.

The book's strengths include its first hand descriptions of the Green Zone and non-Green Zone Baghdad, the guys' interactions with ordinary Iraqis and their perspectives on some of the "innovations" in Iraq (e.g., reliance on contractors, national guard, and Hertiage Foundations-connected interns). They also mention the little discussed problems of drug use among the military (and just about everyone else), particularly steroids, stimulants, and benzodiazepines. The book is unflattering in its description of the occupation administration and the military contractors (who operate in a legal grey zone) come off as arrogant and troublesome for the occupation, while the national guardsmen come off as dolts. Other books such as Crawford's "The Last True Story.." paint a different picture of guardsmen (Crawford was in the Army National Guard himself, and is one of the few accounts to talk about drug use among the military), but the view of the contractors seems consistent with other sources.

The book clearly goes for the absurd and other accounts would suggest that they probably had much from which to choose. Along the way, the guys befriend a variety of soldiers, embassy folks, NGO types (Iraqi and Western), and ordinary locals. They largely stumble into doing aid work and the lead author comes to enjoy it and develop some expertise. Along the way, friends die or slip into substance abuse or insanity, and the whole seen finally becomes too much. The book is a vivid adventure and great fun in places, although one never loses sight of where this all takes place. Even if you know that the war has become a "fiasco", that interns from the Heritage Foundation aren't the way to rebuild a country, and that Baghdad is a dangerous place, the book allows you to see these things from fresh perspectives. There's probably too much about the authors' previous lives in the early parts of the book, but otherwise, this is an adventure worth reading.

These guys are over the top in every sense, but perhaps that's fitting for a war and occupation that somehow makes their antics seem quaint. Initially arriving in Baghdad as little more than idiotic war tourists, the intense reality of post-invasion Iraq quickly sinks into them, and they find themselves deeply and emotionally invested, while still remaining outsiders to the CPA (despite bunking in a hallway in the Palace).

Is this book well written? I don't know. It has a certain amateur rawness to it that is authentic, even unanalyzed, which is welcome relief from the many excellent but highly impersonal books by authors such as George Packer and Anthony Shadid that are not able to capture the day-to-day intensity the way these guys do.

I was in Iraq, working in the NGO sector, for over 4 months prior to their little adventures. While I wasn't a part of their Valium and pot subculture, their depiction of the general scene rings true. I would highly recommend this book to anybody interested in understanding what it really meant to be down in the trenches of post-war Iraq reconstruction in those early days when hope was still an option and tireless devotion was an emotional and moral imperative, no matter what your political views or position on the war.

Another reviewer wrote that "the narrative lacks content and purpose". Maybe that's exactly as it should be when describing an occupation that meets the same description.

I just finished this book and was impressed with these guys' observations and their obvious concern for the Iraqis' plight. They went there almost as a lark then couldn't avoid seeing the ramifications of the conflict. They did take the bull by the horns and did what they could to help, even though nothing anyone could do would be enough. They did seem like doofuses at times but I don't think that matters to the book. I didn't like all the drugs and alcohol and wonder how they survived, but still they seem to have meant well.

This book reminded me of P.J. O'Rourke's classic 1980s Rolling Stone articles. The authors provide an interesting outsiders' description of Baghdad circa 2004. While they worked and lived (most of the time) within the Green Zone, they were no strangers to the surrounding areas. Their descriptions of the restaurants, bars, hotels, pharmacies and housing in the surrounding Red Zone were a highlight, as were their descriptions of the military personnel (generally favorable), security contractors (not so favorable), and assorted reporters and social workers. After reading of the authors' trips to the suburban slums to pass out clothing, Sadr City will no longer be just a location I hear mentioned on the nightly news. The authors left Baghdad just as things were starting to really deteriorate, and many of the places they frequented outside the Green Zone are no longer safe for Americans. (Not that they were all that safe even then. An example is the evening the authors were near a massive hotel bombing.)

The map at the front of the book was extremely useful for following the authors' Baghdad adventures. All in all, a fast-paced, enjoyable way to learn about the post-invasion Iraq you don't hear about on the cable news networks.

This book was a serendipitous discovery and is a very enjoyable and enlightening read. On one level it's a riveting and picaresque tale of modern day Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer-like adventures; on a more serious level it is good cultural history of how the US dug itself ever deeper into a hole from which there seems little chance of a happy return.Great summer reading.One laughs and cries simultaneously.

There's plenty of literature out there on the Iraq war, most of it written by journalists, pundits, and government or military employees. Here we have a book by two young men who came to Iraq as backpackers with nothing better to do. Rarely sober and sometimes not very sensitive to the culture they're visiting, Ray and Jeff are not always likeable people. They did manage to make a positive difference in Iraq through their humanitarian volunteer work in Baghdad, which took them to areas few American civilians would have the guts to explore. This book tells the story of their work and the people they meet- soldiers, profiteers, mercenaries, journalists, and drifters alike. It makes for an interestinig anecdote on how the collapse of a tenuous, temporary peace in Iraq looked to two foreign laymen watching from the inside. If you're looking for a story of the war as told by military tactical experts or experienced political and cultural analysts, look elsewhere.

