Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America
Johnny Rico Ships in 7–13 business days
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Details
- ISBN 9780891418979 / 0891418970
- Title Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green: A Year in the Desert with Team America
- Author Johnny Rico
- Category Biography: Historical, Political & Military
- Format Paperback
- Year 2007
- Pages 318
- Publisher Presidio Press
- Imprint Ballantine Trd
- Language English
- Dimensions 140mm x 19mm x 209mm
In this fresh and funny Afghanistan War memoir, a highly liberal, highly educated army misfit chronicles his time in the war with a healthy dose of skepticism and razor sharp wit.
Outrageous, hilarious, and absolutely candid, “Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green ”is Johnny Rico's firsthand account of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, a memoir that also reveals the universal truths about the madness of war.
No one would have picked Johnny Rico for a soldier. The son of an aging hippie father, Johnny was overeducated and hostile to all authority. But when 9/11 happened, the twenty-six-year-old probation officer dropped everything to become an “infantry combat killer.”
But if he'd thought that serving his country would be the kind of authentic experience a reader of “The Catcher in the Rye ”would love, he quickly realized he had another thing coming. In Afghanistan he found himself living a Lord of the Flies existence among soldiers who feared civilian life more than they feared the Taliban-guys like Private Cox, a musical prodigy busy “planning his future poverty,” and Private Mulbeck, who didn't know precisely which country he was in. Life in a combat zone meant carnage and courage-but it also meant tedious hours standing guard, punctuated with thoughtful arguments about whether Bea Arthur was still alive.
Utterly uncensored and full of dark wit, “Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green ”is a poignant, frightening, and heartfelt view of life in this and every man's army.
No one would have picked Johnny Rico for a soldier. The son of an aging hippie father, Johnny was overeducated and hostile to all authority. But when 9/11 happened, the twenty-six-year-old probation officer dropped everything to become an “infantry combat killer.”
But if he'd thought that serving his country would be the kind of authentic experience a reader of “The Catcher in the Rye ”would love, he quickly realized he had another thing coming. In Afghanistan he found himself living a Lord of the Flies existence among soldiers who feared civilian life more than they feared the Taliban-guys like Private Cox, a musical prodigy busy “planning his future poverty,” and Private Mulbeck, who didn't know precisely which country he was in. Life in a combat zone meant carnage and courage-but it also meant tedious hours standing guard, punctuated with thoughtful arguments about whether Bea Arthur was still alive.
Utterly uncensored and full of dark wit, “Blood Makes the Grass Grow Green ”is a poignant, frightening, and heartfelt view of life in this and every man's army.
Review
“'Breathtakingly, brutally and hilariously honest. This is the finest book about youth and war I've ever read.' - Clinton McKinzie, bestselling author of Crossing the Line”
Johnny Rico graduated from the University of Colorado in 2001. A month after September 11, 2001, he joined the Army under the delayed entry program. He was sent to Afghanistan with C. Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry, of the 25th Infantry (Light) Division in Hawaii, where he served as an infantryman in three different areas of operation. He was released from active duty in September 2005.
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