Date Published: September 16, 2020
Publisher: MindStir Media
Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier's Personal Journey in Iraq
For F. Scott Service, a five-minute phone call one peaceful morning was all it took. Faced with the terrible dichotomy of his moral opposition to war and an innate sense of duty, little did he realize that when he was called for deployment in Iraq that his would be the journey of a lifetime. A tour of duty destined to change him forever.
Witnessing the violence of a country ravaged by chaos and facing the disintegration of his life back home, his sojourn in Iraq forced him to fight a new battle, a battle within himself. What had once been a noble intention became a desperate struggle to salvage what was left of his humanity, an excursion into the darkest recesses of the human mind that ultimately led him to question everything he had come to believe.
Pushed to the edge, only then would he discover what lay within.
An artfully lyrical epistolary composition and transcribed from his handwritten journals, Lines in the Sand is a powerful exercise in self-exploration amid heart-wrenching loss and anguish.
Editorial Reviews
"Impeccably written, relentlessly engaging, so intimate it hurts, Service's extraordinary tale is where the reader wants and needs to be." - Readers' Favorite
"F. Scott Service is a gifted writer. His words are eloquent, with powerful expressions. A remarkable story of tragedy to triumph." - Readers' Favorite
"This book is one that is incredibly hard to put down, and readers may, in fact, find themselves obsessively reading the story from the start through to the finish, all in one sitting. I highly recommend this book and this author." - Readers' Favorite
"... eloquent and beautifully moving... " - Pacific Book Review
Naturaly the common people don’t want war;
neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in
Germany.
That is understood.
But after all, it is the leaders of the country
who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag
the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a
fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy.
All you have to do is to tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in any country.
—Hermann Goering, 1946
THERE COMES A TIME when every
service member must face the ultimate test of their commitment. It’s often long
after they chose to raise their right hand in some dank gray Federal office
building in sight of a wrinkly American flag taped to a cinderblock wall and
pledge their utmost devotion and allegiance to a president and a populace the
vast majority of whom they will never meet. It is the part that requires them
to dig deep within their psyche into the complex labyrinth of their own
self-defense mechanisms, fears, trepidations, morals, values, and beliefs.
It is the part when they are deployed to
war.
Going to war is difficult and frightening
enough. Surviving a war is often much more
traumatic—it can force you to examine everything you had become accustomed to
relying on in your previous everyday life. A war zone’s constant reality of
lethal threat can throw you into utter confusion. Established values and
beliefs often wilt like a solitary flower baking in the desert sun.
A soldier’s base human survival instincts
are usually jump-started with a force that takes many by surprise. A deep
recess of the mind conditions you to instinctively drive on no matter the
consequence to your psyche; it eventually consumes every thought or feeling and
very nearly forces soldiers to extinction as human beings. In the process, a
new identity is created even while you desperately attempt to cling to previous
images of yourself—your lifelong beliefs, values, and motivations—as if they
were still sincerely yours. In reality, you are being spiritual y killed by a
force that is just as real as the physical bombs and bullets flying around you.
We grow up in America being taught to
believe in the
“Golden Rule.” We do our best to do unto
others as we hope they would do unto us. We hold the door for people. We cover
our noses when we sneeze. We say “please” when we want something and “thank
you” when we get it. We are supposed to treat others with dignity and respect.
We are taught that these ideals are the basis of a civilized society—our
society.
And we definitely don’t kill people. Is that not an ultimate
betrayal of the morality we were brought up to believe in?
With few exceptions, we don’t do it. And
when we do kill, those who are found guilty of such a crime pay a hefty price
according to the laws we have crafted as a culture.
However, as a nation we have also become
accustomed to think of war as an exception to this code. It becomes automatic
and instinctual to consider oneself “under orders”—obeying the rules of
engagement formulated by men thousands of miles away who insist it is
permissible to act violently—to break that sacred Golden Rule. And a soldier
often has the means—at the very least the standard load of ammunition and an
M-16 rifle.
Some may ask, “Will I do it? If I have
to, will I shoot someone?” Some have answers, some don’t. When they answer
“yes,” changes begin. Their foundational
beliefs have just received a giant whack to the head, and it leaves them
reeling with the consequences of not only their actions but their dearly held
beliefs as well.
From the comfort of “Ft. Living Room,”
for some it’s easy to say, “Yeah, we ought to just go kill all those
motherfuckers.”
But for a veteran, it is a weighty charge
and a jarring realization that the Golden Rule is just a shibboleth that
evaporates in the harsh reality of war. I don’t believe any of us are really
ready for the ramifications of having our moral foundation leveled.
What I have just written is but a mere
glimpse into what a soldier is forced to grapple with, not only during war but
after returning home, when the struggle of reintegrating into “normal life”
begins. As people of a civilized society, we are still striving to understand
the infinitely complex changes that someone who has survived a wartime
experience will undergo. We invent convenient labels such as “shell shock,” “combat
stress,”
or “post-traumatic stress disorder” to
slap on another in order to ground ourselves with an explanation, some sort of
narrative that could explain what that person is experiencing. And more than
anything else, we take comfort within the justification that this
war was a good war, a just war, a war worth all the pain and suffering for—a war worth fighting.
I first met Scott in 2009, four years
after he returned from Iraq, after he called my office at a local Veteran’s
Center seeking help for the problems he had incurred while serving overseas. I
was and still am a mental health counselor, and since I am also an Iraq War
veteran it was felt that meeting with me specifical y would significantly
increase Scott’s comfort level during an initial conversation. We met on a gray
December afternoon in a small parking lot in the van I had requisitioned from
the Veteran’s Center—the van being the only place he felt comfortable, away and
out of sight of people.
