MWSA Review

Baghdad Blues by Paul M. Kendel is a nail biter from beginning to end. On daily patrols of the roads southwest of Baghdad, Sergeant Thomas Kirkland, aka Sergeant K, wonders what deadly ambush or IED his platoon will encounter. Who will die, and who will live? Over time, the cumulative effect of existing on the edge of disaster takes its toll on the sergeant and other platoon members, resulting in nightmares, anxiety, depression, and fear.

Tom Kirkland, in his other life, is a teacher—versed in classic literature and lover of poetry. Estranged from his father and divorced from his wife, Tom yearns to be close to his two young sons. He finds a substitute for his fatherly instincts in Iraq. While deployed, Sergeant K meets a young boy who gave himself the American name of Walker, after the Walker Texas Ranger. When on patrol, the platoon often stops in a ramshackle Shia settlement to visit with Iraqi families in an effort to win hearts and minds. Kirkland develops a meaningful friendship with Walker and Walker’s father, the professor.

Author Kendel paints a picture of how war affects both the people of the occupied country and the warriors who interact with them. Some soldiers view all civilians as the enemy, while others try to see the humanity of people trying to survive in the middle of war.

In a dark mindset, a few soldiers seek “to kill an Iraqi” before they go home. Sergeant K is drawn into a pre-planned, evil event, under the guise of a legitimate action. The horror that he witnesses negates all his efforts to win hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens. Sergeant K is now viewed as a hated American intruder by his Iraqi friends. He experiences a new fear in the few days he has left in Iraq, that he will be killed or wounded when so close to seeing his boys again.

Review by Nancy Panko (April 2023)
 

Author's Synopsis

At a dusty intersection in Baghdad, Sergeant Thomas Kirkland is seconds away from unleashing a hail of bullets on a possible suicide bomber when he's stopped by the unexpected—the piercing dark eyes of a young girl sitting on her mother's lap in the passenger seat. For a split second he'd held the life of this child and her family in his hands. Plagued by fear and anxiety, Sergeant K struggles with his own inner demons as he confronts a population around him that wishes him dead. But he confronts more than just an external enemy, as he discovers the darkness that exists not just within himself, but in his fellow soldiers. 

A starkly honest and gut-wrenching account of the Iraq war from the perspective of an infantry soldier patrolling the dusty and lethal roads of south-west Baghdad. The threat of IEDs and ambushes are ever-present, but as Sergeant K and his comrades soon learn, modern war can take many shapes and forms. Grappling with a myriad of emotions—fear, anger, confusion, and anxiety—they face many external threats, but they begin to discover that the enemy within themselves can often be more challenging and dangerous than the one they were sent to fight.

Format(s) for review: Paper or Kindle

Review Genre: Fiction—Literary Fiction

Number of Pages: 288

Word Count: 106,000