Book Description
“Anyone who says there are no atheists in a foxhole never served in Third Platoon.”
Combat diaries from elite operators and commanding officers dominate the space. But what happens when regulars face the fire?
Ronny Bruce is a renaissance man: philosopher, drifter, Gen X rock ‘n’ roller, and gentleman. At thirty-two, divorced and burnt-out with the burbs, Ronny bails on his teaching career and seeks army infantry. It’s no joke when boot camp is mandatory since his marine corps’ service ended ten years beforehand. Assigned to Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 509thParachute Infantry Regiment, Ronny’s platoon hunts an Afghan foe who’s never surrendered. Half collapse from wounds.
Ronny’s decade-long postwar journey examines victory and failure. Realities include grieving over friends’ deaths and processing crimes or addictions of old battle buddies. Six men expire before thirty-five as a result of four suicides, one unexplained death, and murder. Labels for the living include felon, vagrant, drunk, addict, depressed, and suicidal. Ronny checks some boxes. Graduate, businessman, engineer, teacher, accountant, and rich describes other paths. Ronny checks some of those too.
War through the eyes of this offbeat ATLien provides explosive payoffs that get smothered by each turning page – answering an age-old question: what drives warriors over the edge?
See description and other reviews on Amazon.
An Editor’s Book Review
Character Development
Ronny Bruce is definitely a character. One of the benefits of a memoir is that the main character is often complex (i.e. he’s a real person). Some authors might write out the less likable aspects of their personality, Ronny Bruce does not. His blunt and honest approach to assessing his life doesn’t necessarily make him likable, but it makes him believable. You tend to believe the guy who tells you every detail of life without flinching when he tells you something terrible about the world.
There are other important supporting characters, but there are a lot of them. Make sure to make use of the character reference at the back of the book to keep them all straight.
Pacing
The first chapter is a doozy. It will draw you in, depress you, and possibly inspire you to keep reading. Admittedly, the pacing slows a bit from there. There is quite a bit of (relevant) background on the main character and his life before the Afghanistan War. Most of it is important to understanding who he is and why he does what he does. But it may seem a little wandering to some people.
The pacing picks up again when he is deployed in the 2009 Afghanistan war.
Writing Style
Ronny Bruce’s personality comes through in his writing, and you either like him or you don’t. There’s a lot of profanity, drugs, sex, and songs from bands that I’ve never heard of. Sometimes he surprises you with a literary reference out of the blue or a sharp analytic assessment of a situation. It’s a bit chaotic, but most people think the way he writes.
Note: I edited this book, and I do get a commission whenever it is sold. The goal of my review is to focus on the strengths of the book but note its weakness as well.