CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Charleston County Public Library welcomed Jennifer Oblinger and Nick Ivey to the Main Branch Auditorium to discuss their life in and out of military service, what it's like to be a service member, and how they transitioned to veterans working in the Lowcountry.
During the hour long event, Oblinger and Ivey told stories and answered questions from an attentivee group of library patrons and visitors in the Main Library Auditorium and more than 200 people watching online through Facebook Live. The entire event was streamed on CCPL's Facebook page. Watch the video by clicking on the player on the right.
In conjunction with the Human Library Series event, we've compiled a list of books and movies that take an even closer look at servicemembers at home and at war, and the stories of veterans.
Books
The Good Soldiers by David Finkel
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. "Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences," he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.
Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way.
What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried , The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale--not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
Thank You for Your Service by David Finkel
The wars of the past decade have been covered by brave and talented reporters, but none has reckoned with the psychology of these wars as intimately as the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel. For The Good Soldiers , his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel embedded with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion during the infamous "surge," a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed them all forever. In Finkel's hands, readers can feel what these young men were experiencing, and his harrowing story instantly became a classic in the literature of modern war.
In Thank You for Your Service , Finkel has done something even more extraordinary. Once again, he has embedded with some of the men of the 2-16--but this time he has done it at home, here in the States, after their deployments have ended. He is with them in their most intimate, painful, and hopeful moments as they try to recover, and in doing so, he creates an indelible, essential portrait of what life after war is like--not just for these soldiers, but for their wives, widows, children, and friends, and for the professionals who are truly trying, and to a great degree failing, to undo the damage that has been done.
The story Finkel tells is mesmerizing, impossible to put down. With his unparalleled ability to report a story, he climbs into the hearts and minds of those he writes about. Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding, and it offers a more complete picture than we have ever had of these two essential questions: When we ask young men and women to go to war, what are we asking of them? And when they return, what are we thanking them for?
Soldier Girls by Helen Thorpe
From an award-winning, "meticulously observant" ( The New Yorker ), and "masterful" ( Booklist ) writer comes a groundbreaking account of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and how their military service affected their friendship, their personal lives, and their families.
America has been continuously at war since the fall of 2001. This has been a matter of bitter political debate, of course, but what is uncontestable is that a sizeable percentage of American soldiers sent overseas in this era have been women. The experience in the American military is, it's safe to say, quite different from that of men. Surrounded and far outnumbered by men, imbedded in a male culture, looked upon as both alien and desirable, women have experiences of special interest.
In Soldier Girls , Helen Thorpe follows the lives of three women over twelve years on their paths to the military, overseas to combat, and back home...and then overseas again for two of them. These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated. We see their families, their lovers, their spouses, their children. We see them work extremely hard, deal with the attentions of men on base and in war zones, and struggle to stay connected to their families back home. We see some of them drink too much, have illicit affairs, and react to the deaths of fellow soldiers. And we see what happens to one of them when the truck she is driving hits an explosive in the road, blowing it up. She survives, but her life may never be the same again.
Yoga for Warriors by Beryl Bender Birch
War leaves more than physical scars. Military servicemen and women bear invisible wounds--including PTS (Post-Traumatic Stress), TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), MST (Military Sexual Trauma), anxiety, and depression--all just as real and painful. If you or someone you know are just entering military service, preparing for deployment, or returning home, Yoga for Warriors offers the tools for one of the most challenging of transitions.
Here is a book for finding your way as a warrior and adapting to a peaceful life at home. The techniques of yoga and meditation have extensive scientific support for their effectiveness in relaxing the stress response, sharpening mental acuity, boosting immunity and recovery time, and promoting a general sense of health and psychological well-being. In Yoga for Warriors , acclaimed teacher Beryl Bender Birch presents a beginner-friendly approach that she originally developed while working with civilians and first-responders in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The Souvenir by Louise Steinman
Louise Steinman's father never talked about his experiences in the Pacific during WWII-like many men of his generation. All she knew was that a whistling kettle unnerved him, that Asian food was banned from the house, and that she was never to cry in front of him.
