Book Review: John Crawford

“Support our troops.” Sure, everyone supports our boys in Iraq. It’s not their fault that they’re still stuck there, they deserve to come home as soon as possible.

Few people would disagree, but fewer would understand the true meaning behind these words before reading John Crawford’s illuminating book, “The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq.”

The plot, of course, is predictable. Without having even picked up the book, we know what’s going to happen; he goes to war, has a terrible time, and comes home.

However, the predictable plot and obvious ending—he lives to write the book—give Crawford the freedom to focus on his experiences in the army. He writes in short, fast-paced episodes, vivid snapshots of daily life as a soldier in Baghdad.

Crawford speaks honestly, sometimes shockingly so. Unabashedly, he tells of the desperation that leads him and his friends to acts of racism, sexism, and violent theft. The war makes normal 20-somethings no longer “give a fuck about anything except” themselves.

Crawford’s easy, conversational style is immediately appealing. His lighthearted accounts of befriending a homeless Iraqi child, riding a stolen motorcycle, and getting drunk on the fourth of July make the war seem almost fun, almost like normal life. With all this time for goofing around, it can’t be all that bad.

It is a logical assumption, but one that Crawford repeatedly subverts. Just when everything seems okay, he plunges back to war’s dark reality of pointless destruction; the narrative style brings the reader so painfully close to the truth that we can smell the feces in the streets and feel the wet remnants of human brain tissue on our shoes.

It is a bait-and-switch that, imperceptibly at first, draws the reader into the emotional realm of the soldier. Gingerly, he piques our interest with funny anecdotes and moments of suspense.

But not until the 11th chapter does he fully reveal how profoundly the war has changed him. His self-portrait reads: “25 years old and nothing to live for.” He can no longer relate to his former life.

What’s new about the book is the way it teases us with physical comedy, repels us with descriptions of carnage, and breaks our hearts as we watch the cancerous growth of the emotional wounds that ravage the soldier’s relationships with his loved ones.

What’s old about the book is its timeless message, one that we hear over and over and somehow manage to forget every time. Having read countless tragic stories of other wars, we know what to expect. War is terrible, and those who romanticize it insult those who give their lives to it.

But as we busy ourselves in the comfort and safety of our own country, Iraq seems far away. Crawford reminds us that war is all too easily forgotten and our soldiers need to return as soon as possible.