This book, while edgy and occasionally sarcastic, was a breath of fresh air this summer. With raw wit and crystal vision, Ray and Jeff have been able to capture a moment in time that most will never experience. Thank you for sharing your first hand account of your experiences. There were many laughs and many tears.

I have to admit I was looking forward to reading this book after some of the heavy policy centric books on Iraq I had recently read. It seemed like a perfect departure and I was not disappointed. It is one thing to read the writings of pundits about the effect of US policy in Iraq, it is another to see what sort of environment these decisions were having on the ground.

What an odd little world Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann find themselves in when they arrive in Baghdad. The mixture of frankly amoral people on the make, misguided idealists who are a mixture of pacifists and people determined to leave Iraq better than they arrive along with clueless policy types and scary mercenaries is one of the stranger places one could choose to visit. Despite all the military fire power in Iraq, the only truely secure area appears to be a small quarter of Baghdad known to all by now as the 'Green Zone.' Outside the Green Zone was the "Red Zone" which was for the US forces the remainder of the country. This disctinction explains a great deal about the distinction

Although Ray and Jeff are clearly fish out of water, they soon adapt and then become involved in the world of NGO coordination. This vantage point provides them the opportunity to witness the monumental screw ups of the occupation forces, the massive corruption, and the idealism of few determined individuals. There are also many surreal parties and events which they manage to encounter, a group of pacifist clowns determined to document the abuses and failures of the US involvement, disco dances that turn into brawls between rival $1,000 a day metal head mercenaries, the practice of repainting a building and charging the US government the price of building a new one. Amid all of this there are the most horrific descriptions of poverty in Sadr City. This is an excellent memoir of the problems Americans faced in the early days of Iraq and well worth a read.

If this book suffers from a fault it is that the authors are describing their impressions and their impression is the lay the blame on Paul Bremer. He was in charge and that probably was the extent of their field of vision. However as we can see in numerous other books, it was more than one person who screwed as far as policy goes in Iraq. The decision to blacklist people who had belonged to the Ba'ath Party originated in the Pentagon and was only just initiated by Bremer. The confused and wrong headed policies by and large orginated in Washington by a group of people who had even less an idea of ground truth than Bremer did.

This is a wonderful, at times hilarious and irreverent look at the war in Iraq and may serve as this war's version of MASH. It is well worth the read.

I just finished reading this book and can only say it's therapeutic for anyone who has been to Iraq. I directly identified with the writings and observations of the authors since we were in Iraq at the same time (fall 2003).

It was with a fair degree of humor that read about the khaki clad contractors all over the place-- yes I was one of those REI fashionistas - and these guys are right. CPA (aka OCPA, ORHA) was a really different place. Thankfully I had a simple job with a limited amount of time there.

With the book , I can follow the arc of decline through my own memories of driving down from BIAP to GZ in 2003 (in a toyota pickup) to doing the same commute via helicopter by fall of 2004.

While my job was short-term IT support inside the GZ and Camp Victory, I would often wonder what the rest of Baghdad was like - especially in late 2003. This book will give you a glimpse outside the controlled GZ area. You will get to know a group of young people that were probably the most effective at actually doing some good.

Get beyond the drugs and alcohol bits, carefully read observation and opinion sections. Who can judge harshly heavy Valium use in the middle of a very surreal war zone.

Great read.

Seems like some of the other reviewers are reviewing the authors' appearances on C-Span and at various Q+A's. Being someone who's never met these guys (although I must admit I come from a similar background and through degrees of seperation may even know people they hung out with in decades past) I feel I can comment on the book itself, not on the writers or any appearances they may have made.

This book has a very easy, narrative style. It was a quick read, and on one level it is a simple adventure story about two globe trotting slacker types who decided to head to post-invasion/pre-civil war Iraq to see if they could insinuate themselves into the nation building efforts of the US military. Their motivation seemed to be that they had never been to Iraq, and that they had crossed a lot of the other typical third world destinations off of their list. That they ended up in the position they did, and accomplished what they appear to have accomplished, is amazing. Seems like on one level these guys succeeded in spite of themselves.

With that as the premise the book itself plays out along two central themes.

First there's the personal story of two easy going, booze and drug loving Red Sox fans and the adventures they have. This part of the book will appeal to those who like to read travel diaries and stories of personal revelation set against a back drop of drugs, booze and good old American apathy.

Secondly, in addition to the recounting of the story of these two guys, there is what I felt was a very fair and candid assessment of the way things are going in Iraq. These guys weren't peace activists, and going into this they did not appear to have an agenda. As a result I felt that they provided an easy to read and easy to understand account of what they saw and how they felt it was going. Sadly, it doesn't sound like it's going all that well, as they seem to have encountered a logistical nightmare coupled with a real sense of hopelessness on both sides of the fence.

This book is fast paced and easy to read. If you want a take on the situation in Iraq that might not be what you're seeing on the nightly news, but you don't want to be bogged down with a lot of statistics and source material, this might be the book for you.