MADreads

Wounded warriors and others

February 13th, 2009 Dennis - Central

When I saw the title on Mike Sager’s new book, Wounded Warriors : Those for Whom the War Never Ends, I figured it would be about U.S. Military personnel wounded in Iraq (and maybe Afghanistan).

It turns out I was only partly right.

The book is actually a collection of articles previously published (in somewhat different form– there are no illustrations in the volume for instance) in such magazines as Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire, and the Washington Post Sunday Magazine at various times between 1984 and 2007.

The opening story does indeed deal with those wounded while on duty in the Iraq War.  I’d already read Michael Weisskopf’s Blood Brothers : Among the Soldiers of Ward 57, and am still curious about how we’re caring for our wounded.  It turns out the Marines in Sager’s story have (sort of) taken on the job of caring for themselves, with some of those written about here having convinced the powers that be to form a Wounded Warriors Regiment.  These were plans developed by some of the wounded to keep the injured as fully involved in the Marines as they can be.  Their new job, their new mission, is rehabilitation.  Working together and helping and supporting each other, their goal is to provide themselves with the support network they’ll need as they attempt to learn to use their bodies (and minds) all over again.  By insisting that they are still Marines, they refuse to allow themselves to be treated as less than they formerly were.  But the stories the Marines tell about how they were injured, and their lives since, come across less optimistically.  Like the war itself, the success of the new mission for rehabilitation is yet to be realized.

The other articles in the book don’t deal with wounded warriors, per se, but they do deal with people in a variety of situations who, either by choice or circumstance, don’t exactly fit within the parameters of what is considered normal.  One article from 1995 describes the life of a heroin addict, his not-quite realization that he’s got a problem, and his rather feeble (second) attempt to quit.  Then there’s an article from 1990 which interviews various users of “ice,” a smokable form of amphetamine, and how those who used it came to realize that the drug didn’t really make them perform tasks better, or faster, it just made them feel like they were. 

Other articles profile individuals who are outside of societal norms in different ways.  One describes the life of a 600+ pound man who attempts to navigate through life in a world that’s built for thinner people– and a society that views obesity as a human failing.  Another article looks at several different individuals of extremely high intelligence, where being the smartest person in just about any group can lead to all sorts of frustrations in dealing with people who are always one or more mental steps behind them.  When most people want relationships with people who are “like-minded,” being highly-intelligent can leave one pretty isolated (although they’re making inroads by contacting other similarly gifted individuals online).  And finally, there’s a profile of Marlon Brando, the ultimate Hollywood rebel.  Actually, it’s more of a story about how Sager attempts to contact Brando for an article he’s been assigned to write in 1987, even after Brando became known as a recluse in all matters relating to the media.  Sager’s description of the efforts he goes to and his mental gymnastics in his attempts to rationalize his efforts to Brando, when (he hopes) they finally meet, form the core of the article, and it eventually becomes obvious to Sager that he’s deluding himself with his ultimately self-serving arguments on why Brando should welcome his particular story attempt.

Overall, this collection of articles made for a pretty interesting read, although I found the lack of illustrations to be a little vexing.  Some of the stories lack currency so I’d have really loved to have had an update on some of the folks from the older stories.  How is that 600 pound man doing these days?  What happened to the crack users, the heroin-snorters, the ice-smokers?  Where are those teenage dog-killers?  And what is really happening with our wounded warriors.

Entry Filed under: Memoir & Biography, Nonfiction