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Have you written about the war?

Earlier this week I joined in Ed Champion's five-part roundtable about Nicholson Baker's new book, Human Smoke. The non-fiction work collects little scraps from historical documents, memoirs, and letters, stitching them together into a new picture of the lead-up to World War II.

The book spent a lot of time exploring contrasts between writers. On one end of the spectrum, we had Joseph Goebbels, an author who stopped writing his novel to become Hitler's horrific propaganda minister; on the other end we had the writer Christopher Isherwood begging for a non-violent solution to the conflict.

That contrast between two writers, one who failed to stop a war and another who managed to incite his countrymen to murder millions, has haunted me for weeks.

What should writers do during wartime? Should we remain apolitical? Or should we be leading the pacifist charge? The comments section awaits you. To get you started, here's what Isherwood wrote about non-violent response to Nazi aggression, a difficult, thought-provoking quote: "I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering, enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate.”

For better or for worse, I've been obsessed with war writing the last few weeks.

I interviewed soldier and memoirist Jason Christopher Hartley last week, and I recently participated in Ed Champion's roundtable discussion of Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke.

This nonfiction book explores the build-up to World War II in intricate detail, challenging countless preconceived notions about how that terrible conflict began.

It's a great exercise for any writer, the chance to explore the rubbish bin of history, pulling out all the stories that historians tossed over the years. Today's installment includes the great writers Sarah Weinman, Levi Asher, and Brian Francis Slattery.

If you're looking for a little bit of historical context or inspiration for a new project, you need to check out this week-long roundtable.

"The issue of responsibility — whether the so-called “good Germans” should be castigated because they couldn’t prevent this from happening — has long been an issue taken up by second-generation Holocaust historians. (Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners comes to mind.) But I was fascinated by the ways Baker pins this on political ideologies. He doesn’t outright blame people. He seems to suggest ... that an intellectual environment of hindering, restricting, and junking certain opinions led the world down this road." 

"'Awesome' was a word we used a lot in Iraq. How to use 'Awesome': If someone says, 'Dude, it's your turn again to do shit-burning detail,' you say: 'Awesome.' 'Holy shit, those idiots in Delta company shot at second platoon,' 'Awesome!'"

That's a grim vocabulary lesson from soldier and writer Jason Christopher Hartley, our special guest this week and author of Just Another Soldier.  

Ever since I read about the deaths of Andrew Olmsted (a soldier and blogger) and Scott Lange Kirkpatrick (a poet and soldier), the stories of soldiers have haunted me.

All week Hartley has reminded us how writings by soldiers in Iraq get misunderstood or buried under political rhetoric. Spend some time reading the writers who are caught up in this war.

If you want to even go farther, tonight, Kirkpatrick's family is holding a fundraising event to support wounded soldiers. As we end this week's writing interview, take a few minutes to remember the soldiers writing about this war: the active soldiers, the veterans, the wounded and the fallen.

Jason Boog: 
How has the military blog community evolved since 2005? What do we need to be reading about? 

Jason Christopher Hartley:
War is f**king weird as hell and if you don't feel conflicted and confused after reading about it, it's bad writing. Continue reading...

“I refuse to call this a war. World War II was a war. This is a fight. And a dirty one at that. The way I see it, our enemy simply wants to kill as many Americans as possible, thereby convincing the CNN-watching public that the price is just too great … It’s cheap and has a good chance of working. I pray it doesn’t.”

That’s an excerpt from Jason Christopher Hartley's Iraq War memoir, Just Another Soldier.

No matter what you think about this conflict, you need to understand it. Too many Americans are dying out there, and writers cannot ignore this story.

Today, Hartley's reading list can help you think and write about this war, sharing his literary influences in the process.

Welcome my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
You wrote a memoir about your experiences as a soldier. How long did it take you to turn that overwhelming experience into a memoir? Who are your influences? In your opinion, what are the best books for people to read to understand the conflict in Iraq better?

Jason Christopher Hartley:
Just Another Soldier is composed of about 50% of stuff I wrote in Iraq and 50% of stuff I wrote when I got back. Continue reading...

"If I were cool, I’d join the friggin’ Ranger Battallion and start talking shit about how I’m gonna try out for Delta or SEAL team six. In real life I’m a geek. I’ve never read Black Hawk Down. I miss the city and I just want to get back and finish school. This 'war on terror' crap has totally ruined my semester."

That's a blazing post from Jason Christopher Hartley's old blog he kept as an active duty soldier. As Hartley details in his memoir, Just Another Soldier, that blog got him in lots of trouble with the National Guard.

