thedrifter
03-15-09, 08:20 AM
Sunday, Mar 15, 2009
Posted on Sun, Mar. 15, 2009
Donovan Campbell’s 'Joker One’ tells a very realistic story of soldiers in battle
New and notable
Nobody but a soldier knows what war is really like, but the next best thing may be reading Donovan Campbell’s Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood. Campbell joined the Marines straight out of Princeton and ended up serving three combat tours. In this re-telling of his time spent fighting in Ramadi, Iraq, he recounts the horrors, heroics and how he tried to keep the members of his unit alive. Entertainment Weekly raved, "Campbell unspools blow-by-blow accounts of his unit’s patrols from street level. The fuzzy radio transmissions, the roadside bombs laid by faceless enemies, the dust-filled, hand-trembling confusion — it all comes dizzyingly alive." Campbell writes: "Sometimes, on the front lines, there are no great options, just bad ones and worse ones, so you do what you can. . . . Then you live with the results and shut up about the whole thing."
— Cary Darling
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell
Random House, $26
Ellie
Posted on Sun, Mar. 15, 2009
Donovan Campbell’s 'Joker One’ tells a very realistic story of soldiers in battle
New and notable
Nobody but a soldier knows what war is really like, but the next best thing may be reading Donovan Campbell’s Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood. Campbell joined the Marines straight out of Princeton and ended up serving three combat tours. In this re-telling of his time spent fighting in Ramadi, Iraq, he recounts the horrors, heroics and how he tried to keep the members of his unit alive. Entertainment Weekly raved, "Campbell unspools blow-by-blow accounts of his unit’s patrols from street level. The fuzzy radio transmissions, the roadside bombs laid by faceless enemies, the dust-filled, hand-trembling confusion — it all comes dizzyingly alive." Campbell writes: "Sometimes, on the front lines, there are no great options, just bad ones and worse ones, so you do what you can. . . . Then you live with the results and shut up about the whole thing."
— Cary Darling
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood by Donovan Campbell
Random House, $26
Ellie