War memoir. The name of the genre creates a compelling dichotomy of near opposite sentiments by combining the dark, terrifying, and violent with a romantic French word describing recollection and evoking melancholy or wistfulness. What makes war memoirs so significant and compelling is that they describe the experiences of those who have survived something as elemental and primitive as love but not experienced by all. War is an event that can draw feelings and descriptions from people as powerfully as love, and memoirs offer noncombatants a gateway into understanding war from a soldier’s viewpoint.
The genre tends to conjure images of a grizzled elderly white American or British male soldier, recounting horror stories from a World War, scribbling in a worn leather notebook in a trench or a Parisian café on leave, missing his sweetie back home. And, indeed, many of the classics of the genre are like that. But war never ceases, and the person recounting the story today can be a 30-year-old man or woman of any ethnicity who plays video games in a desert encampment during hours off from patrols…and misses a sweetie back home.
Determining what a battle memoir truly is can be challenging. By nature, the book must be nonfiction, thereby eliminating works such as Catch-22 and The Red Badge of Courage. For the purposes of this list, however, several autobiographical novels are included, as the subject is clearly based on the experiences of the soldier author. This category would feature Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon and Frederic Manning’s The Middle Parts of Fortune (see below), as well as The Enormous Room by e.e. cummings. Books written by victims, for example, will be omitted, thereby eliminating such excellent titles as The Diary of Anne Frank.
Narrowing the field
Even with these restrictions, there have been too many conflicts worldwide over time to come up with a core collection and keep it to a reasonable number. Merely a single book from each faction of every clash would bring the count into the hundreds. Some of the most fascinating memoirs may come from the littlest known hostilities, or from a perspective one may not consider. By and large, my list of core “classics” is tied to wars most familiar to Western readers. The newer titles listed are largely by those involved in recent or ongoing campaigns about which there is still much to discover. Additionally, this list leans toward memoirs by enlisted troops rather than high-ranking officers, as the accounts of such leaders tend to be more focused on their leadership roles than on the day-to-day realities of wartime.
There is no overt reason to weed a war memoir from any era, provided collectors gauge its appropriateness to their patron base. An academic library with a strong history department may well keep every such title it catalogs, while perhaps a public library in a town famous for antebellum events will focus solely on Civil War memoirs.
Starred titles (
) are essential for all collections.
Benjamin Brudner is Head of Reference at Curry College, Milton, MA. He is an armchair general and has been a reviewer for LJ for two and a half years
Classics
Billings, John D. Hardtack & Coffee; or, The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Bison: Univ. of Nebraska. 1993. 413p. ISBN 9780803261112. pap. $19.95.
This is an unusual war memoir in that it is far more focused on daily camp life of soldiers (in this case Civil War Union soldiers) than battles. Billings’s humor and short, nonlinear chapters expose readers to circumstances that are all too familiar to fans of this genre: hunger, endless marches, bad equipment, cold weather, hot weather, fear, and boredom.
Caputo, Philip. A Rumor of War. Holt. 2014. 356p. ISBN 9780812430561. $28; pap. ISBN 9780805046953. $18; ebk. ISBN 9781429959667.
Caputo’s Vietnam memoir helped clearly define this war as one from which boys returned as old men. The book calls into question readers’ morality and forces them to ask what they would be willing to do to survive hell on Earth. Ceaseless body counts and other savage metrics demonstrate how the conflict destroyed psyches.
Gellhorn, Martha. The Face of War. Atlantic Monthly. 1994. 360p. ISBN 9780871132116. pap. $17.95; ebk. ISBN 9780802191168.
War correspondent Gellhorn reported from battlefronts for nearly 50 years. The Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, the Panama Invasion, she reported on them all firsthand and in vivid detail. This amazing, grim memoir demonstrates how people in war can come to represent ideals, even though their beliefs may be as varied as their personalities.
Jünger, Ernst. Storm of Steel. Penguin Classics. 2004. 320p. tr. from German by Michael Hofmann. ISBN 9780142437902. pap. $17.
An important book for libraries to carry, this is the memoir of a young German soldier in the Great War. Though it is unfairly criticized for “glorifying war,” the book maintains that war is an ultimate experience of sorts and one that makes its participants become something extremely human.
Manning, Frederic. The Middle Parts of Fortune. Random House UK. 2014. 342p. ISBN 9780857065957. $29.99; pap. ISBN 0099589230. $16.95; ebk. ISBN 9781921799310.
A favorite of Ernest Hemingway and William Boyd, this extremely autobiographical “novel” recounts Australian soldier Manning (or “Bourne”) and his brotherhood of comrades’ battle for survival in World War I. Manning’s descriptions of battlefields are beyond haunting and are akin to detached waking nightmares.
Martin, Joseph Plumb. A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin. Signet: NAL. 2010. 288p. ISBN 9780451531582. pap. $6.95.
This is the longest continuous account of the Revolutionary War by an enlisted man. Plumb’s chronicles of battles reveal the often glossed-over brutality of this war, while balancing the narrative with his exploits as an outdoorsman. Rare unfiltered descriptions of some of America’s great military leaders round out this important book.
