Baghdad Blues

- Blurb -

Patrolling the dusty and deadly roads of south-west Baghdad, a young US soldier and his comrades face IEDs and ambushes on a near-daily basis, but the longer he is in Baghdad, the more he begins to question where to look for the real enemy. At a dusty intersection in Baghdad, Sergeant Thomas Kierkegaard is seconds away from unleashing a hail of bullets on a possible suicide bomber when he' s stopped by the unexpected - the piercing dark eyes of a young girl sitting on her mother' s lap in the passenger seat. For a split second he' d held the life of this child and her family in his hands. Plagued by fear and anxiety, Sergeant Kierkegaard struggles with his own inner demons as he confronts a population around him that wishes him dead. But he confronts more than just an external enemy, as he discovers the darkness that exists not just within himself, but in his fellow soldiers. A starkly honest and gut-wrenching account of the Iraq war from the perspective of an infantry soldier patrolling the dusty and deadly roads of South-West Baghdad. The threat of IEDs and ambushes are ever-present, but as Sergeant Kierkegaard and his comrades soon learn, modern war can take many shapes and forms. Grappling with a myriad of emotions - fear, anger, confusion, and anxiety - they face many external threats, but they begin to discover that the enemy within themselves can often be more challenging and dangerous than the one they were sent to fight. AUTHOR: Paul Kendel is an Army veteran with over twenty years of military service. He has travrlled extensively throughout the Middle East as a member of the military and as a civilian. He holds an M. A. in History (with a focus on Islam) and an M. A. in Anthropology. He currently teaches History and Anthropology at Florida State College, Jacksonville, in Florida. When not teaching, he works for Ratna Peace Initiative, a nonprofit organisation based in Boulder, Colorado, which provides mindfulness practice and therapy for veterans with PTSD.