What it is like . . . I belong to a group of about 20-25 Vietnam veterans that I have lunch with monthly, a tradition we’ve kept for nearly five years. They are Army and Marine veterans, Navy, Air Force, and SeaBees. They are former Army 11B grunts, Huey pilots, door gunners, medics, mechanics, and artillerymen; they are former officers, NCOs, and enlisted men. Draftees and volunteers. Regulars who signed up. What they all share is that they were all engaged in direct combat with the enemy. They...

I first encountered Karl Marlantes while watching Ken Burns’ documentary The Vietnam War. I was impressed by his perspective, and after reading What It Is Like to Go to War, I can confirm that my first impression was spot on. This is a fascinating book—an unusual but effective blend of memoir and carefully considered advice on helping soldiers come to terms with the nature of their profession (and the killing it entails) while learning how to reintegrate into society once they return home. At ...

There’s a reason why I usually avoid reading memoirs. I often go in with the preconception that they’ll be self-serving, arrogant, and overly opinionated. What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes proved to be a refreshing exception. While perhaps a bit too spiritual to be practically applied to the many teenagers who typically fill our trenches during wartime, the book is, for the most part, dead-on serious and profoundly true. What It Is Like to Go to War is written with a tone of genuin...

"Warriors must touch their souls because their job involves killing people. Warriors deal with eternity." - Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War [my little brother in Afghanistan] An exploration of war. Part memoir of a Marine (Vietnam War), part Joseph Campbell/Jungian exploration of the warrior, part critique of policy. The book is also written directly to those men/boys (and yes, women I guess too) preparing for war. Having suffered PTSD from Vietnam, Marlantes uses this book to ins...

I didn't plan on reading this book, but my boyfriend recently grabbed it as an audiobook from the library. Since he never actually gets around to listening to his library downloads, and the other audiobook I wanted to hear was glitchy, I swiped this one on my way out the door. I have to listen to something while walking the dogs, or I just get sad. Turns out, this was a terrible choice for avoiding sadness. About 20 minutes into my walk, I felt like I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. A heav...

Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes wrote this haunting nonfiction book, What It Is Like to Go to War, about the realities and aftereffects of combat, framed through both historical conflict and modern-day warfare. I added this to my reading list after seeing a review that called it one of the best insights into the modern-day warrior mind ever written. While I can’t claim to have read every book in the genre to make that comparison myself, I can say that this book—and the personal combat experiences...

I am of the age where I could very well have been a veteran of the Vietnam War. Or, I could have died there. But I was spared that, first by student deferments and then the timeliness of the Paris Peace Talks. However, I know and have known many men who fought there. On the surface, they seem fine. Their silence about their experiences is uniform. Yet, I know one man who cannot stand to be touched. He has an exaggerated startle response at the slightest contact. And a good lady friend had a leng...

After the warrior returns home from the initiation of combat, he becomes a member of “The Club” of combat veterans. It has always been a club with its own secrets and its own societally-imposed rules of silence. Traditionally, it has been a club tied in with the mystery of gender because being a warrior was tied in with manhood. This ancient mystery combined with the silence forms an intriguing and powerful combination for attracting future members, particularly boys. You don’t join this club; y...

If a lifelong pacifist liberal claims that a book about training soldiers is a "must-read," you might assume it’s full of peacenik nonsense aimed at undermining the military, right? Believe me, that is not the case with Karl Marlantes' What It Is Like to Go to War. Marlantes brings a level of experience and insight to a subject I knew next to nothing about. Yet, I find this book so profound that I’m calling it a "must-read"—a label that rarely passes my lips. The list of people who should be re...

This wasn't an easy read. But then, nothing about war is easy, much less the psychological and spiritual effects of war on our combat vets. This was as thought-provoking, challenging, and emotionally draining as any solid book about war should be. A few caveats to add context to my review of What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes: 1) I won this book through Goodreads. 2) I am a civilian. 3) I am a US citizen. 4) I am an opponent of the vast majority of wars that we have participated in...