Milligan, Spike. Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. Penguin. 2012. 144p. ebk. ISBN 9780241966150.
The first in a series of seven World War II memoirs of equal merit by soldier, comedian, and writer Milligan offers classic British humor that comes off as precedent to Monty Python, but the books also touchingly mourn the loss of his close comrades, as well as the loss of prewar Europe.
Poetry of the First World War: An Anthology. Oxford Univ. 2014 . 368p. ed. Tim Kendall. ISBN 9780199581443. $19.95; pap. ISBN 9780198703204. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9780191642050.
An excellent sampling of the best war poets of World War I including Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Robert Graves. Poetry can be a very visceral form of memoir, offering intimate insight into the mind and experience of the writer that is often not possible in prose.
Roosevelt, Theodore. The Rough Riders. Empire Bks. 2011. 136p. ISBN 9781421894645. $23.95; pap. ISBN 9781619492349. $7.99.
Roosevelt’s recounting of his leadership of this unlikely patchwork battalion of Harvard graduates, Native Americans, Badlands ranchers, and others is as American as it gets. Despite being the commanding officer, this future president insisted on fighting at the front of the contingent, creating an account of the Spanish American War by an officer who suffers and takes an enlisted man’s risks.
Sassoon, Siegfried. Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Penguin Classics. 2013. 272p. ISBN 9780143107163. pap. $16.
A classic among classics, while this may be a “fictionalized” account of Sassoon’s experiences in the trenches of World War I, it seems the only fictionalized parts are the names of his characters. Sassoon’s story features an arc found in many other war memoirs: he begins eager for combat and glory and ends as a disillusioned, angry, broken veteran. Sassoon’s writing makes him familiar and relatable, allowing the reader to picture themselves in these terrifying straits.
Sledge, E.B. With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. Presidio. 2007. 384p. ISBN 9780891419068. pap. $7.99; ebk. ISBN 9780307549587.
Cold and unflinching, Sledge’s account of the neglected Pacific theater takes readers through two of the most hellish battles of arguably any war and the mental journey of the author back from the brink of insanity. The American World War II counterpart to Robert Graves’s classic Goodbye to All That.
Walter, Jakob. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier. Doubleday. 1993. 208p. ed. Marc Raeff. ISBN 9780140165593. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9780307817563.
Few armies were dragged on as long or as grueling marches as Napoleon’s Grand Army. Written with surprising skill, this memoir is as much a testament to human endurance as to the interminable, driving will of Bonaparte.
Watkins, Sam R. Co. Aytch: A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War. Touchstone. 2003. 132p. ISBN 9780743255417. pap. $9.99.
This lively memoir is part of an ilk within the genre that contends with the harsh barbarism of combat using wry humor. Surviving impossible situations and seemingly countless battles, Confederate soldier Watkins manages not only to capture clearly a soldier’s experience but also inadvertently to write a solid history of the war itself.
Recent Wars
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Sarah Crichton: Farrar. 2008. 229p. ISBN 9780374105235. $24; pap. ISBN 9780374531263. $13; ebk. ISBN 9780374706524.
It is common in war memoirs to read stories of soldiers leaving for war as 18-year-old boys and returning aged. In the case of savage wars occurring in Africa, children who are forced into service and often drugged are used as pawns in urban combat. Beah portrays a particularly ugly side of battle.
Buzzell, Colby. My War: Killing Time in Iraq. Berkley. 2006. 368p. ISBN 9780425211366. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781101099049.
Far from the stereotypical scribbling in a trench, this memoir began as a blog while Buzzell served as a machine gunner in Iraq. Tasked with locating and killing all noncompliant forces, this sardonic and witty nontraditional soldier finds himself part warrior, part journalist.
Castner, Brian. The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows. Anchor. 2013. 240p. ISBN 9780307950871. pap. $15; ebk. ISBN 9780385536219.
As the head of a unit responsible for advance disarming of bombs and IEDs, Caster would sometimes be called upon to take “the long walk” to disarm a device manually when technology failed. As well as describing combat, the book also masterfully portrays the struggle many soldiers encounter for peace and sanity after returning home.
Gallagher, Matt. Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War. Da Capo. 2011. 336p. ISBN 9780306819674 pap. $16.99; ebk. ISBN 9780306818981.
Another memoir based on the blog of a soldier in combat during the Iraq conflict, this is the moving, transformational journey of party “bro” Gallagher who turns compassionate lieutenant. The government has now restricted soldier blogging, but some archives are available, such as at kaboomwarjournalarchive.blogspot.com.
Goodell, Jessica & John Hearn. Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq. Casemate. 2011. 192p. ISBN 9781612000015. $24.95.
Goodell’s marine unit was tasked with a special service: Mortuary Affairs, i.e., recovering bodies of fallen American soldiers in Iraq and preparing them to be returned home. This is not only an excellent book about the grisly, necessary aspects of war no one thinks about but a revealing look at the sexism prevalent in the armed forces.
