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egbutler1
04-18-08, 10:12 PM
If your looking for a good read I suggest you pick up this book. LtCol. Kopelman really hits what its like being a Marine in a war zone, caring about something greater than ones-self. If you have read this book let me know what you think about it. If you haven't i have copied to the best of my ability a few pages here down below. If you get the book and read it come-on back and tell me what you think. Sound off Marines!!

Excerpt:

When I get there, it's all dark and everyone's zonked out and I can't see Lava anywhere.
"Hey, little guy." I whisper, expecting him to leap into my arms with tail-pounding joy.
Instead I hear this tiny growl, Lava's warning that he's about to kick my ass, and then see this weenie shadow rush towards me with tail erect and fur on end screaming roo-roo-roo-roooooo.
Bodies shoot up on every cot.
"Hey, hey, hey it's me..."
"Who the hell is me?" someone grumbles as I hear the click of several rifles being readied for some action.
I bend down and pick Lava p. "Shh, shh. Its me. Just me."
The bodies plop back down on their cots. Several pound pillows back into place; several Marines use my name - and God's - in vain.
"Hey, hey, calm down," i tell Lava, who's qivering with delight over what he's done and with what he's found. I Sit there for a while in the dark scratching his little ears until he finally calms down and curls up asleep in my lap.
Am I insane?
I am a lietenat colonel in the United States Marine Corps. I am an officer in a brotherhood that always goes in first, and that pretty much sums it up right there. We're brave to the point of insanity, so being a Marine takes a certain kind of mind-set to begin with.
Which means you don't always follow orders.
The common belief is that you go in a boy and come out a man, like they have this magical ability to change who you are, but the truth of the matter is, we were insane going in and insane commming out, only now we sing this anthem and know cool martial arts.
Insane isn't the right word exactly. None of us really beliieves Marines guard the streets of Heaven, but how sane is it to want to go in first? I can sit aside from this and in a cool, calculated, scientific manner look at it for what it is; not insanity, but a primitive gene that reqires some of us to be the fittest and the bravest and the best-est there is, and then the public relations brass throws in the word proud-est so we don't feel like cavemen on caffeine.
It's not because we didn't belong or didn't like team sports, and it's not because we couldn't afford college or were manipulated by recruiters or dumped by some chick and then had to prove a point. Those guys joined the army. We didn't have rotten childhoods, we didn't hate math, we didn't bully skinny kids on the playground and didn't start fires in the garage.
And it's not like we joined up without thinking about it, or like once we go in they didn't give us time to think about it. Beliveve me, sleep deprivation, food rationing, and sit-ps make you think a whole hell of a lot about it. We weren't coerced. We weren't brainwashed. Our souls weren't plundered.
We just can't help it.
We aren't cut out for anything else. We were marines going in and Marines coming out. We don't want to take orders.
And you want to know something? I don't care anymore. I used to, when i first joined up. I worried about my parents' objections, my college buddies' sneers, being called a "jarhead" for the rest of my adult life. But hell if i could help it. The minute i signed on the dotted like, I had this sort of out-of-body party that hasn't been matched since.
Oo-rah.
Listening to these guys snore around me, I really like what i am - a Marine. I like being strong. I like being brave. I like going in first. I want to go in first, and i'll be damned if i'm going to let anyone shoot my puppy.


END EXCERPT:

This book is about a Marine who finds a puppy during the invasion of Fallujah in 2004. Its about his struggle as a leader to get this puppy from Iraq back home to California. If you looking for a good heart tugger, and a great freaking read pick it up you won't be disappointed. Don't worry boys there is plenty of action in the book to. Remember " A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava:
From Baghdad with love"
By LtCol Jay Kopelman with Melinda Roth

Khalifah88
06-07-08, 07:02 PM
wow, thats a good piece you picked out, consider it on my list sir
thank you.