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Recommended Reading: 'The Long Road Home'
March 26, 2007
Last week '60 Minutes' ran a report called "The Killings in Haditha," about 24 Iraqi men, women and children killed on November 9, 2005 by U.S. Marines that many believe was a massacre and others insist was the business of war. This afternoon at about four p.m. the Pentagon is scheduled to release its full report investigating the death of Corporal Pat Tillman, a victim of fratricide whose death was originally believed to be from enemy fire.
These are just two examples of how slippery it can be to grasp the truth during wartime. As our country enters its fifth year of war, emotions are running high for and against our involvement and how it should be resolved.
That makes a new book by ABC News Correspondent Martha Raddatz all the more remarkable.
The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family is clear-eyed yet moving, intricately reported but never dull. Raddatz swaps her reporting focus as skillfully as a photojournalist switches lenses as she moves from Iraq to Texas to other states and back again, telling the story of First Cavalry Division soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas
Here's our Publishers Weekly review of The Long Road Home:
Violent resistance in post-invasion Iraq kicked into high gear on April 4, 2004, when American troops in Sadr City faced a massive assault that claimed eight soldiers' lives and wounded more than 70 others. Raddatz, an Emmy-winning correspondent for ABC News, clearly aims to equal the storytelling in Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down in her account of the battle, and hits the mark with distinction. Extensive interviews with the commanding officers of the army's 1st Cavalry division and the soldiers pinned down in the streets provide a clear narrative of how U.S. troops, prepared for "a babysitting mission," found themselves in a bloodbath, as efforts to rescue the first soldiers fired upon met with even greater resistance from Mahdi militiamen who did not hesitate to use small children as frontline attackers. Heroic moments abound, like Casey Sheehan's volunteering to take another man's place on the rescue team, which resulted in his death. Raddatz touches upon the reaction of his mother, noted antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, but this is just one of many perspectives from families on the home front. The gripping account eschews politics and focuses squarely on the soldiers and their sacrifices.
The story of the forty-eight hours these men and women endured in Iraq contrasted with the anxieties faced by their friends and families back in the United States should be more than "recommended reading" -- it should be required reading for all Americans so that we will all understand the consequences of our votes, no matter what they're for or against.
Posted by Bethanne Patrick on March 26, 2007 | Comments (2)
