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"'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:

Last week I wrote about the death of Andrew Olmsted, a military blogger who always caught me off guard with his ideas and images about the Iraq War. Meet Olmsted in his final, inspiring post.

Writers need to read and think about this war, and the writings of bloggers like Olmsted should be required reading.

Today, you should read this tribute to Sergeant Scott Lange Kirkpatrick written by my friend, Ian Daly. It's an essay about a slam poet, writer, and soldier who died in Iraq last year. In addition, Kirkpatrick's father blogged about the story here.  

According to the story (which includes this photo of Kirkpatrick), this young writer joined the military after telling his wife, “Here I am writing and analyzing and bitching about things, and I’m not doing anything.”

Now I'm not telling everyone to enlist, but all writers need to be grappling with this conflict, not pretending like the war isn't happening. It is a real issue affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans. Don't let this complicated war stay in the margins of your writing.