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Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine

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This book is riveting, it builds in momentum throughout. As non fiction writing it is as gripping as the classics of the genre such as "Into Thin Air". However, this book goes beyond entertainment because it deals with issues vital right now to all of those in the armed forces, issues also of life and death to the Iraqi people.

If you only read one book on Iraq, make it this one. Tyler developed this book in part out of his experience in relating his story to the public out loud and in person, in venues such as high school classrooms, meetings of peace activists, discussions with vietnam veterans. That person-to-person way of conveying events pervades the text. You feel you are listening to someone talk, someone who respects your intelligence and who is a captivating speaker.

It is blazingly candid, with a candor which serves a purpose. The Issue is the war in Iraq, but the book breaks it into many specific parts, some of which I would title: "How and why did I become a killer?" "What is my allegiance to my fellow Marines made of?" "How come we were on the defensive in Iraq and no one would say that?"

These are some of the questions. Tyler's writing method is made of a deep need to ask the hard questions about his specific experiences. The book does not pontificate about some abstract political or tactical situation, it does not ask for sympathy for personal tragedy. It takes apart, with an unflinching manner, specific instances in the life of a person who was a Marine Infantry Oficer in Iraq. In Fallujah, Lutifiyah, Sadan, 2004. Its takes things apart to try to provide something useful, something real underneath all the BS. He questions the events of his experience in war as if his survival depends upon reaching deeper into a truth or meaning. Here is a quote from the text about the need to write:

"Put the story together. Understand the story. Ask questions of the story; make it answer you. Make it. You don't take no for an answer. You find the answer. You keep building that narrative until the answer comes around. That's the low road out of hell."

What comes out of that search is this book.

Having just finished it 10 days ago (it makes a quick read) I have already found myself reaching for this book when talking with friends. I dog eared about 20 passages when I was reading. Now I ask other people to read these passages which can be read in about 1 minute. In one minute you can bring up these things which seem like common sense, but which you just don't see people talking about anywhere.

I hope that many of the returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan can read this book. I hope that people can see it as a way to take a real and hard--yet ultimately constructive--look into their own story.

We are writing this to try to set the record straight for some who found the suicide statistics troublesome and accused the author of exaggerating the suicide issue.

First and foremost, the author, Tyler Boudreau, regretfully did not exaggerate the suicide statistics.

We were part of the CBS program which announced these statistics to the nation on the CBS Evening News. These statistics are incomplete due to the fact that these represent the numbers from only forty five states - not from all fifty states.... a fact which appears to be historically overlooked over the past thirteen months since their release. These statisics reflect this phenonmenon impacting all veterans ... those returning from these two conflicts as well as those who have been at home trying to deal with their own demons whose situations have been compounded by the realities of these present conflicts.

We sadly listen to some attacking the statistics and their possible methodology yet is this why these studies were done? Of course not! These studies were done so that the government, the Department of Veteran Affairs and this nation would finally recognize this horrible issue and hidden scandal of these conflicts and to begin to effectively address it ... which has yet to be done. If these figures are truly troubling and appear to be taxing the very limits of credibility, then it is as it should be but now is not the time to argue, spend energies and resources over how this information was gathered. We need to devote all the energies in trying to confront these numbers not as numbers but as lives - lives of our heroes, wounded warriors and loved ones.

To those who do question and argue, ask yourselves this one question - will anyone ever really know the true numbers of these unknowns, uncounteds and unacknowledgeds? The Department of Veterans Affairs reported before Congress that they weren't even bothering to try to keep any statistics on suicides. This was in late 2007. That says enough for the " leadership " of the VA.

We lost our son/veteran to suicide for the VA was broken, not ready and did not have the resources. Jeffrey Michael Lucey or our family is not alone - there have been too many who have both preceded and followed us. This must end.


Thus, instead of attacking this author who only reflected the information,
Let us as one nation - one people undivided by race, beliefs and politics - embrace our warriors as they return to their homes and loved ones; establish the greatest and best healthcare system on this earth and give the very best of care of which this nation is capable.


