Synopses & Reviews
In this provocative, impassioned memoir, Jerad W. Alexander reveals what it was like to be raised on war, vividly recreating the masculine fantasies of American heroism and patriotism that animated his childhood — and at the same time brilliantly dismantling those myths.
To many outsiders, joining the military can be a path out of a difficult life, a chance to acquire vocational training, a college scholarship, a patriotic career. But to those, like Alexander, whose parents, stepfather, and grandparents served, and who grew up on American military bases around the world, enlisting was a way of life. The only way. Young Jerad's obsession with all things military — from guns to war games to the trappings of uniforms, medals, and the movies and books of Vietnam — was bottomless, and as soon as he was able, he joined the US Marines. Only then, on the ground in Iraq, part of the same war his parents had fought before him — a war we are still embroiled in today, years later — did he begin to question all that he had taken on faith.
With courage and raw power, Alexander brings to the fore vital questions: Is America in fact exceptional? Are the "bad guys" actually easy to identify? And most important, are our causes always just?
This powerful debut joins the canon of essential war literature — books like Anthony Swofford's Jarhead or Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried — helping readers understand the violent and self-replicating mythology of American patriotism, from the eloquent perspective of an enlisted man — not some elite warrior, but a simple volunteer.
Review
"With this work, Jerad W. Alexander has staked his claim as one of the most necessary voices while contributing to a necessary and overdue examination of our military culture and what it means to be an American. An absolute triumph." Jared Yates Sexton, author of American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed Its People
Review
"Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider's account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors. In the case of Jerad W. Alexander, that culture has also created a writer of remarkable talent." Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing
Review
"A beautiful and powerfully affecting portrait of a boyhood in a military family, in which contrasting and ever more complex views of America, of war, and of what it means to be a soldier lead to the decision to join the military and serve in Iraq. In that way, it's also a portrait of the stories we tell ourselves, and how those stories fare when our children grow up and try to live them." Phil Klay, author of Redeployment (winner of the National Book Award) and Missionaries
Synopsis
"Riveting and morally complex, Volunteers is not only an insider's account of war. It takes you inside the increasingly closed culture that creates our warriors." --
Elliot Ackerman, author of the National Book Award finalist Dark at the Crossing As a child, Jerad Alexander lay in bed listening to the fighter jets take off outside his window and was desperate to be airborne. As a teenager at an American base in Japan, he immersed himself in war games, war movies, and pulpy novels about Vietnam. Obsessed with all things military, he grew up playing with guns, joined the Civil Air Patrol for the uniform, and reveled in the closed and safe life "inside the castle," within the embrace of the armed forces, the only world he knew or could imagine. Most of all, he dreamed of enlisting--like his mother, father, stepfather, and grandfather before him--and playing his part in the Great American War Story.
He joined the US Marines straight out of high school, eager for action. Once in Iraq, however, he came to realize he was fighting a lost cause, enmeshed in the ongoing War on Terror that was really just a fruitless display of American might. The myths of war, the stories of violence and masculinity and heroism, the legacy of his family--everything Alexander had planned his life around--was a mirage.
Alternating scenes from childhood with skirmishes in the Iraqi desert, this original, searing, and propulsive memoir introduces a powerful new voice in the literature of war. Jerad W. Alexander--not some elite warrior, but a simple volunteer--delivers a passionate and timely reckoning with the troubled and cyclical truths of the American war machine.
Video
Watch the Powell’s virtual event with Jerad W. Alexander and Josh Campbell!
About the Author
Jerad W. Alexander has written for Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Nation, Narratively, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Literary Reportage from the New York University Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism. From 1998 to 2006, he served as a U.S. Marine, deploying to the Mediterranean, East Africa, and Iraq. He grew up on military bases, from the east coast of the United States to Japan. He currently lives in New York City, but calls Atlanta home.