This We'll Defend - by Paul Crenshaw (Paperback)

About the Book

"In this collection of thematically connected essays, Crenshaw shows the complex and often dark undercurrents of America's obsession with war, guns, and military service. In 1990, in his final days of basic training, the Gulf War broke out and changed the trajectory of Crenshaw's life in unexpected ways. Although he watched the Kuwait Invasion unfold on television alongside his fellow trainees and thought he was sure to go, he did not actively serve overseas in Operation Desert Storm. That tension--having trained to fight, but never actually doing so--informs his status as kind of embedded observer, one who is at once of a culture, but outside of it at the same time. Using his experience as someone who's not a civilian, but not a combat vet--and the complicated internal strife that comes with that distinction--Crenshaw explores the question of what military service means and how we define soldiers in America, particularly in the military-friendly South"--

Book Synopsis

In June 1990, Paul Crenshaw shipped out for basic training for the National Guard. By August, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. Each day brought more news of mobilizing forces. For weeks, Crenshaw was told he was going to war, but after graduation, he went back home to Arkansas and watched CNN every night, lying about how much he wished he had been deployed.
Later, after Crenshaw had gotten out of the army, he began to question the reasons for the wars we fight. The essays here follow his time in the service, from Basic Training to weekend National Guard drills and the years after. Crenshaw moves from eager recruit to father worrying that his daughters might enlist. He watches the airplanes strike the Twin Towers and sees two new wars ignite out of the ashes of the old. He writes as a soldier who did not see combat but who wonders what constant combat might do to U.S. soldiers, how it affects them, and how the wars we fight affect us all. These essays reflect deeply on American culture and military life--how easily we buy into ideas of good versus bad, us versus them; how we see soldiers as heroes when more often than not they are young boys barely old enough to shave; how many return home broken while we only wave our flags instead of trying to fix them and the ideas that sent them to war.

Review Quotes

"Complex intertwining of a deep personal and familial connection to our armed forces with profound reservations about the meaning of military service pervade this slim volume. . . . The insight Crenshaw offers into the baser instincts of young military men is raw and unflinching. This [is] a valuable read for those who will lead such troops. . . . [and] raises important questions for all of us about the nature of our militarized society."--ARMY Magazine

"Crenshaw deeply investigates his time in the National Guard, including what led him there and its lingering effects. The lyricism and metaphor he draws from the relationships and routine of military life strike a truly haunting chord that I found both unflinchingly revealing and surprisingly relatable. An essential book for our moment."--Jac Jemc, author of The Grip of It and False Bingo

"Crenshaw's prose is elegant, nicely paced, and carefully constructed. This thoughtful meditation on war is worth lingering over."--Publishers Weekly

"These woven essays are a masterful reckoning of the notion that war makes a man. A potent and true antidote to one of our longest-running yet false myths."--Donald Anderson, editor, War, Literature & the Arts

"When Henry James coined the phrase 'the real thing, ' he must have been thinking about Paul Crenshaw. Through superb prose and an insider's perspective, Crenshaw has created a book that is completely necessary."--David Lazar, author of I'll Be Your Mirror: Essays and Aphorisms

About the Author

Paul Crenshaw is the author of This One Will Hurt You. His essays and short stories have appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Pushcart Prize, Oxford American, Glimmer Train, and Brevity, among other publications.