Uncertain ground : citizenship in an age of endless, invisible war / Phil Klay.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klay, Phil, author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Standardized Title:

Essays. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil-military relations--United States.

Civil-military relations.

War and society--United States.

War and society.

Armed Forces--Public opinion.

Military policy--Public opinion.

Politics and government.

Social conditions.

Klay, Phil.

United States. Marine Corps--Biography.

United States.

United States. Marine Corps.

United States--Armed Forces--Public opinion.

United States--Military policy--Public opinion.

United States--Social conditions--21st century.

United States--Politics and government--2009-2017.

United States--Politics and government--2017-2021.

Genre:

essays.

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Essays.

Physical Description:

xix, 252 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Penguin Press, 2022.

Summary:

"When Phil Klay left the Marines a decade ago, after serving as an officer in Iraq, he found himself part of the community of veterans who have no choice but to grapple with the meaning of their wartime experiences-for themselves and for the country. American identity has always been bound up in war-from the revolutionary war of our founding, to the civil war that ended slavery, to the two world wars that launched America as a superpower. What did the current wars say about who we are as a country, and how should we respond as citizens? Unlike previous eras of war, few other Americans have had to do any real grappling with the endless, invisible wars of the post-9/11 world at all; in fact, increasingly, few people are even aware they are still going on. It's as if there's a dark star with a strong gravitational force that draws a relatively small number of soldiers and their families into its orbit, while remaining inconspicuous to most other Americans. In the meantime, the consequences of American military action abroad may be out of sight and out of mind, but they are very real indeed. This chasm between military and civilian in American life, and the moral blind spot it has created, is one of the great themes of Uncertain Ground, Phil Klay's powerful series of reckonings in essay form over the past ten years with some of our country's thorniest concerns. In the name of what do we ask young Americans to kill, and to die? In the name of what does this country hang together? As we see at every turn in these pages, those two questions have a great deal to do with one another, and how we answer them will go a long way toward deciding where our troubled country goes from here"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Soldiers

Death And Memory

How We Mourned, Why We Fought

Left Behind

What We're Fighting For

Fear And Loathing In Mosul

We Have No Idea What We're Doing In Iraq. We Didn't Before We Killed Suleimani

War, Loss, And Unthinkable Youth

Citizens

Citizen-Soldier: Moral Risk And The Modern Military

The Good War

Duty And Pity

The Lesson Of Eric Greitens, And The Navy Seals Who Tried To Warn Us

The Warrior At The Mall

The Soldiers We Leave Behind

A History Of Violence

Writing

After War, A Failure Of The Imagination

Fact And Fiction

Public Rage Won't Solve Any Of Our Problems

Visions Of War And Peace: Literature And Authority In World War I

Faith

Tales Of War And Redemption

Man Of War

Can The Trauma Of War Lead To Growth, Despite The Scars?

American Purpose After The Fall Of Kabul.

Notes:

"The essays in this book were originally published 2010-2021." -- Title page verso.

Includes index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

Other Format:

Online version: Klay, Phil. Uncertain ground

ISBN:

9780593299241

0593299248

OCLC:

1265005234

Publisher Number:

99991117530