Sunday, February 16, 2020

Book Review: Love My Rifle More Than You (Iraq War, woman soldier)(OT)


Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the US Army, by Kayla Williams (Norton, 2005, 290 pages, $24.95)



First read it years ago. More recently, for a veterans’ book club. Loved it then, love it now.

Love My Rifle More Than You is the book your mother should not read before her first daughter goes off to boot camp or deploys or even goes away to college, but I loved it – ah! the excitement, the fast pace, the swearing, the Army slang and terminology that was once so familiar. What will turn up next just around the corner? Will our hero talk back to her superior again – and get away with it? And what about the alcohol, the drugs, the sexual tension, the weapons and ammo, the absurdity of it all, the danger, the lack of sleep, the dirt and rain and heat and sand and stench, and the guys (mostly a few years younger than author Kayla Williams): some of which she encountered before the Army? And why the Army, anyway? Was she desperate or did she want to test herself, to see if she could do it, to find out what she was made of?

Joining the Army was almost anti-climactic for Williams, in her mid-twenties, a bit older than your average boot camper. She had been married. She had had an Arabic boyfriend. She had a college degree. She even had a house.

Ah, but the excitement, the danger, the alcohol, the big guns, the guys (OK, they were smelly and dirty after days in the desert but so were the female soldiers), the absurdity of so many war-time decisions, the unleadership of so many NCOs and junior officers, the fast pace, the Army slang and terminology, the lack of sleep, the swearing, the drugs, the sex or lack thereof, the weapons and ammo – not your father’s war or your grandfather’s war.

But, Wait!

But, wait a minute! I was deployed, too. I had the same training as the author (but of a much higher rank). But none of this happened to me. Part of me wishes it had. But then I can always read about it happening to someone else. . . . .


I do know that some similar situations Williams encountered did occur in the Army: I had group conversations with other female soldiers with jobs that differed from mine who recounted similar stories, but the field of military intelligence (MI) (and the medical field, too) is more civilianized, more academic (intellectual) than others so Williams’ experience with other MI soldiers did surprise me. Not that I disbelieve her: I just think her situation was really rare.

Writing Style

Again, a fast pace that keeps you going. I finished it in less than a week.

Lots of dialogue and short paragraphs that make you not want to put it down but, instead, to keep reading to find out what happens next.

What You Will Remember, What Will Stay With You

The first time through, I had been closer in time to my own deployment as a female MI soldier and I don’t recall the swearing and sex-talk in the book. I do recall the author’s small unit on the mountain and knew that she had married a wounded soldier (not in the book but somehow I knew).

This time through, perhaps because a group of male veterans was reading Love My Rifle for our veterans’ book club and remarked on the rawness of the writing, I will remember the language and the camaraderie typical of the military and the absurdity of so much.

This tale (or series of tales) is riveting. We only wish she had told us more about boot camp and the schools she attended to learn her military specialty. We also suspect there was more to being deployed to Iraq – more formations, more paperwork, more military ‘stuff.’ And we wonder how she found the time to read 200 books in less than a year.

All in all, read Love My Rifle with a grain of salt. As an adventure, it is above and beyond!



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Caveat: this time around, I received the book as part of a grant for a veterans’ book club.

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