Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (Paperback)

by Michael Staub (Author), Kayla Williams (Author) "SOMETIMES, EVEN NOW, I wake up before dawn and forget I am not a slut..." (more)
Key Phrases: dead white chickens, infantry guys, deployment order, Fort Campbell, Sergeant Quinn, Tal Afar (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Williams's account of her Iraq service tries very hard to be a fresh and wised-up postfeminist take: Private Benjamin by way of G.I. Jane. Showy rough language peppers every paragraph, and Williams's obsessive self-concern, expressed in a lot of one-sentence paragraphs beginning with "I," verges on the narcissistic. The surprise is the degree to which the account succeeds and even echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle. The fear, bad weather, intermittent supplies, inedible meals (especially for the vegetarian author) and crushing boredom of life in the field are all here. Williams's particular strength is in putting an observant, distaff spin on the bantering and brutality of barracks life, where kids from the Survivor generation must come to terms with a grim and confusing reality over which they have little control. The differences are less in the sexual dynamics (which mostly are an extension of office politics) than the contradictions of the conflict in which the troops are engaged, which Williams embodies more than illuminates. She learns Arabic; there's a Palestinian boyfriend and a short, failed marriage during her state-side training. While an ex-punk, Chomsky-reading liberal, Williams questions the day-to-day conduct of the war without ever really engaging with its underlying rationale. Such nuance, though, might be too much to ask.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Williams’s war memoir is just one in a string that originated from recent U.S.-led forays into the Middle East, and its uniqueness comes from its female perspective. Critics agree that Love My Rifle is no deep piece of literature. Instead, it’s a shocking, on-the-ground view of one military woman’s experience in Iraq. Williams spares no details about the stress of combat, the questionable treatment of Iraqi prisoners, and her scathing opinion of the U.S. administration, though she never explains why she enlisted in the first place. As one of only 15 percent of women employed by the Army, Williams possibly overplays the sexual harassment she suffered—or so claim a few of the more suspect male reviewers. But the story’s not over: Williams can be called back to duty any time.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (September 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393329224
• ISBN-13: 978-0393329223
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #306,304 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A complete disappointment, September 24, 2005

By	B. L. Rogers (Georgia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

Kayla Williams' voice was not what I expected at all. I was browsing through the new release section at the local bookstore when I came across this book. Like an idiot, I read only the back cover with all its clever little blurbs. Not bothering to read any of the inside pages, I went ahead and bought it, since 'Jarhead' was not in stock. Big mistake.

I had hoped for more insight, more of a philosophical approach to her time in Iraq, and most importantly, of 'being a woman in today's Army.' The book has neither. Williams takes a conversational approach in her writing, one that reads more like an e-mail or letter to a friend than anything worthy of a book.

Her experiences are mundane. Fair enough. But instead of trying to inject some deep emotional meaning or even lighthearted moments, she delivers everything with the same sort of distant, observer-only perspective. As if she were not a participant at all.

This book is also very whiny. She whines about the sand, the lack of running water and the heat. Williams is forever telling us about her hardship in trying to find suitable MREs to eat, as she is a vegetarian. I think she mentions this fact more than anything. I don't have food. I have food now. The villagers are bringing me food. Yay.

Her 'challenges' with dealing with men are simple. She's a doormat. She admits she ends up with men who don't treat her right at the beginning of the book. This trickles down into her work relationships with male soldiers. Instead of standing her ground, or trying to act professional, she instead tries to become buddies with them, playing their games and hanging out with them. Someone asks her to 'Cook me some eggs, B****.' And she says she obliges and then makes sure everyone knows he really is a good guy, he just has some emotional baggage.

