Customer Reviews

Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Baghdad Express is a memoir of the first Gulf War written by Minnesota native Joel Turnipseed. Since this came out around the same time as Anthony Swofford's Jarhead, there will likely be some comparisons. There shouldn't be. Baghdad Express is much better. On a very basic level, Turnipseed is a better writer than Swofford is. Baghdad Express is well constructed and follows from beginning to end the tour of duty in Desert Storm.

Joel Turnipseed is a different kind of a soldier. More of an intellectual than the prototypical warrior, he would much rather be in a coffeehouse discussing philosophy than in a military caravan. However, Joel Turnipseed is a Marine. He wanted out of the Corps, but never left and now he was called up and activated. When we learn that Turnipseed brings volumes and volumes of philosophy with him to war, we know that we are in for a different kind of war story.

Turnipseed was a driver for the Baghdad Express. The Baghdad Express was the largest supply line in recorded war. He would drive up to 600 miles a day in round trips bringind supplies and material to the front lines where the fighting and flying is going on. So while he wasn't a front line fighting soldier, he had a vital role in the first Gulf War. He relates his experiences in the war. Partially an outcast because of his philosophy, he was also included in a group called the Dog Pound. The Dog Pound was mostly African-American soldiers (Turnipseed is white) who loved to talk. Community was build through trading insults and fast moving conversation. Turnipseed's ability to adapt to this and his inclusion into the group (even spouting philosophy and have it listened to) was probably vital to his experience. However, as the war ends and the Minnesota group came back, Turnipseed finds himself slipping out of the Dog Pound that was his home for the duration of the war.

This was a very different look at a war because of who Joel Turnipseed is. He writes as a disclaimer that this is a memoir of memory and not of journalism so any mistakes is from what he remembers and perhaps not as everything actually happened....and this is a very honest admission. This is his story as he remembers it. He tells it very well and it is the best account I have read of the Gulf War (Thus far).

Turnipseed's book is about, in my opinion, the most noble kind of soldier, a reluctant warrior. Turnipseed had been AWOL for a few months before Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1991. He was a philosophy major at the University of Minnesota, and when he went to Saudi Arabia in January, he brought a number of his books with him. He views the war from his own quirky (and yes, liberal) standpoint, but he also does a good job of looking at it through the lens of the works of Plato, Thoreau and a host of other philosphers. During his time in Iraq, he comes across a number of sympathetic and not so sympathetic characters -- they all spring to life from the pages through his descriptions and dialogue. There are a number of really good reviews on this site that do this book more justice than I do...read them.

I really wish they would teach this book at West Point.

Thank you, Joel, for sharing your story. This story may not reflect everybody's experience who was in the Gulf War, but that's OK. Turnipseed doesn't claim to speak for everybody, only himself. Why amazon and other sites continue to allow posts such as the one below, which border on personal character attacks, is truly a mystery to me. Anyone who wants to represent their experience more accurately is welcome to write his/her own book and put his/her real name on it so we can all post our opinions about them on amazon. By the way, I think Joel writes top-notch dialogue!

I enjoyed this book, for the main reason of seeing how a philosophically minded Marine cope with his fellow Grunts and his reservist status in the first Gulf War. I especially liked reading about his time in the Dog Pound, with their unique use of language and hip urban style. All of it rings true. My only disappointment with this book is that it was too short and I somehow felt "cheated" that it didn't live up to what the cover blurbs made it out to be. I wanted more philosophical insights, more profoundly crafted sentences, and a longer duration. When I finished reading it, my thought was, "that's it?" It could've been a lot longer. As it stands, it doesn't really amount to much more than offering a glimpse of what it was like for a short period of time for one philosophically minded Marine. Hopefully Turnipseed will have another book in him and go much deeper in his interest in philosophy and applying it to life, wherever it finds him.

M*A*S*H*, with the 4077th, was one of TV's most beloved military sitcoms. Turnipseed, like the writers of M*A*S*H*, captures, in this memoir, the monotony of military life, the irony of military regulations, and the tragedy of war.

For those who have suffered through the empty hours of guard duty; for those who were assigned to meaningless, tedious tasks; for those know the meaning of the acronyms: `FUBAR' and `SNAFU', this book will bring back memories.

Turnipseed was lost, homeless and directionless before being called to active service. In the 1991 Iraq War, Turnipseed was stationed with the Marine Corp Sixth Motor Transport Battalion.

"Not till we are lost, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves". These words by Thoreau `s were Joel Turnipseed's scripture and his compass during the war.

During this war, he found meaning and direction. He writes with wit and adds insight through philosophy. Recommended.

In a unique, if not ironic turn of history, this memoir became a current event commentary.

The book vividly describes the author's experiences in and thoughts about the first Gulf War. But, now the story has a new immediacy and relevance with the current second Gulf War. Turnipseed could not have known it would play out this way. Turnipseed's telling of his experiences in and uncertainties about the first Gulf War also portray our country's current uncertainties about the second Gulf War.

As you read, Turnipseed forces you to feel and think at different levels. He allows you to relate not only with what our forces are experiencing on a personal level, but also with what is happening on a global scale. In your gut, you feel the daily hardships, anguish, and challenges of the average soldier. In your head, he makes you question the larger social and political ramifications of what is going on in our name.

This is very unique memoir that gains in importance with every passing day.

