Customer Reviews

Sister in the Band of Brothers: Embedded with the 101st Airborne in Iraq (Modern War Studies)

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

 

 

Memoirs of essentially ordinary people are difficult to critique. These are, after all, average people telling about their lives. They have, unlike some politicians or controversial people, no secrets to hide.

Katherine Skiba comes across as a competent journalist who sort of went to war and was deeply impressed by the process and her experiences. I say "sort of went to war" because she really didn't face the enemy in combat. The only direct threat from enemy action may have been an Iraqi missile headed in the general direction of her camp at that time. This quibble is not intended as a criticism of Skiba because in another sense, she did go to war. She went to a short training camp for embedded journalists and then went through the same experiences every other soldier, sailor and airman went through. They left their families, the familiarities of their home life and went off thousands of miles to possibly fight a war.

These experiences clearly impacted Skiba. She records in great detail the flow of life in a series of temporary camps leading to the invasion of Iraq. All of her visions are sharp, sometimes augmented by memories of her father who had been a soldier in WWII.

Much to her credit, Skiba didn't bring any political bias to her memoir. She is at one with the troops around her, though she didn't personally like everyone around her which leads to part of my ambivalence about Skiba. Skiba is clearly a firm believer in the old cliche that you should never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. She hammers several military people she dislikes over and over again because in one way or another they offended her. My reaction as a reader is that Skiba is intolerant, petty and very, very vindicative. One officer in particular is a repeated target of Skiba's skewering. She ultimately justifies her attacks by claiming virtually everyone else hated this officer as well, which could very well be true. But my impression is that Skiba is doing her best to ruin this man's reputation which might be fair if he had the ability to respond in kind. But like so many crucified by the media, he doesn't.

To Skiba's credit, she does include her impressions of the ordinary men and women who went to war. Her short portraits in her memoir are not the features she wrote for her paper. In fact, I regretted that her dispatches were not included in the book. Even in abbreviated form, Skiba's respect for these soldiers is clear - and admirable. Skiba clearly and justifiably holds herself above the talking heads and others who "report" on the war from the comfort of their air-conditioned New York studios or worse yet, the phonies who filed their dispatches from the Kuwaiti Hilton. Skiba's professional jealousy shows when she talks about turning her back on Geraldo Rivera's visit. Anyone who has ever watched "journalist" Geraldo Rivera can agree with the sentiment. On the other hand, Skiba is apparently easily awed by other journalists. It's an interesting and perhaps puzzling mix.

My overall impression is that Katherine Skiba is very proud of herself for leaving familiar surroundings, her husband and dog to trek off into the uncertainties of war. Through no fault of her own, she is no Ernie Pyle: she wasn't assigned to a unit that had a high probability of seeing intense combat over a protracted period and she declined opportunities to directly expose herself to combat. By the same measure, Skiba does not pretend to be anything but she is: a 46 year old woman in the middle of the desert with thousands of men and women in uniform. She shares their considerable discomforts, the boredom and the fear of missile, gas and chemical attacks. She records, sometimes in boring detail, the small events of day to day life.

Overall, Skiba has produced an interesting memoir and my impression of her is favorable, though I think she tends toward self-aggrandizement. The key thing to remember is that this is a memoir, not truly a war story. Taken as a memoir of a working journalist, it is a worthwhile read.

Jerry

As a retired soldier, many of Katherine's experiences (and her responses to them) resonated with me, particularly her relationships with male soldiers and her personal reactions post-deployment. I admire her ability to articulate those experiences to the rest of us who weren't with her in Kuwait (or during her stateside preparation.) Definitely a good read!

I am familiar with Ms. Skiba's writing having read many of her articles over the years in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In my view, she has the unique ability to write with great clarity, compassion and humanity in all that she publishes and this book is no exception. I happen to personally know many of the soldiers involved in this mission and can say without fear of contridiction that both the individuals and events are accurately depicted. If a potential reader seeks an inside, objective understanding of the human element of war written by an author of unique skill and humility, then this is the book to be read.

Kathy Skiba must be one of the bravest, toughest women out there, penning countless news stories and shooting and transmitting her own photos under unrelentingly tough wartime conditions.
Her book is a gripping, fast read as she takes you through what it was like in more than seven weeks at the front. I marvel at the wealth of information she collected on the fighting men and women she met, in order to tell their very human stories.
She keeps a stiff upper lip throughout the experience, never complaining about the challenges she faced, including wearing a 22-pound Kevlar vest, a helmet and chemical suit in the desert heat. Having to use 55-gallon drums (out in the open) as a latrine had to be the worst.
Skiba is the epitome of grace under pressure, and this personal account of the war shows it all.

It was amazing to watch history unfold on television by being able to see the "shock and awe" that started the formal portion of the war in Iraq, members of the media detailing the race across the deserts and seeing soldiers on foot patrols in insurgent filled towns. But it was only a portion of history that I was able to view as an outsider. And as a journalist who wanted to be a part of the embedded media, Katherine Skiba helped me put boots on the ground writing about her personal experiences. I have been on other deployments and it's the stories behind the major story that always fascinates me. Daily accounts of the war kept readers informed of what was happening, but learning about the daily lives of soldiers bonded me to those who put themselves in harms way. Telling the story through her perspective brought me closer to feelings of facing the unknown with fears of what could happen and the excitement of being a part of history. You realize that those involved knew the danger, but pushed it back so that it didn't affect their mission or performance. While we watched the war from the comforts of our homes, these men and women were fighting dust and dirt, separation from family, using makeshift showers and toilets, eating MRE's, dealing with long periods of waiting for new orders, trying to learn any news of what was going on around them and the uncertainty of what each day would bring. These soldiers faced the threat of a missile attack, possible chemical attacks, being shot or blown up and dealing with the agony of losing friends and colleagues. This book gives a different angle of the war - one that puts a face on the men and women who were ready to lay their lives on the line, both the military and the media willing to tell a story.