Grenier, Robert L. 88 days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary. S. & S. 2015. 464p. ISBN 9781476712079. $28; pap. ISBN 9781476712086. $17; ebk. ISBN 9781476712093.
In the U.S. war in Afghanistan, CIA agents were soldiers, spies, and diplomats. Within three months of unbelievable events, encounters, and reverses, Hamid Karzai’s bid for power was squelched despite bureaucracy in the United States attempting to undermine the efforts of the author and his team.
Owen, Mark & Kevin Maurer. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. NAL. 2014. 396p. ISBN 9780525953722. $26.95; pap. ISBN 9780451468741. $17.99; ebk. ISBN 9781101611302.
A gripping account of one of the highest-profile missions executed in modern warfare. The Navy SEAL is an international symbol of military excellence, and the story of this mission and their training is essential to understanding contemporary combat.
Parnell, Sean & John Bruning. Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan. Morrow Paperbacks. 2013. 384p. ISBN 9780062066404. pap. $14.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062066411.
A mountain platoon made up of a diverse group of Americans engages in over a year of consistent combat in Afghanistan. Considered one of the most detailed and realistically told modern war memoirs, this story has great bravado and heart.
Shakur, Sanyika (aka Kody Scott). Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member. Grove. 2004. 400p. ISBN 9780802141446. pap. $14.95; ebk. ISBN 9780802198235.
Gang war is war. There are uniforms, military-grade weapons, leaders, and a battle primarily for territory and resources. The threat of death or capture is constant, and there is no going home, because the battleground is home. Written from solitary confinement, Monster is the memoir of one of the Crips’ most ruthless soldiers, who was recruited at age 12 and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds.
Turner, Brian. Here, Bullet. Alice James. 2005. 80p. ISBN 9781882295555. pap. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781938584145.
A memoir in verse by a modern soldier poet. Infantry team leader Turner’s unique missive from the Iraqi front is filled with loneliness, detachment, and at times surrealism.
Graphic Novels
Glazman, Sam. A Sailor’s Story. Dover. 2015. 176p. ISBN 9780486798127. pap. $19.95.
Illustrated in soft, dreamlike black and white, this graphic memoir chronicles naval experiences in World War II. A simply told story about the fear, camaraderie, and heroism that was pervasive on destroyer the USS Stevens.
Audio
Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families. Blackstone Audio. ed. Andrew Carroll. 2006. 17+ hrs. ISBN 9780786173129. CD/MP3. $13.99.
Although it is available in print, this work is more powerful in audio. In 2004, a group of well-known authors (including Orson Scott Card, Tobias Wolff, and Marilyn Nelson) received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to conduct writing workshops for soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. This broad range of short, personal war and military family narratives is the result.
DVDs
Restrepo. 93 min. Tim Hetherington & Sebastian Junger. Virgil Films. 2010. DVD UPC 0829567073322. $9.99.
Embedded within the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, two journalists film the 15-month deployment in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, an area of extremely heavy fighting. The footage is raw, the stories compelling, and the filmmakers almost entirely hands off. A warning: this film contains footage of deaths of both soldiers and civilians.
Severe Clear. 93 min. Kristian Fraga. Sirk Prods. 2011. DVD UPC 815300010358. $9.99.
This patchwork of footage captured by Lt. Michael T. Scotti during Operation Iraqi Freedom doesn’t claim to make any political statement; it simply reports on Scotti’s experience and acts as a witness to war.
The War. 900 min. Ken Burns & Lynn Novick. PBS. 2007. DVD UPC 0841887052122. $99.99.
This 14-hour World War II documentary series is heavily reliant on the accounts of veterans, especially Sen. Daniel Inouye, Paul Fussell, and Sidney Phillips, who often recount their memories.
Video game
Valiant Hearts: The Great War. UbiSoft. Platforms: Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Android, iOS. Download. $14.99.
Based on letters written during World War I, this puzzle-centric game follows four characters: American soldier Freddie; older Frenchman Emile; Emile’s son-in-law, German soldier Karl; and Anna, a Belgian nurse. A heartbreaking tale of love, separation, and both visible and invisible scars punctuated by humor and terror.
Websites
Six Word Memoirs and IAVA
www.sixwordmemoirs.com/iava/index.php
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) teamed up with SMITH magazine, creator of the Six-Word Memoir Project, to collect the six-word memoirs of veterans returning (or still deployed) in these two areas. Perusing these is like flipping channels through the entire gamut of emotion: from “Bits and pieces in the bag” to “2B or not 2B that’s Battleship.”
The Veterans History Project
www.loc.gov/vets
This incredible endeavor preserves for public searching the personal stories and recollections of thousands of American veterans of every war since World War I.
The Developing Schedule
MAR BRAZIL
Apr POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
MAY Spanish-Language Fiction
JUN TRANSGENDER ReaDING
JUL MILITARY ROMANCE
To submit titles (new and/or backlist), contact Barbara Genco four to six months before issue dates listed above (email: bgenco@mediasourceinc.com)