Turnipseed's memoir of his experiences in the first Gulf War is in many ways the antithesis of Anthony Swofford's best-selling account, "Jarhead". Whereas Swofford was a scout/sniper in a regular Marine infantry unit, Turnipseed was a reservist truck driver called to active duty while trying to complete a degree in philosophy. We see life in a combat zone from the perspective of what the Grunt calls REMFs. (If you don't know what that acronym stands for, I'll let you play with it in your mind.)If the infantryman's existence is mostly boredom, living in filth and waitng around for something to happen, the support enlisted person's is tedium, living in less than sanitary conditions and trying to dodge the mind-numbing games the military plays with its members' heads. This feeling Turnipseed captures quite well. An example is the scene where the troops are assembled and told to take a combination of pills. Some of the more thinking Marines join with the author in a discussion of whether or not they should take this phamacuetical cocktail and what the side- and after effects might be.

As a former elisted soldier in the days of the military draft I can sympathize with Turnipseed's description of the abject loneliness one feels when joining a new unit. When separated from his buddies in the resreve unit he went to the Gulf with, the author ends up spending most of the war with a predominately Black platoon of truck drivers. They eventually accept him, are amused by his deep, thoughtful observations and nickname him the "Perfessah".

The description of his troubled youth including beatings at the hands of an alcoholic father and abandonment by a mother with mental problems and his motivation for joining the Marines are, I suspect, not atypical of the all-recruited military. One tiresome part of the narrative is the author's constant reference to firing up a Camel -a habit he began just before leaving for active duty. On second thought, this may be a literary device to illustrate the boredom of war in the rear. This is a good, quick read that will upset some readers who view everyone in uniform as a "lean, mean fightin' machine".

This book is hard to put down. Turnipseed is a very good writer, the kind of author who can make going to the laundromat a mesmerizing must-read.

The topic is timely -- the travails of a man in the backlines of the first Gulf War, capturing the boredom, the effort, the sense of distance from both home and the Front. In America most of us stand on the sidelines during war, watching CNN. We have forgotten the boredom and effort of serving, and this book brings those home to us.

Turnipseed is a pocket philosopher, a wandering existentialist, in his own mind. He would be well advised to drop this shtick in his next book, unless he has something original or pointed to offer. In this book he is just a young man in an awkward war who has happened to read a bunch of philosophy. The quotes are sometimes even on point. But as a reader, I gave up reading people who read philosophy for me when I was about 15 years old.

That said, this book offers a better view of the realities of War than most; it is the sort of first hand memoir that captures history in the moment, and it just may be the first book of a potentially great writer -- if he grows up or does something worth a second book!

I have got to say - Well Done!

Somehow Joel Turnipseed crawled into my head and wrote my memoirs. Sure, our background is quite different and certainly every event we encountered over there varied some, but he captured the essence of the 6th Motor Transport Battalion to which thousands of Marines were assigned in '91.

His descriptions of the area, the camps, the roadways, the drivers are all 100% accurate. His description of the Marine Corps, the leadership, the lower ranks, and the sometimes questionable orders given are 110% accurate.

He details enough of his background, upbringing, and education to give a reader the right mindset for what was going on in his head and why he was making those choices.

This book brought back so many memories for me. While I was glad to have taken the photographs I did overseas, I always kicked myself later for not having kept a journal while I was there - Joel's book fills that spot perfectly.

I approached this memoir with curiosity but also expecting more of a political stance, and I was not disappointed in finding that was not the case. The strength of this story is in its focus on small details, daily incidents, bits of dialogue that build a vivid picture of personal experience in such a surreal context. It would have been marred by a more explicit statement on war. The political discussion is mostly left to bits of dialogue, and it feels much more natural that way.

There is a shift from the initial detachment and disillusionment, as the protagonist gains a sense of belonging and purpose, a pride in finishing a job. That final acceptance of the welcoming as proud heroes feels a little sudden and almost forced, but it also comes across as the result of spending so much time in a group, making friendships, enjoying the camaraderie and bonding, learning to see oneself as less of an outsider than one thought.

In that sense, the story transcends the context of war, even if in an ambiguous and unresolved way; but that ambiguity is also one of its strengths. It would have been much harder to sympathise if the action had taken place directly on the battlefield; and even if the characters in this story are only transporting ammunition, it still felt uneasy to read about that as disconnected from the wider context, as if that ammunition never ended up being actually employed, as if focusing on the daily tasks helped keep those troubling questions away.

The only real encounter with Iraqis is near the end, with the prisoners in the camp. I felt the author was very honest in describing his shock, his frustration, his incapability to make sense of the situation or to react as he would have wanted.

The sense of being dropped in the middle of something incomprehensible is one of the threads keeping the story together. It is the background of both amusing and sad moments, always told with a very realistic and vivid style.

The philosophical musings did not feel too self-absorbed or artificial. The quotes, even if a little ambitious, always fit the context; the author's intellectual inclinations, his self-awareness and the way he is affectionately mocked as "the professor" are an essential part of his character's development in the group.

Overall, the sense of honesty and realism in the writing overshadows the occasional impression of pretentiousness, and the conclusion is a rather successful mix of sense of achievement and confusion, pride and sadness, with a feeling of inconclusiveness that can be equally disappointing and appreciated - such as in that single shocking paragraph describing what happened to the ex-girlfriend, both respectfully distanced and almost dismissive at the same time.

I give it 3 stars because I tend to be cautious and reserve 5 to the absolute masterpieces, 4 to the near-masterpieces; this is rather good, and the writing is very promising. I'll certainly be looking forward to the author's next work.