Book Review: Dead Soldier (mistakenly classified as deceased. . . .killed before his time - on paper)

Dead Soldier: A Story of the Living, by Carmelo Rodriguez (Absolute Author Publishing House, 2019, 182 pages, $10.99)

(Dead Soldier is a selection for the second year of the Veterans Book Group in Howard County, Maryland. This review, part one, is being written before the VBG meets and a second blog will appear after it meets, to include the views of others besides myself. In addition, the book's author will take part in the discussion in March via Zoom.) And, yes, there is a dog*.

"Dead Soldier, a story of the living, the memoir of Sergeant Carmelo Rodriguez who was mistakenly declared dead. Now he battles for his identity BACK!"

Imagine This 

Killed before your time - on paper at least.

Imagine being injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), medically discharged from the Army, currently attending college, when you receive a letter from the Veterans Administration, a declaration of death - your own! Living in New York City, you spend hours on hold the next day with the VA, trying to correct the error - to no avail. 

But it's not only the VA (and you are not the only one) - it's also the IRS and SSA and credit cards and not being able to afford tuition to finish the semester without the GI bill payments which have also stopped. Many, if not all agencies exchange information in order to prevent fraud from the bad guys - but sometimes things backfire and it seems almost no number of phone calls and visits to offices and writing letters and having to go up the chain of command and show identification. . . . 

Dead Soldier tells the true tale of the next several months of waiting (on hold), of trying to convince lawyer after lawyer to take your case (but no attorney has experience in this area), of taping your own vlogs** about the situation, while working full-time - until finally you get a strange phone call that sets the solution in motion. . . . 

Dead Soldier

The book comes full circle - it ends with the beginning (the beginning repeats the end) and within chapters we read about author Rodriguez' love for the Army and his Battle Buddies alternating with the lack of progress in his case, justifiably losing his temper time and time again, and reliving nightmares about the Iraq War. But life goes on and 'Rod' works out (and is injured) and looks forward to the weekends that he has custody of his toddler son.

In addition, you may notice the creative punctuation and unique sentence structures. Nevertheless, the discussion of this book by veterans (with the author) next week should be intriguing!

Caveat: This book was sent to me for review.

*Rodriguez and his girlfriend have a dog and a cat, a fact I missed the first time through the book!

**LivingThe LifeOfADeadman.com