Indeed, for a city that only last summer feared it would be overrun by jihadis, Baghdad feels uncannily lacking in trauma. Perhaps Iraqis have learned how to live with their fears, but ISIS feels more threatening in European capitals than it does in Baghdad. Too complacently, Iraqis talk about ISIS in the past tense, as […]
Iraq
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Did We Have the Sense that America Cared How We Were Doing? We Did Not’
In The Atlantic in 2014, James Fallows examined how Americans and political leaders became so disconnected from those who serve in the military—and the consequences of that disconnect: If I were writing such a history now, I would call it Chickenhawk Nation, based on the derisive term for those eager to go to war, as long […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Freelancing in War Zones: Serious Journalists Left with Little Protection
Syria is the most dangerous place in the world for journalists. In the last three years at least 60 of them have been killed while covering the conflict there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Missing from the statistics is anything about the kind of journalist who goes to Syria and why. After the […]
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The Last Living Recipient of VA Benefits from the Civil War
Ms. Triplett’s pension, small as it is, stands as a reminder that war’s bills don’t stop coming when the guns fall silent. The VA is still paying benefits to 16 widows and children of veterans from the 1898 Spanish-American War. The last U.S. World War I veteran died in 2011. But 4,038 widows, sons and […]
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Longreads Member Pick: Baghdad Follies, by Janet Reitman
This week, we’re excited to feature Janet Reitman, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and the author of Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion. “Baghdad Follies” is Reitman’s 2004 story on what it was like to be a war correspondent in Iraq. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the war, Reitman reflects on her early […]
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An Iraq war veteran becomes blind during combat, and learns how to live on: When the doctors told him the blindness was irreversible, he felt a rage and despair that made him feel like his head would explode. Castro began therapy a week after waking up, and he only halfheartedly endured the rehab sessions with […]
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A man with $90,000 in debt makes some hard decisions about his life—starting with a trip to Kosovo for an IT job: Of course, all I understood at the time was JOB INTERVIEW and VIENNA. Prior to my application, I had never heard of the OSCE, and I knew next to nothing about Kosovo. My […]
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A family discovers new details about their son’s death in Iraq, and wonders why the U.S. lieutenant responsible was not punished: A year after Dave Sharrett II died, his parents, Vicki and Dave Sr., were nearly at peace. They had come to accept the Army’s explanation of how it all happened in the “fog of […]