thedrifter
08-10-08, 06:15 AM
In Final Salute,' Jim Sheeler gives an account of the cost of the Iraq war
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Janet Maslin
The scenes in this book are true," Jim Sheeler writes of "Final Salute," his book about fallen military personnel. "I witnessed most of them firsthand, and have the tear-smeared notebook to prove it."
Nobody who reads Sheeler's ac count of how the families of the dead are notified, the lost loved ones enshrined and their memories preserved will have any question about where those tears came from.
At the Rocky Mountain News, where Sheeler won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for the feature writing on which "Final Salute" is based, the publisher asked the staff to treat this story as carefully as the Marines fold their dead comrades' flags before burial. If this material received unusually reverential treatment, that too is understandable. Sheeler took one of the great underreported stories of the Iraq war and brought it to light.
Although "Final Salute" is not a muckraking book, it is a quietly horrifying one. It bears witness to the ways in which casualties from Iraq are shielded from sight. Dead soldiers' coffins, for instance, have been hidden in cardboard boxes (ostensibly to protect the coffins), toted by forklifts and stowed in the cargo holds of passenger planes.
"Final Salute" can be read as an extended human-interest story -- if human interest includes the pain of surviving the death of a loved one in battle. But what gives this book its tight focus is its central figure: Maj. Steve Beck. When he became a Marine, Beck had never heard the term "casualty assistance calls officer." Now he knows exactly what it means. And Sheeler's readers will too.
"Despite the public's perception, there is no group of service members whose primary task is death notification," Sheeler writes. "Just as every Marine is a rifleman, expected to grab a weapon and head to the front if called upon, any midlevel ranking Marine could also be called to knock on the door."
Beck's utter dedication to his job gives "Final Salute" its strong backbone. This is not a maudlin book, despite the endless opportunities Sheeler had to make it one. Instead it adopts Beck's quiet decency in his conduct and his empathy for people in dire circumstances.
"Maybe that's what hurts me the most," he says, "that because I'm standing in front of them, they're feeling as bad as they're ever going to feel."
Among the most difficult aspects of Beck's job is its political implications.
"If you don't feel this loss in some way, I'm not so sure you're an American, frankly," he says. "When I hand that flag to them and say On behalf of a grateful nation,' it's supposed to mean something."
When a chaplain once tried to silence a mother who cursed the president, Beck corrected the clergyman.
"The best way to handle that situation is not to tell someone what they can or cannot do in their own home," he says.
"Final Salute" is organized through chapters about these individual families. It pays particular attention to that of 2nd Lt. James J. Cathey, whose pregnant wife refused to leave her husband's coffin on the night before his burial and slept nearby on an air mattress, protected by a Marine honor guard.
Sheeler does a fine, dignified job of conveying the range of responses to such loss.
There is the anger of Cathey's mother when anyone tells her she needs closure: "I politely tell them, How about if I chop off your finger and see if it grows back?' " There is the American Indian ritual that celebrates Marine Cpl. Brett Lee Lundstrom as a fallen warrior. There is the Remembering the Brave ceremony, at which the Marines who watched Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Burns die in Fallujah, Iraq, on Veterans Day 2004 keep alive the no-frills story of his heroism.
What were his last words? "I'm hit." His last deed? Ensuring that other Marines survived. "Final Salute" shares Beck's conviction that the Kyle Burnses of the Iraq war must be given the honor they deserve.
Maslin wrote this review for The New York Times.
Ellie
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Janet Maslin
The scenes in this book are true," Jim Sheeler writes of "Final Salute," his book about fallen military personnel. "I witnessed most of them firsthand, and have the tear-smeared notebook to prove it."
Nobody who reads Sheeler's ac count of how the families of the dead are notified, the lost loved ones enshrined and their memories preserved will have any question about where those tears came from.
At the Rocky Mountain News, where Sheeler won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for the feature writing on which "Final Salute" is based, the publisher asked the staff to treat this story as carefully as the Marines fold their dead comrades' flags before burial. If this material received unusually reverential treatment, that too is understandable. Sheeler took one of the great underreported stories of the Iraq war and brought it to light.
Although "Final Salute" is not a muckraking book, it is a quietly horrifying one. It bears witness to the ways in which casualties from Iraq are shielded from sight. Dead soldiers' coffins, for instance, have been hidden in cardboard boxes (ostensibly to protect the coffins), toted by forklifts and stowed in the cargo holds of passenger planes.
"Final Salute" can be read as an extended human-interest story -- if human interest includes the pain of surviving the death of a loved one in battle. But what gives this book its tight focus is its central figure: Maj. Steve Beck. When he became a Marine, Beck had never heard the term "casualty assistance calls officer." Now he knows exactly what it means. And Sheeler's readers will too.
"Despite the public's perception, there is no group of service members whose primary task is death notification," Sheeler writes. "Just as every Marine is a rifleman, expected to grab a weapon and head to the front if called upon, any midlevel ranking Marine could also be called to knock on the door."
Beck's utter dedication to his job gives "Final Salute" its strong backbone. This is not a maudlin book, despite the endless opportunities Sheeler had to make it one. Instead it adopts Beck's quiet decency in his conduct and his empathy for people in dire circumstances.
"Maybe that's what hurts me the most," he says, "that because I'm standing in front of them, they're feeling as bad as they're ever going to feel."
Among the most difficult aspects of Beck's job is its political implications.
"If you don't feel this loss in some way, I'm not so sure you're an American, frankly," he says. "When I hand that flag to them and say On behalf of a grateful nation,' it's supposed to mean something."
When a chaplain once tried to silence a mother who cursed the president, Beck corrected the clergyman.
"The best way to handle that situation is not to tell someone what they can or cannot do in their own home," he says.
"Final Salute" is organized through chapters about these individual families. It pays particular attention to that of 2nd Lt. James J. Cathey, whose pregnant wife refused to leave her husband's coffin on the night before his burial and slept nearby on an air mattress, protected by a Marine honor guard.
Sheeler does a fine, dignified job of conveying the range of responses to such loss.
There is the anger of Cathey's mother when anyone tells her she needs closure: "I politely tell them, How about if I chop off your finger and see if it grows back?' " There is the American Indian ritual that celebrates Marine Cpl. Brett Lee Lundstrom as a fallen warrior. There is the Remembering the Brave ceremony, at which the Marines who watched Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Burns die in Fallujah, Iraq, on Veterans Day 2004 keep alive the no-frills story of his heroism.
What were his last words? "I'm hit." His last deed? Ensuring that other Marines survived. "Final Salute" shares Beck's conviction that the Kyle Burnses of the Iraq war must be given the honor they deserve.
Maslin wrote this review for The New York Times.
Ellie