I don't think you saw a military-civilian divide so much as you saw a divide between Urban Blue State Culture and the military.
I'm an Arkansas native. I have never served in the militay. But I can think of at least 30 relatives, friends, former students, and others I know who are all Marines. I have personally written letters of recommendation for three Marine Corps officer candidates.
When I inlcude members of the Army, I can add probably at least 100 others, including my own father. And that's not counting Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard vets who all push the number into the several hundreds.
In my native state, everbody has family, friends, aquaintances in the military. Military uniforms are not considered odd. Most folks can tell, at a glance, which service you're in based on the uniform. Plenty of folks have seen a dress blue Stetson, and know exactly what it means.
The same is true just over the border in Oklahoma, and Texas and Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana that all border Arkansas.
Of course, Manhattan is not Arkansas. Manhattan is Blue-State Urban America, which I think looks more and more like a foreign country.
"Above all, Kaboom is about the day to day travails of a typical platoon set smack among thousands of disillusioned and war-weary Iraqis ... without a trace of sentimentality, Mr. Gallagher draws the reader into the everyday complexities of leading soldiers from every strata of American society."
"Vivid and introspective ... [readers will] come to appreciate his evocative prose, convincing dialogue, and especially, telling vignettes of life as an American soldier in Iraq."
"[Gallagher's] exceptional narrative technique makes the soldier in-group cant both believable and coherent; his relentless pursuit of sanity in the midst of a chaotic storm of IEDs, policy changes, sheiks, civilians, and baffling missions makes this blog-based memoir an exciting read reminiscent of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead."
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I don't think you saw a military-civilian divide so much as you saw a divide between Urban Blue State Culture and the military.
ReplyDeleteI'm an Arkansas native. I have never served in the militay. But I can think of at least 30 relatives, friends, former students, and others I know who are all Marines. I have personally written letters of recommendation for three Marine Corps officer candidates.
When I inlcude members of the Army, I can add probably at least 100 others, including my own father. And that's not counting Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard vets who all push the number into the several hundreds.
In my native state, everbody has family, friends, aquaintances in the military. Military uniforms are not considered odd. Most folks can tell, at a glance, which service you're in based on the uniform. Plenty of folks have seen a dress blue Stetson, and know exactly what it means.
The same is true just over the border in Oklahoma, and Texas and Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana that all border Arkansas.
Of course, Manhattan is not Arkansas. Manhattan is Blue-State Urban America, which I think looks more and more like a foreign country.