Nat'l Book Award for REDEPLOYMENT-Battles for Redemption

The 2014 Nat'l Book Award for fiction was awarded to Phil Klay's short story collection of soldiers fighting in Iraq & their re-entry into civilian life.  Klay, a Dartmouth, graduate served as a Marine in Iraq 2007-08  in a non-combat position.  His experiences & observations are clearly told.  The horrors of war, the dissociation from civilian life & the inane bureaucracy of the military detonate off the pages.   Klay said his stories are intended for the "right audience for the kind of stories that matter to those who served."  The stories are omnipotent in their depictions of war's atrocities rendering them too much to take in & process; not unlike soldiers' deployment experiences.  Ultimately, as Americans, we're beholden to our commitments to our troops during their dangerous tours & their readjustments returning home.  The forcefulness of Klay's writing considers the moral considerations & consequences of killing.  REDEPLOYMENT should be deemed required reading;  their impacts blazed into our conscientiousness.