Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Green on Blue. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.Ackerman's new memoir is Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning.
From the transcript of his interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly:
KELLY: It also prompts the question of - as you look at the Middle East now, to what extent it's all one war?Visit Elliot Ackerman's website.
ACKERMAN: I think it's absolutely all one war, and I think that's been one of the things and one of the reasons that I wrote this book and came back, was this intuitive understanding that whatever we announced in Iraq when we left in 2011, you know, that it wasn't over, that it's still not over today, as we're sitting here - it's still playing out. And one of the things that's been difficult, I think, for my generation of veterans is that because the wars haven't ended, every single one of us who've left the war have had to basically make a separate peace, had - to a certain point - say, you know what? I've done my last deployment. I know other people are going to be deploying. But I'm finished.
KELLY: And what does that sound like? Is it, my war is over?
ACKERMAN: I can remember many occasions talking with friends of mine, saying, you know, we wish - you know, we wish this was even like Vietnam, when it was just sort of - it was over, or the Second World War, where it was over, and we would all go on and go to business school or do whatever we were going to do next, and it was clear there was no choice to be made; this was done.
And for this generation of veterans, I think that's been complicated because...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Green on Blue.
My Book, The Movie: Green on Blue.
My Book, The Movie: Dark at the Crossing.
The Page 69 Test: Dark at the Crossing.
Writers Read: Elliot Ackerman (February 2017).
--Marshal Zeringue