Kevin & Joyce Lucey, the proud parents of Cpl. Jeffrey Michael Lucey, a 23 year old USMC reservist forever
succumbed to the hidden wounds of PTSD
03/18/81 --------- 06/22/04

On a political level, all Americans should read this book, no matter what their political leanings. The vivid prose repeatedly launches the reader right into the midst of the daily reality and ugly truths of a misguided war. A war that has destroyed more lives and more of our county's image than we can ever know. As an American, I feel it is an honor and an obligation to share these stories with Boudreau, out of respect for our country and the sacrifices of all veterans.

And on a spiritual level, one of the most fascinating parts of Packing Inferno, for me, is how Boudreau guides us through his transformation from a young man, thirsting for war, to an older, wiser one, determined to make sense of war on a deeply personal and spiritual level. This book proves that through our most intense suffering we can also experience equally intense spiritual growth and self-understanding. We learn that, when life's pain is raw and overwhelming, it is only when we allow ourselves to face our fears head on, and reveal its truths through the telling of our stories, can we then come out on the other side transformed.

The images and stories in this novel will stay with you, in your mind and heart.

This is a unique and extremely powerful book. After facing war, Tyler Boudreau was willing, perhaps he would say compelled, to squarely face the realities of coming home from war without turning away from its pain, ambiguities and undeniable lessons. Presented through the compelling story of his own experience, this is a starkly honest and insightful exploration of the complex cultural and psychological forces at work in the making of a marine, the conduct of war and the warrior's return to life at home. It is potentially a "healing story" not only for our veterans, but for all of us whose country is sending men and women to fight and kill in our names. This book can help us to understand how woefully limited and misleading it is to consider veterans' distress as simply a "disorder" , and can teach us to more fully realize the true cost of war. As Mr. Boudreau says, "...the community gains every bit as much by listening to war stories as the veteran does by telling them." Though skillfully written, this is not an easy story to hear. It may elicit tears, shame and anger, but if we're willing to listen it is an opportunity for greater awareness and for us to realize the responsibility we bear as a community. I am grateful for this book, not only as a US citizen, but as a psychiatrist striving to understand the effects of trauma and support individuals in healing from its effects.
The editorial review from Publisher's Weekly seems to have missed the point of the book in suggesting that inability "to face another deployment" is the explanation for Mr. Boudreau's decision to give up his career in the Marine Corps. In addition, this review inaccurately refers to "his exaggerated figures for army suicides". There are no statistics for suicide cited in the book. It does contain several mentions of the "shocking" numbers of suicides among veterans and, like numerous other respected publications, refers to them as an "epidemic". Hopefully we have not lost our capacity to be shocked by large numbers of young people coming home from war and killing themselves.

Tyler Boudreau's searing non-fiction book is a must-read. It captures the immediacy of the Iraq conflict (NOT, technically, a war, since it wasn't declared)in first-person, astonishing detail. It pulls no punches.

Anyone who still wonders what the US is doing in Iraq, or who thinks they understand our presence there, needs to read Packing Inferno. It will provide insight not only about the current conflict, but in a sense about all wars, at least since the beginning of the twentieth century. The conclusions reached in the book make clear the intensity (and danger) of the so-called military-industrial complex, first identified in the 1950s by Eisenhower.

But above all the book is personal. Boudreau lets us get under his skin and into his soul, and not everything in there is pleasant to see. It's clear that, under our current system, a Marine (probably a Soldier too) MUST become a cog in a vast machine--and relatively heartless--to perform his or her duty. When he or she begins to doubt the plan, he or she must leave, as Boudreau eventually did. But we become richer for his experience.

My hope is that our policy-makers in Washington will find a way to read Packing Inferno.