So how does one of the first so-called "military bloggers" feel about the current state of digital writing from soldiers? Well...

Welcome my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
In 2005, you told NPR: "Coincidentally, the [military] blogs that remain up are the ones, in my humble opinion, that are very insipid." Do you still feel like that? How has the military blog community evolved since 2005? Who are your favorite military bloggers right now?

Jason Christopher Hartley:
I don't read military blogs.  It's literally the last thing I want to do.  I have enough to think about with regard to the military; I don't want to clutter my already militarily-overdosed mind with more military slog. Continue reading...

"Alpha team takes the first room, then Bravo team—the team I led—takes the second. Once the first room is clear, my team enters the building and lines up against the wall next to the door of the room we are about to enter. This is called a ‘stack.’ Once the door is kicked in, the stack flows into the room.”

Do you know what that is? That’s the simple mechanics of what patrol troopers do in Iraq every day—entering hundreds of rooms, never knowing what lies on the other side. I didn’t know how a stack worked—or how unbelievably dangerous it is to go through that broken door—until I spent an afternoon with Jason Christopher Hartley.

He’s a Iraq veteran, a memoirist and blogger, and he’s currently working on a brand new performance art piece called Surrender. The play will dress the audience up in battle fatigues and run them through real training exercises—letting civilians feel what a combat situation is really like. 

Today, Hartley gives us a sneak peak of what Surrender will look like when it premieres in July--part of my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.

In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
The Surrender workshop was one of the most overwhelming theater experiences I've ever had. Could you describe your project for my readers? How did your workshop audiences respond to the project? What can we expect in July? 

Jason Christopher Hartley:

"But hey, who cares! We have fun in my blog! If you want news about Iraq, congratulations, you've come to the wrong fucking place! If you are distrustful of the media and want to know exactly what's going on in Iraq, you'll have to pray for divine enlightenment, because only god knows what the hell is going on over here!"

That’s Jason Christopher Hartley writing from Iraq in 2004, trying to describe the inexplicable, chaotic situation our soldiers face in the Middle East.

Everybody's got an opinion about the Iraq War, but most of us have absolutely no idea what that war is really like. That's why I brought on Hartley--he was one of the first bloggers to write from the front and published a memoir (Just Another Soldier) about his experience.

It's not pretty (and lots of language this week), but I think all writers should be thinking, grappling, and writing about this war. For the rest of the week, Hartley will turn all your pre-conceived ideas upside down and then dance on top of your wrecked stereotypes.

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality conversations with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:

When you were in Iraq, how did you find time to write? More generally, how hard is it to actively write or blog about your experiences while still working as a military officer? Any advice for aspiring writers in the military?

Jason Christopher Hartley:

I did most my writing during the wee hours of the night when most my platoon was asleep. Continue reading...

Here's a link to a Publishers Weekly article I came across on Sunday. I thought I would include the following link in a Comets, Stars, the Moon, and Mars...and Pluto update rather than add it to the review article of Douglas Florian's newest poetry collection that I posted last Friday. I didn't want blog readers to miss Whither Pluto? by Sue Corbett (Children's Bookshelf--Publishers Weekly, 3/15/2007).

Corbett's article includes Douglas Florian's original poem about Pluto--a poem he had to rewrite when the former ninth planet in our solar system was demoted to dwarf planet last summer. It's a good thing Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto in 1930, wasn't alive when the International Astronomical Union made their momentous decision to designate just eight orbiting spheres in our solar system as "true planets." (Tombaugh passed away in 1997.)


A Word with Pluto

Well, Pluto, that's what you get for horning in on Neptune's territory. You should have known better. The big gasballs don't like it when icy little spheres intrude on their orbits. Just wait till the god you're named after and Hades, his alter ego, hear what happened to you. Thank heavens news travels slowly to the netherworld.

Some Links for Astronomy Buffs

Clyde Tombaugh (Kansas State Historical Society)

Pluto and Charon: The Discovery of a Planet

Pluto Loses Status as a Planet (From BBC News, August 24, 2006)


Pluto Poems

A Little Pluto Ditty from Gregory K. at GottaBook


PLUTO 2007
by Elaine Magliaro

Pluto, Pluto, once a planet.
Made of ice…and, maybe, granite,
A distant, tiny, frigid sphere
Demoted to a “dwarf" last year.

Pluto, Pluto, once a planet.
Astronomers said: “Let's just can it.
It’s much too small; it’s orbit’s odd.
It’s named after a nasty god."

Pluto, Pluto, once a planet.
The IAU chose to ban it
From the planetary club.
That's a solar systemic snub!!!