It didn’t take me long to discover that
Scott is a brave person.
He is a deeply abstract thinker, which as
beautiful as that is and though it makes for wonderful conversation, can be
burdensome when confronted with the trauma that war inevitably inflicts and the
expectation of recovering from that trauma. Like most veterans, his recovery
has been slow and painful. He is brave because not only has he truly tried to
integrate his war experience into his life, he has actively, honestly stared at
himself in the mirror and asked who he is and how he might rebuild himself to become
better.
It’s funny. You might not pick him out of
a group as an Iraq War veteran. I’m not sure I would have when I first met him.
He wears his hair long and usually has some form of a beard growing. He doesn’t
seem to pay much attention to his appearance—not out of neglect, it just
doesn’t feel important to him. He makes himself unnoticeable, often preferring
to stay anonymous in the shadows.
He has been slow to come out of his
self-imposed shell.
I have watched that shell slowly begin to
dissolve through careful, compassionate nurturing, but normally he prefers to
isolate, spend time with a stray cat he adopted rather than approach people and
be social. It is here that he finds safety. A few years ago, isolation was all
he knew. He never came out of his apartment—not for a long time and even then
only when necessary to buy groceries or run an errand. He does now, albeit with
many restrictions and some pretty heavy trepidation. On the surface, this may
seem irrational, crazy, or even lazy.
But there are reasons for his choice of
lifestyle. Scott has been permeated by post-traumatic stress. Not only has
Scott endured difficulty in the combat theater of Iraq, in Kuwait, and in the
years following his return, he did so with tremendous upheaval at home, having
received the infamous “Dear John”
letter and losing everything he had built
in his civilian life. When he came home, he decided to stand up for his
beliefs, salvaging what was left within him to make a statement as to why war
is futile, ugly, and unworthy of the pain and confusion of being forced to
sacrifice cherished morals and beliefs.
Army Regulation 600-43, “Conscientious
Objection,” is an evaluation process in which the soldier must be deemed
sincere in his overall demeanor to object to such conditions as war and the
effort of killing. Scott had to be noble and honest with himself to even
consider applying—in military life, and in life in general, there seems to be
some sort of unwritten code that discourages taking this sort of stance, of being
bold enough to step away from the herd, to be the black sheep, to deviate from
the accepted norm.
There is definitely the risk of being
ostracized. What if the application is not approved? What would life in the
military be like if the application failed? How would a comrade view that black
sheep? And what if his status was accepted? Would his friends stay away from
him? Would they consider him disloyal, even a traitor? These questions must
have weighed heavily on Scott’s mind as he tried to balance his disgust for war
with his innate feeling of duty to his fellow comrades in arms.
As you’ll read in the fol owing pages—the
diaries Scott kept while serving in Iraq—he had a choice. He had a choice both
before and after his deployment to Iraq, but it was only after his deployment
had ended when he final y applied and was granted conscientious objection
status.
Why would anyone make the choice to go to
war? There are different reasons for each person, but for Scott that motivation
revolved around having to confront a broader picture than his own fears or
dislike for war. He was forced to realize there were others who might need him
and it was his duty to honor them above all else.
“ There was honor in honoring them,” he would tell you, and if he hadn’t
gone it would have been a betrayal of not just them but of his own sense of
loyalty and commitment. For Scott, war has meant much more than fighting for a
cause. War has meant an opportunity to not only face the darkest fears that
we’re all afraid to confront but to develop a greater understanding of who he
is, what he stands for, how he wants to approach the world, and what he might
have to offer those around him.
He did what he thought was a great thing
when he enlisted with the Army. He surrounded himself with less than one
percent of the American population. He fought a war, became a veteran… and a
conscientious objector. That is where the truth of his character is truly
projected.
Fighting in Iraq and becoming a
conscientious objector was the beginning of a personal and moral journey for
Scott that allowed the seed of his ideas and views of the world to become a
full-grown tree. He chronicled his way through Iraq.
He wrote in his journals about his
everyday experiences even as mortars fell around him and is now presenting a
firsthand, front-row ticket to the realities of war.
War and moral injury are the veteran’s
common, yet unique story. This book is about heartache and loss, courage and
fear, loyalty and betrayal, commitment and abandonment, self-reflection and
redemption. It is about the deconstruction and deliverance of the human soul.
Jay White
January 2013
Having earned a Bachelor of Science in Professional/Technical Communication and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, I have had experience with editing, journalism, desktop publishing, videography, and am a full-time author.
I enjoy gardening and cooking with an emphasis on ethnic foods including Indian, Thai, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, Chinese, Spanish, Middle Eastern (especially Algerian, Iraqi, and Egyptian), Mexican, and Italian. My next venture in culinary delight will be with Caribbean food.
Being an avid explorer, I've spent time in all but two states in America and am always on the lookout for someplace new (I just never thought it would be Iraq and Kuwait as my first international travel destinations). On my list of new places are Pitcairn Island, Easter Island, Stonehenge, Leap Castle in Ireland, the Hobbit village in New Zealand, Hunyad Castle in Romania, and the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Other interests of mine include horror literature and memoir, a long-standing fascination with UFO, paranormal, and occult phenomena as well as playing guitar, backpacking, and bike riding
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