Katherine M. Skiba went off to the war in Iraq and saw the elephant, as soldiers used to say about going into combat. Lucky for the rest of us, Skiba then came home and wrote a book about her experiences. Sister in the Band of Brothers is a bang-up book that gives readers a front-row, ring-side seat at the real war over there, a war that, through her writing, can be heard and smelled, unlike the sanitized version seen so often in TV reports featuring nose-camera film from ten-thousand feet.
The book is breezy, irreverent at times - Skiba had a real knack for getting into the faces of overbearing, pencil-pusher officer types -- and chock-full of poignant stories about what going to war really means. As a Vietnam combat vet, I thought she powerfully captured the moment of truth that coming under fire brings. There is none of this macho, me-Papa Hemingway posturing by Skiba on the day the war began when the Iraqis fired a missile at her 101st Airborne camp - just an honest depiction of the chest-tightening, stomach-churning realization that you could die.
Taking cover in a fox-hole, hyperventilating and gulping for air, wondering if she would ever see her husband again, Skiba promised to be a better person if God got her home safe. She came back and this book is a pretty good start on all those promises made.

As I watched the "shock and awe" unfold on the news channels, knowing my husband would soon be heading up into Iraq, I never knew at that moment there would be someone amongst my husband and his fellow commrades who would be the link between us at home and our loved ones "over there". As the weeks went by, I discovered that there was a journalist by the name of Katherine Skiba who was telling the stories of our loved ones. This book was a great read. My husband was one of the soldiers within the battalion she was embedded in, and it was funny to read her take on some of the stories, that my husband had told me about. This book gave me more of an idea of life out there, in ways that my husband wasn't able to explain to me, for different reasons. Thanks Katherine!!

In Sister in the Band of Brothers, author Katherine Skiba emerges as stronger and more tenacious than she perceives herself. A seasoned international journalist, she vividly tells of her adventures as an embedded reporter with the 101st Airborne. She relates the story of her participation in the landmark, but now familiar, program utilizing embedded journalists among the troops in the Iraqi war zone and the stories of those serving in the U.S. military around her. Skiba's writing is insightful, entertaining, and (thankfully) without political commentary. Beginning with her motivations and first inklings toward participation in the program, to journalist boot camp, to the distant and dangerous Iraqi war zone and home again, she skillfully exposes very human, intimate, and often humorous insights of herself and those she interacts with and observes. Skiba's lively memoir is a refreshing break from the typical highly politicized news of the war in Iraq that is de rigueur. Accolades to the author for leaving normalcy behind, embracing the discomforts, and accepting the risks that make our view of the war in Iraq from this vantage point possible!

Milwaukee journalist Katherine Skiba has a taste for adventure, so she volunteered to be part of the US Army's "embed" program. Following a tough mini-bootcamp and some immunizations that sounded worse, she became part of a military unit. She flew over with the soldiers. She ate and sometimes slept with them. And along the way, she wrote dispatches to her home paper.

Skiba's no heroic figure. She accepts a male comrade's offer to pack up her gear (and realizes she's got a stack of personal items sitting around). She smokes. She oversleeps. She goes overboard telling everyone she meets about a snake in her sleeping bag. And yet she manages to complete her mission successfully.

Skiba's midwestern Catholic background seems to help her fit in, although she reports clashes with mean officers and uncomprehending soldiers. At times she seems amazingly naive, as when she speculates that surely others havae overslept and broken rules -- there are so many regulations in this army! She told an off-clor joke, over and over, not realizing the full meaning till she got home and told her husband. And she was surprised to learn about co-ed sleeping arrangements.

She returns home, realizing she has a new perspective. Her husband's SUV smashed into her car? No big deal. A soldier's wife admires her looks and she says, "I didn't look like this in Iraq."

Skiba's book was published by a university press, which means the writing style comes across as more sedate than would be the case with a mass audience publisher, such as Harper's. I'd expect less verbosity from a journalist and perhaps a lot more stories.

But I admire Katherine Skiba for rising to the challenge. In my experience, adventure is something you're glad you did -- afterward. So I admire her for doing something I wish I could do myself...in my next lifetime.

I first learned about Katherine Skiba and her book from CSPAN2. I myself am a Skiba, but no relation of Katherine. I am also a veteran of the Vietnam War, so Katherine's book was quite an interest to me. Usually one only thinks of the horrors of war, but Katherine brings out the humanity of the people she is reporting and writing about. The book is very mesmerizing and you will not want to put it down until you have read the entire book and it's human side of the war. Reading this book has given me the insight about the human side of people during a conflict and it clearly shows me what a special and caring lady Katherine Skiba is. This was not just a job for her, but a brave and courageous move on Katherine's part to show the humanity of a war. I urge anyone with compassion and caring in their heart to purchase and read this exellent book.