Redeployment Hardcover – March 4, 2014

First off, this is a collection of short stories that are fiction - but they are historical, accurate - darn-good fiction! For me and my service in Iraq, this book hammered home so many feelings; it captured so many different facets and aspects of what was my Iraq war, I was extremely pleased. Klay does a superb job of tackling some taboo topics that Soldiers down-range deal with and dance around (like Klay's gun-bunnies who are always waiting for the call to fire the artillery, and actually kill someone); stories about things like serving in mortuary affairs - I mean can you imagine that as your job? To process the remains of your comrades... gripping.

And the aspects of PTSD and the heartfelt loyalty and dedication that those who serve in harms way give unto each other - like Klay's story about the adjutant who had the solemn duty to ensure that a fallen hero receive the military honors he deserved for his heroism in combat (and his subsequent connection with men from that soldier's unit).

This is a gripping book that anyone who is struggling with their time in service - or to trying to relate to those who served - will truly find enlightening.

Whoa. This book takes on some of the hard truths that soldiers and Marines returning from (and participating in) the longest two wars in American history have to face. As a veteran this was a difficult read for me. When I started the book I didn't realize it was a collection of short stories. At first I was disappointed because the first story is so raw and powerful. It's about how a man returning home from Iraq struggles to reintegrate back into everyday life with his wife and dog. I wanted to know more of that character's struggles. In the end though it turned out to be a good thing that this was short stories because I found that I could only read it in short bursts, so harrowing are the narratives at times. Perhaps this is the reason I don't read a lot of war fiction (or war non-fiction, for that matter).

In a time where less than one percent of the American population is in the military - it's so easy for some to forget the experience that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been through. There are many people who don't know anyone in the military. This book is important if not for that reason alone.

A line in the first story 'Redeployment' struck me so hard because it's the honest to god's truth.
"We took my combat pay and did a lot of shopping. Which is how America fights back against the terrorists."

What else is there to do after you're haunted by a war that makes little to no sense to you or the rest of the country? Another line that I ran across hit me hard because as a veteran I've always had a hard time with the "Thank you for your service" type gratitude actions that I would get. It's an awkward feeling that many veterans don't know what to do with (I'm not saying don't do it when you see a man or woman in uniform - just that it's a weird feeling - at least for me).
"I was angry. I'd gotten a lot of Thank You for Your Service handshakes, but nobody really knew what that service meant..."
I worked as a Unit Deployment Manager for the Air Force, it was my job to tend to all the airmen that would be deployed, ensuring they had all their training, paperwork, and equipment. While because of my rank I was not the one making personal selections on who would go and who would stay at home (unlike the Army, the Air Force does not deploy entire units at one time, instead it's a piecemeal selection of individuals based on job functions that are needed down-range). Despite that I still fielded phone-calls from angry spouses and sent men and women away from their families to miss anniversaries, Christmases, and even the birth of their children.

The stories in Redeployment focus exclusively on the Army and the Marine Corps and I'm okay with that. The problem that I had with this collection is that there were no stories told from the point of view of female characters. Women, despite not technically being allowed in combat, are in combat. I felt that Klay might have strengthened his book if he could have told at least one story from the perspective of a woman.

The other thing that will probably drive civilian readers crazy are the excessive acronyms. It didn't bother me because I knew what most of them meant, but I can definitely see this as being an impediment for a reader with little to no knowledge of military jargon.

Like I said, this was a difficult read for me but I do think that it's an incredibly important and well written book. It's not really about the wars themselves, it's a portrait of the people who fight those wars at the lowest level. I have to highly recommend it to everyone.

I am a soldier's daughter. Because my father served in World War II (Navy then), he did not speak of the war to me when he came home. It wasn't done.

But as I came through the Vietnam era in college and saw my students go off to wars in the Middle East as a teacher, I became more and more obsessed with understanding war.

REDEPLOYMENT by Phil Klay gives a variety of perspectives of war. Because he uses short stories and a number of narrators, Klay can move from returned vet at the height of his PTSD to bored Foreign Service Officer trying to put Iraqi kids into baseball uniforms because someone upstairs wants a PR picture. Never mind that the child rounded up may have been working on an IED the day before. The plight of the soldier, his amped up emotions and his training to be vigilant, to KILL or BE KILLED, overrides all other themes. Whether a man has endured burns all over his body or has been awarded a Medal of Valor, the wars of this century have marked a generation of men (and women, whom Klay acknowledges) as surely as WWI marked Wilfred Owens, the poet.

This is a bruising, snarling, hair-tearing blast of the breaths of death and war. Phil Klay, you speak of what you know.

Though mankind does not seem to learn from the history of war, voices like Klay's help to remind those safely watching the evening news that the soldiers are people's sons, daughters, husbands, wives and the "collateral damage" includes children and families with no interest in politics or global strategies. Klay's narrators give us the shifting tides of war with the constant of harm, ruin, and pain.

This is a collection of short stories. All but one of the stories are first-person accounts of a soldier's experience during or after deployment in Iraq. Every single story is good. Every single story made me think. They are quick to read, but not easy to read. There are accounts of retrieving bodies; of devising insults to shout at insurgents in order to get them to run out into the open; of killing; of casualties; of veterans struggling with civilian life. In fiction and movies, war often has an escapist, heroic, romantic aspect. In contrast, "Redeployment" shows war as grim rather than glorious. Both the narrators and the Iraq war are shown as flawed. Against that backdrop, there are moments when the bonds between soldiers stand out as redemptive. A very good book.