American - Writer | 1983 -
A lot of the great pieces of journalism from Iraq showed how important command influence was in violent, aggressive environments, where Marines and soldiers had a constrained set of choices to make in sudden moments.
Phil Klay
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I got to travel around Anbar Province, had a great group of Marines who worked for me who traveled around Anbar Province. I got to hang out with a lot of different types of Marines and soldiers and sailors.
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The First Battle of Fallujah was called off in part because of the intensity of non-U.S. media coverage of civilian casualties from outlets like Al Jazeera.
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If you're going to write about war, the ugly side is inevitable. Suffering and death are obviously part of war.
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Political novels are full of pitfalls, particularly for a novelist with strong political leanings.
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It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.
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We're told that when we remember, the same parts of our brain light up as when we experienced the event we're remembering. Your brain lives through it again.
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The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen's wars as they are the veterans' wars. If we don't assume that civilians have just as much ownership and the moral responsibilities that we have as a nation when we embark on something like that, then we're in a very bad situation.
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I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war.
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I doubt there's anything you could say to Donald Rumsfeld that would puncture the armor of his narcissism.
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I saw so many radically different versions of Iraq. It would have been difficult for me to come back and think, 'This is the Iraq experience.'
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One thing I've always liked about the military is there's a certain amount of pragmatism.
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