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Title details for The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford - Available

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell

An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq

by John Crawford
Patrick Lawlor
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
The only book about the war in Iraq by a soldier on the ground-destined to become a classic of war literature.


John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition-it had seemed a small sacrifice to give up one weekend a month and two weeks a year in exchange for a free education. But one semester short of graduating, and newly married, he was called to active duty-to serve in Kuwait, then on the front lines of the invasion of Iraq, and ultimately in Baghdad. While serving in Iraq, Crawford began writing short nonfiction stories, his account of what he and his fellow soldiers experienced in the war. At the urging of a journalist embedded with his unit, he began sending his pieces out of the country via an anonymous Internet e-mail account.


In a voice at once raw and immediate, Crawford's work vividly chronicles the daily life of a young soldier in Iraq-the excitement, the horror, the anger, the tedium, the fear, the camaraderie. All together, the stories slowly uncover something more: the transformation of a group of young college students-innocents-into something entirely different.


In the tradition of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, this haunting and powerful, brutal but compellingly honest book promises to become the lasting, personal literary account of the United States' involvement in Iraq.


"Lawlor is masterful. Every now and then, you get a narrator who's so good he becomes indistinguishable from the character he's portraying. That would be Lawlor. He manages to convey the grittiness of the country, the gruffness of the soldiers, and Crawford's simmering anger and resentment with seamless ease." —Sandy Bauers, Philadelphia Inquirer


"A tremendous book...incredibly gripping and incredibly well-written"—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 1, 2005

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781400121748
      • File size: 156846 KB
      • Duration: 05:26:45

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 940
    • Text Difficulty: 4-6

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Crawford, formerly a soldier in the Florida Army National Guard, was a student in college when he got word, on his honeymoon, that his unit had been called up. He ended up taking part in the invasion of Iraq and stayed in the country for some time after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Crawford is candid about what he saw and experienced: the good, the horrible, the ridiculous, the honorable, and the despicable. This reminiscence is competently read by Patrick Lawlor. His voice has a youthful quality that fits well with the author's age. He has great energy and is able to capture the moods of any situation. M.T.F. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 1, 2005
      Having joined the National Guard for the tuition benefits, Crawford, like many of his contemporaries, never expected to do any heavy lifting. Early on, he admits his is "the story of a group of college students... who wanted nothing to do with someone else's war." But when his Florida National Guard unit was activated, he was shipped to Kuwait shortly before the invasion of Iraq. Armed with shoddy equipment, led by incompetent officers and finding release in the occasional indulgence in pharmaceuticals, Crawford cared little for the mission and less for the Iraqis. "Mostly we were guarding gas stations and running patrols," he explains. As for Iraqi civilians, "I didn't give a shit what happened to any of them," he confesses after inadvertently saving an Iraqi boy from a mob beating. Crawford's disdain grows with each extension of his tour, and he leaves Iraq broke, rudderless and embittered. Unfortunately, Crawford dresses up his story in strained metaphors and tired cliches such as "truth engulfed me like a storm cloud" and "you can never go back home." Despite its pretensions, Crawford's story is not the classic foot soldier's memoir and should provide enough gristle to please military memoir fans.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:940
  • Text Difficulty:4-6

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