After her parents' deaths, Steinman discovered a box containing some four hundred letters her father had written to her mother during the war. Among the letters, she found a Japanese flag inscribed with elegant calligraphy. The flag said: "To Yoshio Shimizu given to him in the Great East Asian War to be fought to the end. If you believe in it, you win." Intrigued by her father's letters and compelled to know how this flag came to be in his possession, Steinman sets out on a quest to learn what happened to her father and the men of his Twenty-fifth Infantry Division.
Over the course of her exploration, Steinman decides to return the flag to the family of Yoshio Shimizu, the fallen Japanese soldier. She travels to the snow country of Japan and visits the battlefield in the Philippines where her father's division fought-the place where Yoshio lost his life and his flag. In the end, Steinman discovers a side of her father she never knew, and, astonishingly, she develops a kinship with the surviving family of his enemy.
Weaving together her father's letters with the story of her own personal journey, Steinman presents a powerful view of how war changed one generation and shaped another.
Buster: The Military Dog Who Saved a Thousand Lives by Will Barrow
With some dogs you share a boil in the bag breakfast and maybe a blanket on a cold desert floor. Some you wouldn't leave in charge of your Grandma unless you wanted to find out just how fast the old girl could run. But, if you're very, very lucky there will be the one dog you would lay down your life for - and for me that dog is Buster.
Buster, an English springer spaniel who has served his comrades and his country with unstinting devotion, has saved thousands of lives. This is the story of his partnership with RAF Police Sergeant Will Barrow, told by Will himself, describing how each came to save the other's life. It is a relationship that produced some heroic feats--including sniffing out explosive vests that led to the arrests of two suicide bombers--in the dust and desert heat of Afghanistan and beyond. Buster, uniquely, has served five tours of duty in three theatres of war (Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan)--more than any other military dog. He also won the prestigious Crufts Friends for Life Award in 2012, and has gone on to become the official lifetime mascot of the RAF Police, the only dog in history to have been honored in that manner. A best friend in dog's clothing, an RAF dog with his mossy feet firmly on the ground, Buster is truly a dog in a million.
The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden
Matthew Currier Burden founded www.blackfive.net , one of the most popular military blogs on the Internet. His blog began as an homage to a friend killed on duty in Iraq and quickly became a source of information about what was really happening in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In The Blog of War Burden presents selections from some of the best of the military blogs, the purest account of the many voices of this war. This is the first real-time history of a war, a history written even as the war continues. It offers a glimpse into the full range of military experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, from the decision to enlist right through to homecoming. There are powerful stories of soldiers in combat, touching reflections on helping local victims of terror and war, pulse-racing accounts of med-evac units and hospitals, and heartbreaking chronicles of spouses who must cope when a loved one has paid the ultimate price. The Blog of War provides an uncensored, intimate, and authentic version of life in the war zone. Dozens of voices come together in a wartime choir that conveys better than any second-hand account possibly can what it is like to serve on the front lines.
Love and War: 250 Years of Wartime Love Letters by Susan Besze Wallace
This extensive collection of wartime love letters features examples from each of this country's major conflicts. Revealing the universal agony of war and the resiliency of the human spirit, more than 505 original letters are reproduced along with period photographs of some subjects, biographical background, and historical context.
Be Safe, Love Mom by Elaine Lowry Brye
When you enlist in the United States military, you don't just sign up for duty; you also commit your loved ones to lives of service all their own.
No one knows this better than Elaine Brye, an "Army brat" turned military wife and the mother of four officers--one each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. For more than a decade she's endured countless teary goodbyes, empty chairs at Thanksgiving dinners, and sleepless hours waiting for phone calls in the night. She's navigated the complicated tangle of emotions--pride, worry, fear, hope, and deep, enduring love--that are part and parcel of life as a military mother.
In Be Safe, Love Mom Elaine braids together her own personal experiences with those of fellow parents she's met along the way. She offers gentle guidance and hard-earned wisdom on topics ranging from that first anxious goodbye to surrendering all control of your child, from finding comfort in the support of the military community and the healing power of faith to coping with the enormous sacrifices life as a military mother requires. Readers looking for encouragement and hard-to-come-by information as they travel the challenging road of having a child in uniform will find Elaine a wise and trusted friend, and Be Safe, Love Mom an essential handbook to membership in a strong and special sisterhood.
