When our son was a boy, he suddenly dropped his obsession’s over dinosaurs, which had followed his interest in trucks, for a new interest. He had watched The Audie Murphy Story and became obsessed with war. He read books on tanks, ships, planes, and war machines of all kinds. Then, he saw The Longest Day, then read the book by Cornelius Ryan on which the film was based. He read about WWII and later 20th c wars and as a teenager became as much an expert on them as he had been on dinosaurs or trucks.

One day at school a boy accused him of liking war. No, he responded, I hate war; I am interested in it. And I was quite grateful that we had talked with him about what he was reading and seeing as Desert Storm played out on the television. That he did not idealize war as heroism and cool.

Jerad W. Alexander was obsessed with war as a child growing up on Air Force bases, surrounded by jet planes flying overhead and men with cool uniforms and weapons and war stories. His boyhood games were war based. He joined the Civil Air Patrol, a civilian auxiliary arm of the air force created in the late 1930s.

Alexander dreamed of one thing in life: to serve in the infantry. To see active duty. He joined the Marines after high school. He went through training and was assigned noncombat duty. When he finally got to a war zone, it changed everything. And after he was discharged, he floundered, his girlfriend broke up with him, and it took Alexander years to process what he had experienced.

The result is this memoir.

No one in my family has served in the military since my great-great-great grandfather was drafted into the Confederate militia and my great-great-grandfather fled Russia to escape service in the czar’s army. Things are different now with an all-volunteer army. Today, young people are not forced to serve, they chose to serve. They are volunteers.

Alexander describes his mother’s role as a military wife. She and his father were in the Air Force, but she left the military when she became a mother. “The military spouse lives in a perpetual state of aggressive compromise beyond the basic demands of marriage,” he writes; “The military is a third partner in the house, a jealous one, and its whims trump the needs and desires of anyone tethered to it.”

Alexander writes about his disillusionment and doubt about the purpose of his time in the Marines. What was accomplished? Inside, you see the cracks and flaws in the system.

Alexander excels at describing his infatuation and idealization, the experience of war, the confliction over killing. Interjected into the backstory are memories of combat.

Disillusionment. Few of us escape it. Our childhood imaginings of grown up life rarely meet expectations, our idealism crashes into the windshield of reality, leaving us confused or broken or disoriented. Alexander’s memoir is an important contribution.

I received a free book from Algonquin. My review is fair an unbiased.

Jerad Alexander grew up smelling the burn of aircraft fuel… stateside and across the Pacific in Japan, he lived on Air Force bases. He soaked up the mythos of the all-powerful US military might. He planned for years to enlist when he graduated from high school and eventually joined the marines. Wanting to get ‘in the shit,’ he enlists, volunteers… and is sent over to “the sandbox.” Alexander quickly realizes that the romantic notions he filled his head with growing up don’t exactly match up with the ambushes, the heat, and the IEDs.

It’s hard for Alexander to see the active pursuits of the War on Terror in the missions and assignments he’s given. I’m not going to go into the conclusions he comes to about the military and its purpose, but it’s a worthy journey to join him on. He starts as a military brat seeing the fixed view, the pomp and circumstance and that comprises half the chapters, but every other chapter is of life after enlistment. These chapters feature a very different style… while it’s not the shaky camera of the embedded reporter, it’s close at times. I think Alexander wanted to create a raw look at the anxiety and fog of war. It works in most places.

Volunteers is a good book for those looking to peel back the curtain on the daily life of the grunts. I will be recommending it a friend of mine who works at the local VA.

4 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Algonquin Books, and the author for an advanced copy for review.

Read if you: Want an incisive, honest, and revealing memoir about growing up in the military culture and fighting the "endless" war in Iraq.

Even if you don't normally read military/war memoirs, you definitely should read this one. With the very small percentage of people who grow up in military life and/or serve in the armed forces, this is a sharp look at a life that most Americans do not experience.

Librarians/booksellers: A fantastic addition to your memoirs collection.

Many thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.