--Tom Kovar

Look, I am a obsessive reader. George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Jane Austen, Trollope, Dickens, Joyce, Proust... Anything before 1890 and fiction. I read to escape. I know Tyler and wanted to support him so I bought his book. I had never read a book of this sort. And didn't think I would even get past the first page. This book made my head spin. I have never had a book make me think more than this one did. About war. And warriors. About the warrior in each of us. Why is it there in the first place? We couldn't survive without it. Tyler's book blasted my mind wide open on a subject that was as foreign to me as any could possibly be. I recommend this book for everyone. It is not a war book. It is about human nature in its most challenging moments. Fabulous book.

How does a dedicated military professional change his views and reshape his commitments? In fits and starts, like a bad memory gradually coming into focus, Tyler Boudreau, describes his journey from charged up, battle-hungry young recruit to a Captain whose political and moral observations during a year in Iraq lead him to resign his commission after a twelve-year career in the Marines. This unlikely, even reluctant, anti-war advocate is a gifted writer. His story of the reconfiguring of a mindset and conscience is a compelling read--moving, brilliant, funny, sad, terrible. Traveling from the "foyer to hell" through the desensitization and shocking disparities of warfare, he offers quite an eye-opening, exquisitely frank glimpse into a universe totally foreign to me -- the Marine Corps in war-ridden Iraq.

Boudreau returns to the familiar civilian world, alienated, isolated, full of the rage and hair trigger reactivity necessitated by violence but like Dante, at the end of The Inferno, eventually comes to see the possibility of a world restored. Clear-sighted linkages are drawn between the contradictions within the military and those afflicting our political leadership at large. He brings a cogent and fresh intelligence to his analysis. The word "clear-sighted" resonates about the book as a whole-there is an intense clarity to what Boudreau sees and a forthrightness and honesty in his describing both the outer landscape, external events, and the delicacy of the inner experience that is his transformation.

How Does One Unpack From War? - Review of Tyler Boudreau's Packing Inferno by Steve Clemens. August 18, 2009

Ex-Marine Captain Tyler Boudreau begins his excellent book about his experience in the Iraq War by telling his reader that the old canard, "War is hell", isn't true. He tells us that war is the foyer to hell; hell is when you come home from war and have to deal with what you've done and what you witnessed in war. And while the Marines can teach one how to kill, who helps the veteran learn how to heal?

I had the advantage of hearing Tyler tell his story on a hot Saturday afternoon, August 1, 2009, at Mayday Bookstore in Minneapolis. Tyler was biking from Seattle to Boston, stopping on the way to tell his story as part of a do-it-yourself book tour for his autobiographical Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine. He had the build and look of a Marine but his affect during his talk was one of urgency within a gentle, earnest-but-caring style. He spoke with conviction - but without the hard edge I've experienced with some other vets who've returned from this on-going war.

Part of this might be due to the author's vantage point: as an officer, much of what Captain Boudreau experienced in 2004-05 in Iraq was second hand. He spent more time in command centers writing reports and coordinating activities for his infantry battalion than out on patrol, at roadblock/checkpoints, and house-to-house raids. He participated enough to write about those experiences but he also gained a vantage point one seldom hears about this war.

Let me share just a few of the powerful observations I underlined in my copy of Packing Inferno.

"The civilians were the same as they were, but the Marines [who just returned home] they hugged and kissed were not the men they had once known. ... Our identities were altered [by war]."

"I was a rifle company commander. ... I didn't have the capacity to believe - not in that role. To believe that there could be psychological injuries sustained from the violence we inflicted would be to acknowledge its inherent immorality."

"... desensitization [in one's training]doesn't eliminate morality from the consciousness. It merely postpones cogitation. Sooner or later, when a man's had a chance to think things over, he will find himself standing in judgment before his own conscience. ... Soldiers desensitize themselves in war ... they must in order to survive ... They push the humanity out of the enemy and out of themselves ... one's humanity can be quite difficult to recover once it's been evicted."

"... every [combat wound] rates a Purple Heart. Yet never once has a veteran been awarded a Purple Heart for combat stress. ... Only through genuine acknowledgment that combat stress is an injury, not a disorder, can we ever give uninhibited affection to our wounded."

