Tell Me a True War Story

I never heard any war stories growing up. I didn’t have family members or close friends in the military. I heard that some guys I knew in high school enlisted after graduation, and a few girls. I saw the ROTC cadets in their uniforms every Thursday during college and noticed people in uniforms at baseball games, parades, the occasional wedding. But all I “knew” about war was what I saw in movies.

In grad school, I wrote a thesis about those war movies. It wasn’t about soldiers, really, but it could have been. And maybe it should have been, but I’m glad it wasn’t. You know why? Nobody reads Master’s theses.

And soldiers’ stories need to be read.

That’s why I’m starting this series. I’m not the first person to ask soldiers and veterans to tell their stories, and I won’t be the last. But I believe it is worth doing over and over. Whatever your politics, whatever you think about war or foreign policy, the fact remains that Americans have risked their lives for over fifteen years for reasons that few of us fully understand in hot, dusty places that few of us have been to. I don’t know how to shoot a gun or defuse a bomb, and I’m really glad I don’t know. I’m good at listening, though, and at asking questions. I want to better understand this war that has defined my conscious life but which I know so little about. Not on a geo-political level. I’ve got Google for that. It’s the stories I am hungry for; it’s knowledge about the experience that I’m looking for. I know that on some level soldiers fight so that other Americans don’t have to know these things, but I’m tired of my own ignorance. There’s enough of that going around these days.

So, yes, this project is for me. But it’s also for them. It’s for you. It’s for anyone who hungers to know more about the experiences and the perspectives of the Americans who have served since 9/11.

Although I think there’s great value in simply asking soldiers and veterans for their stories, I have a slightly more specific project in mind. I want to get young soldiers’ and veterans’ take on popular media representations of soldiers and veterans. Other people have sort of done this before, but articles like this one and this one do something closer to fact-checking. A real-life bomb disposal technician dismantles all the implausibilities in Hurt Locker, for instance. That’s cool, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for — or rather, it’s not all that I’m looking for.

I’ve been on a personal journey to think more critically about popular media’s representations of — well, everything, but especially of war. While most of those who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are home now, there are tons of movies and documentaries and podcasts and tv shows about our contemporary wars floating around. I want to know what to think about them from real people who would really know.

So here’s the deal. If you’re a soldier or a veteran and you are interested in this project, comment here or email me at gracemafoster@gmail.com. I’d love to have a conversation with you about movies, podcasts, tv shows, even the nightly news. I want to know what you think about how others represent you and your experiences, and I want to give you a chance to tell a “true war story” to balance out the untrue ones. (To be clear — to me, a war story doesn’t have to be a combat story, though it certainly could be.) My questions might look something like this, and, of course, they are all optional:

  1. Do you watch war movies?
  2. Do you keep up with other types of popular media about war (like the Serial podcast, season 2, or Humans of New York’s series about veterans)?
  3. What’s the best war movie you’ve ever seen? Why do you think it’s the best?
  4. What’s the worst? Why? Which one have you seen the most recently?
  5. What do you think about how soldiers / veterans are represented in the movies you watch? About how combat is represented?
  6. Is there anything you want people to know about your service?
  7. Tell me a story. Any story.

In exchange, I promise to represent your responses faithfully. I promise, too, that you can help me decide the direction this project should take. I would really value your input — that’s the point, after all.

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