As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard

This book is a real gem, a narrative written by a Washington Post reporter which focusses on five members of Virginia's National Guard who are deployed to Iraq for slightly more than a year. They include Miranda, who's a senior at William and Mary; Ray, a grandfather who served in Vietnam; Kate, from rural Virginia who enlists and gets married right before shipping out; Craig, a recent grad who has an eye for business and who trains as a helicopter pilot, and Mark, a Virginia Military Institute grad. They span all social classes, include officers and enlisted, both genders, young and old They share a commitment to service and they all share in the rigors of readjustment when they arrive back in the civilian world. What I liked about this book is that often we're encouraged to think of war as a separate country, unlike anything that the rest of us do or will ever do. In this book, you see that while people are deployed, life goes on -- basements flood, babies are born, people graduate from college. This is a rich and compelling set of stories about real people and the sacrifices they make during war and for many years afterwards, as they struggle to live in communities where those sacrifices are unappreciated and misunderstood.

The focus is not on combat and war, but rather a rare insight into the sacrifices of National Guard citizen soldiers. This informative, well-researched book follows the lives of 5 individuals and their families just before, during, and after their mobilization to active military service in Iraq. Although the book does describe some combat-related action and the human tragedy of war, the focus is on individual personalities and differing backgrounds of the soldiers including their subsequent readjustments after being released from active duty. This easy-reading book walks the reader through some of the complexities of the military including how mobilization, the Army bureaucracy, and combat affected the soldiers, their families, and their friends. The general public should read this enjoyable book for an understanding of how individual citizen-soldiers and their families sacrifice in answering the call to duty in a story that touches the heart. In the case of one citizen-soldier, Ray Johnson, this was his second war for the 58 year-old Vietnam veteran - that is real patriotism!

This book chronicles 6 people's experiences with and in the Iraq war; not set in Iraq but rather on the home front. Most people don't even think about what soldiers have to go through once they get home from war but members of the National Guard are meant to just step right back into their lives and this is a fascinating look at how challenging that transition can be. I developed a different understanding of what this war means and truly appreciating the sacrifice these vets make by heading off to war. It's a timely story and one that should be told. I hope to find out more about these people--I feel so invested in them already. This book will make you tear up but also make you laugh. Highly recommended.

Davenport does a stellar job of accurately capturing the voices of these soldiers and their struggles of coming home after being away for so long. Their stories are moving and gut-wrenching so be prepared to get misty eyed. Regardless of political point of view, it is hard to ignore the difficulty they have readjusting to civilian life and the messy aftermath that is the Veterans Assistance program. I would recommend this book to anyone. Particularly if you happen to know one of the 1% of the population who volunteered to be a citizen soldier. Davenport captures their voices and personalities with grace and you will feel as if you know these soldiers and their loved ones once finished. These soldiers have been heard and now that their stories are being told this book can aid in having conversations about PSTD and reintegration into a society that sometimes seems to forget that there are fathers, sons, sisters and daughters that are being asked to give years of their lives away from loved ones.

Have your Kleenex ready when you read these stories of five National Guard soliders called to fight in Iraq. Whether you support the war or not is irrelevant, this book is about real people, their feelings and struggles. Davenport personalizes the soldiers in a way that they are pushed out of anonymity and into your heart. A great first book!