Book review for the most ridiculous piece of shite ever written [TSO]

Cpl Jason Washburn, Hero of the Battle of Grocery Bag Knoll

“I remember one woman walking by,” said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. “She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces.” 

If I need to even tell you how ridiculous the story is above, you probably shouldn’t be here. Hey Jason, if you blew up the woman, and her groceries, who is the guy who did the post mortem and figured out she was delivering them to you? And if she was bringing it to you, why was she walking “by”? What day did this happen on? Who else was there? AND WHY THE F WOULD YOU USE A MK19 ON AN UNARMED LADY?

Washburn is full of crap, and so is the rest of this book, WINTER SOLDIER: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. But, I went through it. I laughed, I cried, and I felt my brain melt that people would believe this crap.

I’m going to do a full review over a few posts. Today though, I want to just discuss the Author, Aaron Glantz, the guy who did the forward, Anthony Swofford, and the publisher, Haymarket Books. Trust me when I tell you that despite getting the book at a rebate from Amazon because no one has bought it, this book was the worst waste of money EVEH.

Here is Glatz’s bio, go read it for yourself. I actually work in Veterans Issues, and I have yet to ever see him involved in any of it, so not sure where that crap comes from. He wrote some other piece of crap book I am not linking to, but this was how it was billed on his website:

A brutally honest account of a reporter who discovered how popular the U.S. presence was in Iraq-and who then watched this popularity disappear as the Bush administration mishandled the war, leaving us with the intractable conflict we face today.

Really? How does that jibe with the IVAW belief that we were never popular there? That seems odd, no? I mean, all the guys that went in and testified at WSI said that they were told we would be liberators, and that they were lied to etc. So, when is it we were so popular? Or does that fit the Bush Lied People Died mantra as a better narrative?

I read constantly, and there’s only been one book I hated so much that I actually tore it apart so no one would inadvertently stumble upon it and read it. And that was Swofford’s asinine book Jarhead. And I destroyed it on page 2. On that page, he talks about how he stole unsecured stuff from fellow troops to sell at a surplus store. I don’t know what unit this clown served in, but in mine, that’s the sign of a blue falcon. If an NCO sees something unsecured, you jack the troop up, you don’t take his stuff and sell it so some asshat can have extra gear to play paintball.

But in terms of writing sheer hyperbole, you can’t beat this guy. He begins the WS book by discussing the actions of Specialist Ross McGinnis who leapt on a grenade and saved the lives of those around him. For that action, he received the Medal of Honor. Go read what Blackfive has on this hero. Why does he honor this great American and his sacrifice? Why, to compare IVAW favorably to him:

The men and women who testified at Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan in March of 2008 displayed the same kind of courage that Specialist McGinnis did: they took individual action and great risk to honor the men and women, American troops and Iraqi civilians, who have died in this misbegotten and often criminally executed war. They didn’t use their bodies; they used their narratives, the bare-knuckle stories that tell us the truth about what happens at the other end of the rifle, the missile, the bomb.

What a load of shit.

It should be noted that in relaying McGinnis’ heroism, Swofford stated that:

Early in June of 2008, President Bush awarded [McGinnis] the Bronze Star posthumously.

This moron doesn’t know the difference between a Bronze Star and the Medal of Honor, and he presumes to tell us that McGinnis’ and IVAW’s acts are equivalent?

So, I made it from the cover all the way to page ix on this book before I got pissed off. Only this time, I didn’t destroy it. Because someone has to call these asshats on their lies.

Oh, and the Publisher, Haymarket Books, that’s a socialist publisher, named after an anarchist:

Haymarket Books is a non-profit left-wing book publisher and distributor. It is the publishing house of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change. It was founded in 2000, and named in memory of the “Haymarket Martyrs” – five anarchist labor activists given the death penalty after the Haymarket Riot and now generally believed to have been innocent.

Haymarket publishes nonfiction from a left-wing or socialist perspective, with subjects focusing primarily on history and politics. It publishes both original work and out-of-print “classics.” In addition to books, it publishes a magazine, International Socialist Review, audio tapes, and political buttons.

Welcome Ace of Spades morons.

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Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Politics