Redeployment (2014) is a series of 12 short stories of the aftermath of deployment in Iraq (post-surge,
from 2008) and the subsequent redeployment of the returned soldiers.
Each
story is written in the first person by different male characters back in America
and their experiences of their former deployments, such as: a sergeant, a
chaplain, a soldier in Mortuary Affairs, a Foreign Services officer, and a
Psychological Operations specialist – but all trying to deal with the present.
The
present includes a homecoming to a wife, visiting a former high school
sweetheart and pacificist who broke off the relationship when he was deployed,
reuniting with war buddies or family, commencing studies to gain
qualifications, undergoing rehabilitation, or participating in post-deployment
programs.
All of
the stories are personal: ‘There are two ways to tell the story. Funny or sad.
Guys like it funny … Girls like it sad … Either way, it’s the same story.’ This
quote, from one of the characters, is simplistic – for the stories are actually
told in a multitude of ways: funny, sad, wry, cynical, bitter, resigned,
frustrated, annoyed, or angry – the emotions are prime and pumped.
One
example is ‘War Stories’ told by Wilson. He is with his combat colleague,
Jenks, both injured three years prior in an IED incident – improvised explosive
device: but Jenks has ‘so much scar tissue … he’s got no hair and no ears
either.’ They are in a bar waiting for two women, Jessie and Sarah. Meanwhile
they remember when a Marine Corps uniform got them laid. Although Jenks says
‘my sperm isn’t disfigured’ he is not there to pick up women – ‘Now, knowing I
got no chance, it’s relaxing … Nobody’s gonna think I’m less of a man if I
can’t pick up some girl.’ Jenks met Jessie at a disabled veterans function and
Sarah is writing a drama based on veterans’ experiences. Sarah asks the former
marines, ‘what do you remember?’ Wilson is tired of telling war stories. He
overcompensates for Jenks – the same build, deployed at the same time, in the
same unit – ‘He’s me, but less lucky.’
This is the realistic
language of war – in combat and in decompression – it is brutal, clipped, militarized,
vulgar, gory, honest, and uncensored – from the use of acronyms to the use of
profanity: mundane one moment and harrowing the next. It is just the way it
should be told. Women too are depicted in the stories just as they are:
girlfriends, wives, mothers, women’s initiative advisors, soldiers, leaders,
and sergeant majors.
There is a tonal shift
half way through. It’s not a bad thing – it gave me time to pause and reflect. The
first half depicts more combat zone ‘tough-soldier’ scenarios, while the second
half touches more on the psychological – and the ‘hearts and minds’ rhetoric of
winning the war. I favour the first half. Having worked in Iraq at the commencement
of the conflict, the post-surge strategy is different, but the realities on the
ground are the same – Klay is observant and insightful as the lines between
chaos and comfort, and post-traumatic disorder and denial, are blurred.
Redeployment is about
what each soldier remembers – and memories don’t come in a chronological order
or in complete pictures – but it is more than visual recollections. Memories
evoke the senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. The last story ‘Ten
Kliks South’ is about the silence.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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