As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard - Hardcover

by Christian Davenport (Author)

A powerful, enraging, tear-jerking reminder of how so few Americans have sacrificed so much during the so-called' war on terror'. the best kind of war book. - Alex Kershaw, author of The Bedford Boys and Escape from the Deep

""Through the voices and experiences of five very diverse members of the Virginia National Guard, As You Were gives the great majority of Americans who have not been sent to war a sense of the experiences of our citizen-soldiers and the family, employment, and health problems they face reentering American society after experiencing combat."" - David R. Segal, Drector, Center for Research on Military Organization, University of Maryland

""A sad, stirring, sometimes maddening story. Christian Davenport writes not so much about combat, but rather the home front-the struggles of the families left behind while their providers go off to war and of the solders themselves as they stagger back to a civilian world that declines to reward, or even betrays, their sacrifice."" - Fred Kaplan, ""War Stories"" columist, Slate; author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power

Front Jacket

The sign-up sheet for door gunners was posted in the hallway, much as if the 2-224th battalion were looking for volunteers for their softball team. The first time Miranda Summers saw it, the sheet was empty, and she passed by without adding her name. Not that she wasn't interested-in fact, she found herself intrigued by the prospect of riding shot-gun in a Black Hawk helicopter. She just didn't think that as a woman she was allowed to be a door gunner. Female soldiers were strictly forbidden from combat roles in the armed forces, and Miranda figured all the shots would be filled by the young, gung-ho guys in the unit, eager to get up in the air.

But her hesitation also grew from the knowledge that by signing it, she'd guaranteed to see war unfiltered instead of from the safe distance her rear-echelon supply clerk job provided. No longer would she be the college sorority girl who sneaked off campus one weekend a month to drill with her National Guard unit. She'd be a full-fledged member of the U.S. Armed Forces in Ira, who might be fired upon and ordered to fire back. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that.

In truth, none of her fellow soldiers could be fully prepared for what they were about to encounter in Iraq. In civilian life, they were plumbers, cops, college students, computer technicians-ordinary Americans. As the men and women of the Virginia Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment, they were helicopter pilots, gunners, mechanics, and medics. Like tens of thousands of other Guardsmen, these citizen-soldiers faced enormous challenges when their 'weekend warrior' commitments were transformed into tours of duty in Iraq.

In "As You Were, Washington Post" reporter Christian Davenport follows members of the 2-224th from their sudden call-up and deployment, through a year of arduous and at times harrowing service in some of Iraq's hottest war zones, to their return home, where they fce new batles in the struggle to resume their lives after combat. In additian to Miranda, there's Ray, a grandfather and Vietnam veteran who must reconcile figting not one, but two wars his country has come to view as debacles; Kate, who as a medic sees more of war's horror than any man in the unit; Craig, who struggles to find a job, and a place where he fits in, when he returns; and Mark, who sacrifices almost everything-love, family, his career-for the war.

What emerges most powerfully from these intimate portratis is the citizen-soldiers' clear awareness of their dual status and the tension between their love for teh military life and their desire to fit inot a society that has never been so divorced from its military-or the war it was fighting.

Author Biography

Christian Davenport is a reporter for the "Washington Post." He was embedded with the Virginia Army National Guard's 2-224th, and his work covering the military helped uncover some of the iconic photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.