Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John CrawfordI’d heard a lot of good things about John Crawford’s The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell, so I decided to follow up a more lighthearted book with a serious one. Also, I wanted a soldiers-eye view of the war in Iraq, as it seems hard to get something unfiltered these days.

First off, I have to say that this is one of the more gritty and harsh books that I’ve read in some time. It’s easy to get sucked into, but as it progresses, the book gets more dark and bleak, and the ending is a total punch in the gut. It doesn’t pull any punches, lobbing shot after shot at the military for their management of things. Crawford doesn’t even depict himself or fellow soldiers as completely sympathetic, instead portraying them as young people stuck in a very bad situation without much guidance or support from above.

For all the talk of supporting the soldiers, it seems that the administration in charge of those in Iraq aren’t doing a very good job of not only giving them all the equipment and necessities they need to get the job done right.

I’ve never been a proponent of the war, and reading a book like this makes me even more sick about it because of the sheer amount of human damage being done (physically and mentally) on both sides (but especially on the troops that should be given what they need to succeed). It’s not easy to take, but I highly recommend it.