This is probably the first book I've read in years that I wish I had never bothered to pick up.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Whining, whining, and then more whining, October 19, 2005

By	Kristin Fagut - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

As a fellow Arabic linguist deployed during the war, I was very interested to read this book. I actually read the entire book in one sitting. That is not, however, because Williams had anything interesting or enlightening to say about her experiences. It was purely out of amazement that such a whiny, petty story found a publisher. For someone who claims to be so intelligent, with a degree in literature, Williams need serious work on her writing skills. The book read like a catty, 16-year old's diary.
Beyond that, I found her self-importance grating on me with every word. She writes as if she should be heralded MERELY FOR DOING HER JOB! And while I agree, the military has its fair share of problems, including plenty of imcompetent supervisors, I find it disgusting that she saw fit to name in the book, everyone who crossed paths with her and ended up on her bad side. I'm sure they have more than a few words to say about her performance as well. After 2 hours of reading how horrible everyone was at their jobs, I found her supposedly heartfelt thanks to fellow servicemebers at the end shallow, cheap, and meaningless.
And as for her claims of sexual harrassment, I have to wonder how much is based in truth, and how much is more drama queen whining. In all honesty, if you have to wake up a year later and remind yourself that you are not a slut, that says to me that you have done some things to make you feel that way about yourself.
It saddens me to think that civilians will read this book and think it is an accurate description of women's life in the military. Maybe it represents some women. In general, those are the women that I am happy get the hell out after their minimum obligation is served.
Read this book if you want the perfect account of a self-important female soldier who overestimates her own intelligence.

35 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A unique perspective on enlisted life at war, from the point of view of a mature, college-educated female, January 24, 2006

By	Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (Hardcover)

Williams opens her memoir by declaring that all Army females are either a bitch (they won't sleep with you) or a slut (they'll sleep with everyone but you). She stayed a bitch during her tour in the Army, but that didn't stop her from being the subject of some nasty rumors.

Williams is a bit older than your typical enlistee, she's college-educated, and she's dated a Muslim man, so she provides a unique perspective on the Army and her deployment to Muslim Iraq. She's stationed for some time with 18-year-old infantry grunts, and while she has a much different (and understanding) attitude toward the locals, she understands how someone defending a position and getting attacked can do nothing but hate every Iraqi man, woman, and child as a potential insurgent.

Again and again, Williams questions the plan as a whole. Stop points and roadblocks are erected with no Arabic signage, Muslim women are afraid of strange men, and the last military in the country (Saddam's) consisted of ruthless killers, so how are local Iraqi villages supposed to understand what is going on at roadblocks? Then again, there have been plenty of female suicide bombers, so what are the soldiers supposed to expect? Williams has to use underground circuits to get her vegetarian kosher/halal meals, even though most soldiers hate them and abandon them with the trash, because she can't officially get religious meals due to a "personal dietary" (vegetarian) preference. In one heartbreaking scene, Williams interprets during the search of a Catholic monastery. Her superiors are hot-headed, interrupting service, destroying property, and ignoring the priest who reaches out to them as a brother. Later, she gets someone to do a good turn for the monastery, which leaves the reader with some hope.

Williams also deals repeatedly with female leaders who put their soldiers at risk, don't understand the mission, don't grasp the political situation, and are incompetent when it comes to dealing with her group's equipment. Williams disagrees with the military system of promoting people due to time in grade unless something really bad happens. She comes across too many people promoted to leadership roles who don't have the skills to back their position up, but they happened to have served long enough to move up. In her closing comments, she discusses how the Army gives you no incentive to excel at your job--the bare minimum is just fine, and it will get you promoted just fine.

Williams provides an unparalleled view of life on the ground floor of the war in Iraq. She never provides any solid answers, choosing instead to reveal how confused and frustrated she was, yet how rewarding some parts of the experience were. Another reviewer commented that the memoir might be a little early, when her anger over certain situations was still too fresh. I rather like the fact that she is honest about her love/hate relationship with the Army and the mission in Iraq, and she transports the reader to the point of view of a foot solider. I would have liked to learn a little more about what her tasks were doing signal intelligence for 12-hour shifts (on occasion), but perhaps she got legal advice not to reveal those secrets of the US Army.