![]() You’re going block by block, fighting with rifles good to 550 meters, and you’re killing people at five in a concrete box,” he continues. “You’re thinking about who’s in that house, what’s he armed with, how’s he gonna kill you, your buddies. When it’s happening, you don’t think about the violence, says Price. On visits to the local high street, he struggles not to flip out as he is reminded of being on patrol in Iraq’s Anbar province (where Klay himself served as a marine captain). Without his rifle, Price doesn’t know what to do with his hands. ![]() Awaiting Price at home is his wife, who seems scared of him, and a sick family dog who brings back harrowing memories of killing dogs for sport in Iraq. Even if it hurts, it’s good,” says Sgt Price, a soldier returning from Iraq in the opening story, “Redeployment”. Homecoming “feels like your first breath after nearly drowning. Almost 40 years after Vietnam, the soldiers in Redeployment, Phil Klay’s relentless and compelling debut collection of short stories based on his experiences as a soldier in Iraq during the “surge” of 2007-08, face similar conflicting emotions in the aftermath of killing, particularly when their tour is over. ![]() ![]() The Marine Corps taught me how to kill but it didn’t teach me how to deal with killing,” wrote Vietnam veteran Karl Marlantes in What it is Like to Go to War, his 2011 book on the psychological trauma he experienced post combat. ![]()
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