The Greatest Generation Speaks by Tom Brokaw
In the phenomenal bestseller The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw paid affecting tribute to those who gave the world so much—and who left an enduring legacy of courage and conviction. The Greatest Generation Speaks collects the vast outpouring of letters Brokaw received from men and women eager to share their intensely personal stories of a momentous time in America’s history. Some letters tell of the front during the war, others recall loved ones in harm’s way in distant places. They offer first-hand accounts of battles, poignant reflections on loneliness, exuberant expressions of love, and somber feelings of loss.
As Brokaw notes, “If we are to heed the past to prepare for the future, we should listen to these quiet voices of a generation that speaks to us of duty and honor, sacrifice and accomplishment. I hope more of their stories will be preserved and cherished as reminders of all that we owe them and all that we can learn from them.”
The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs--each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.
Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor and betrayal.
Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances.
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker
From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature's most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad , as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.
The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman--Helen. In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war's outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers. Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.
When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents. Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis's people, but also of the ancient world at large.
Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war--the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead--all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life. She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis's perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker's latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives--and it is nothing short of magnificent.
Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo
From the Children's Laureate of England, a stunning novel of the First World War, a boy who is on its front lines, and a childhood remembered. Includes After Words bonus features.
As the enemy lurks in the darkness, Thomas struggles to stay awake through the night. He has lived through the terror of gas attacks and watched friends die by his side. But in the morning, Thomas will be forced to confront an even greater horror.
As the minutes tick by, Thomas remembers his childhood spent deep in the countryside with his mother, his brothers, and Molly, the love of his life. But each minute that passes brings Thomas closer to something he can't bear to to think about--the moment when the war and its horrific consequences will change his life forever.
Movies
In an immersive narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Features testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.
In January, 2004, in Al-Falluja, Iraq, a documentary film crew follows an infantry squad of the 82nd Airborne, US Army. Cameras accompany the squad of seven on day and night patrols, as they watch their backs, kick down doors, search for weapons, interrogate women, detain a few people, and listen to the complaints of locals. At their barracks, a former Baathist retreat called Dreamland, the men talk: about why they enlisted, civilian prospects, feelings about the war and Iraqis, where they were when a comrade died a few weeks before. We see them wait for translators and try a few words of Arabic; we hear their frustrations. We watch them pressured to reenlist. Tensions mount in Falluja.
Three soldiers offer viewers a close-up and deeply personal view of the war in Iraq in this documentary. Filmmaker Deborah Scranton gave digital video cameras to three National Guard volunteers who were called up for duty in Iraq and asked them to keep a visual diary of what they saw and how they felt about it. The three men who took Scranton up on her offer were Sgt. Zack Bazzi, Spc. Mike Moriarty, and Sgt. Steve Pink. Bazzi is a Lebanese immigrant who previously fought in Bosnia and Kosovo and loves the thrill of battle, though he has serious reservations about the nature of the American occupation and feels most of his fellow soldiers are dangerously unaware of the habits and customs of the Iraqis. Moriarty is a husband and father who volunteered for service after the terrorist attacks of September 11; he's a proud warrior and loyal to his fellow soldiers, though he's come to hate the sting of battle. And Pink is a carpenter and would-be writer who joined the Guard to help raise money for college; his dark sense of humor often rises to the surface as he confronts the uglier aspects of the conflict. Scranton took the footage shot by the soldiers (sometimes uploaded by Internet just hours after a battle) and fashioned it into a story of three different men united by a single cause who are fiercely loyal to their fellow fighting men and women, even as they become increasingly cynical about the causes and motivations behind the war. The War Tapes was screened in competition at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.
Lioness tells the story of a group of female Army support soldiers who were part of the first program in American history to send women into direct ground combat. Without the same training as their male counterparts but with a commitment to serve as needed, these young women fought in some of the bloodiest counterinsurgency battles of the Iraq war and returned home as part of this country’s first generation of female combat veterans. Lioness makes public, for the first time, their hidden history.
Mathilde is waiting desperately for her fiance to return from the war. When bad news arrives she refuses to believe he is dead. Instead, she begins her own investigation into his infantry, hiring a private detective and piecing together his war stories.