This We'll Defend
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"Names" by Paul Crenshaw
"Red Dawn”
A01=Paul Crenshaw
Army
Army cadences
Author_Paul Crenshaw
Basic Training
Bayonet
Best American Essays
Category=DNL
Category=NHW
Drill Sergeant
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Essays
false patriotism
First Gulf War
gun culture
Hand grenade
hero worship
Korean War
M-16
military essays
military service
PTSD
Saddam Hussein
Second Gulf War
Shock and Awe
soldier
Vietnam War
War in Afghanistan
World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9781469651071
- Weight: 245g
- Dimensions: 137 x 210mm
- Publication Date: 16 Sep 2019
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In June of 1990, Paul Crenshaw shipped out to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for Basic Training. By August the world was preparing for war. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, and each day brought more news of mobilizing forces. For weeks Crenshaw was told he was going to war, but after graduation he went back home to Arkansas and watched CNN every night, lying about how much he wished he were there.
Later, after he had gotten out of the Army, he began to question the wars we fight and attempt to understand how those who served were affected by them. The essays here follow his time in the service, from Basic Training to weekend National Guard drills, and they reflect deeply on American culture and military life. How easily we buy into ideas of good versus bad, us versus them. How we see soldiers as heroes when more often than not they are young boys who barely shave. How they come home broken, and we only wave our flags instead of trying to fix them, and the ideas that sent them to war.
Later, after he had gotten out of the Army, he began to question the wars we fight and attempt to understand how those who served were affected by them. The essays here follow his time in the service, from Basic Training to weekend National Guard drills, and they reflect deeply on American culture and military life. How easily we buy into ideas of good versus bad, us versus them. How we see soldiers as heroes when more often than not they are young boys who barely shave. How they come home broken, and we only wave our flags instead of trying to fix them, and the ideas that sent them to war.
Paul Crenshaw is the author of This One Will Hurt You. His essays and short stories have appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Pushcart Prize, Oxford American, Glimmer Train, and Brevity, among others.
