After being totally turned off by then mid-twenties nincompoop, Colby Buzzell I knew I’d been right thirty years ago about those guys who just blithely went off to continue the trouble in Viet Nam.The same age as they, I worked at least one job, performed community service, went to university full time plus marched and protested Euro-America’s domestic and international oppression.Buzzell was like a throwback to those days for me: grass smoking, dropped out of community college, numerous short-lived, low status, low pay jobs. This guy WANTED to fight in Iraq!He thirsted to be in the infantry and fire big guns. What a waste.Luckily for me, I guess, I was 4-F, physically unfit, and couldn’t go military even I’d wanted to.Which I certainly did not!
What I’ve learned since then is that I was the asshole.Kids who hunger for war are KIDS who hunger for war usually as something to do.Life and death have as little reality to them as those universities I first attended did to me.Most kids don’t have a political agenda to condition a view of a national political organization.Those with such agendas are exceptions; they are unusual kids rather than the norm.What makes kids great cannon fodder, their normalcy.
Buzzell learned what “normal” meant and the dangers of it while in Iraq at war, but he also saw that he was no longer normal.He grew and took responsibility in what he was becoming.He learned to be intentional and in the process learned about and developed a skill that he used to benefit his comrades in arms, their families and forced humility on the armed service brass.
Buzell’s book was a shock to me and as I read I felt myself grow with him.Good job, soldier.Good job, author.