(4.8/5.0) By now, Dexter Filkins really should be dead. Wherever he works, he always ends up finding a truck radiator in his yard-- remnants from suicide bombings. Sniper scopes are always grazing his head. Mullahs and militia leaders keep contemplating how much they could fetch from his kidnapping, or if they should even keep him alive. But for now, he's still out there, highlighting the absurdities of desert wars in the twenty-first century. His impressionistic accounts of Middle East conflicts demonstrate, often with bleak humor, the price of survival. Dexter Filkins writes about his own experiences leading up to and during the Iraq war as an embedded reporter. I find this book interesting compared to what I am reading in The Pen and the Sword by Calvin Exoo. Embedded reporters were not supposed to travel unaccompanied so I am wondering why Filkins was allowed to do so. Perhaps I'm mistaken about his being embedded but if he's not embedded then there is no way the military would have allowed him as much access as he had or even talked to him, let alone protect him.
What do You think about The Forever War (2009)?
Very difficult to get into. Not my cup of tea. But I read 100 pages today!
—Jess