"In 2005, after 12 years of active service in the Marine Corps and with growing reservations about the war, I relinquished command of my rifle company and resigned my commission. It struck me that, in our headlong pursuit to deliver freedom and democracy and to expel an oppressive regime and combat terrorism, we had inadvertently lost sight of the very people we'd been deployed to help."

It wasn't obvious to me until I heard Tyler Boudreau discuss his book: each of the nine numbered chapters corresponds to one of the nine layers of hell in Dante's Inferno. Boudreau does point out that the deepest circle or layer of hell is reserved for "traitors" and I found this section of the book most compelling. The first subheading of this chapter is Loyalty. It has always been the mantra of the Marines: "Never leave a brother behind". Yet, when Boudreau resigned his commission, when his "brothers" were still "in harm's way", it was an act of betrayal according to the Marine code. He was a traitor to that system.

In explaining this new growing consciousness within him, Boudreau read from this section of the book. This is the phrase that stuck with me: "Support for the troops can never be exclusively support for the human being inside the uniforms; it must be to some extent, support for the institution inside them as well. Real severance of those two can only be effected by the soldiers themselves. And that can be a lonesome proposition."

It is readily apparent in his book as well as his personal appearance that Boudreau retains a deep love and compassionate concern about the men he commanded. His resignation from his commission was personal - he could no longer ignore the immorality of the war - but it was also collective: he could not "spend the lives" of the Marines he commanded on a mission which was impossible. He concluded on the basis of his experience (and analysis) that one cannot simultaneously "win the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people with men who have been trained to resolve "problems" with killing and violence.

It is somewhat ironic that Tyler Boudreau is biking across America as part of his healing therapy from war. The Bush Administration was often fond of using the biking analogy early on in this war: Iraqi democracy is like learning to ride a bike; we have to "keep the training wheels on" for a little while; we then have to be willing to "let go" to allow Iraqi democracy to flourish on its own ...

An important insight this book gave me is that vets need to be able to tell their stories without being lionized. Being called a hero does not give a returning vet the space to process and heal from what he might have already rejected and it makes the shame harder to be released. Boudreau credits the anti-war movement and groups like Veterans for Peace with creating the space to tell stories the general public might not want to hear. But if those stories stay bottled up inside, they continue to eat at and destroy the vet holding on to them.

"Either we allow ourselves to feel that veteran's pain, truly as our own, and share his consternation about war, or, in an effort to support the troops, we deny the significance of his tragedies and, by definition, we deny his pain as well."

In looking back over the book, it is hard to find consecutive pages that aren't underlined or highlighted. This book is well written, insightful, and gives the reader a glimpse into the troubled-but-healing soul of an ex-Marine. I read the book over three days while vigiling in front of the Air Force base where the command for all American nuclear weapons occurs. This was over the 64th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Clearly, Captain Boudreau is not the only one of us who needs healing from the denial and destructiveness of our past - and with him, we need to lay down all our weapons and find a new way to solve the "problems" of our world, this time without the violence which dehumanizes us in the process.

[...]

Tyler E. Boudreau has written a very important book. Packing Inferno should be a mandatory read for any young man considering handing his life over to the United States Marine Corps. I think it would make some of them think twice.

This book is so informative about the "real" situation in Iraq. I felt like I was reading some top secret file or something. When I was done, my opposition to the "war" was quite stronger than before. It really helped me justify my feelings. Boudreau has the gift of being able to take you there with his words. its simple, to the point and highly emotional.

if you find yourself feeling confused about this war and wondering what the hell is going on over there, read Packing Inferno. It will shed some light on the situation.

I cant really say enough about this book. you should read it.

An astonishing book, a white-knuckle read that is morally devastating, blackly humorous, sharply penetrating about military culture and utterly authentic in its voice and its ethical struggle to come to terms with the radical disconnect between the ideals of "mission" that send men to war and the withering realities of war itself. More important, Boudreau's experience underscores the degree to which "war" becomes a complex emotional state that travels home with the veteran and often undermines the bedrock certainties he clings to in order to survive. Recalls "Catch-22," "A Rumor of War" and Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," but this book is completely unlike any other book on war I've ever read.