Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI

by Ryan Smithson Narrated by Ryan Smithson

Overview

In this extraordinary and harrowing memoir, follow one GI's tour of duty as Ryan Smithson brings readers inside a world that few understand.

This is no ordinary teenager's story. Instead of opting for college life, Ryan Smithson joined the Army Reserve when he was seventeen. Two years later, he was deployed to Iraq as an Army engineer.

His story-and the stories of thousands of other soldiers-is nothing like what you see on CNN or read about in the New York Times. This unforgettable story about combat, friendship, fear, and a soldier's commitment to his country peels back the curtain on the realities of war in a story all Americans should read.

This nonfiction book about a young soldier's experience in Iraq is a must-read for anyone interested in the reality of war.

It would make a great gift for a 17-year-old considering joining the military, or for a 14-year-old boy interested in military history.

HarperCollins 2024

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

This diverse collection of fun and offbeat short stories places real people in situations which provoke unpredictable and often humorous responses to life’s absurdities. As a result, Mr. Scheer’s characters are full of surprises, often doing the unexpected. While one character uses a glass eye in the most unimaginable way possible and another refuses an operation because he is convinced the doctors are wrong, a third emits canine howls as cats are purring.

This book features Mr. Scheer’s prize winning title story, “El Loro Es Verde.” The story catalogs a man’s repeated attempts to find a situation where he can relive a past moment of glory achieved decades earlier by his perfect pronunciation of a single phrase in his high school Spanish class. The character’s persistent efforts to recreate this important, yet laughable “parrot moment” reflect his arrogance in believing that his inept attempts to shape his own destiny are even possible.

“The Diagnosis,” another of Mr. Scheer’s short stories in this collection appeared in the late Tim Russert’s anthology, "Wisdom of Our Fathers," published by Random House. “The Diagnosis” received high praise on four major television news and talk shows.

One journalist's reaction:

“I guess maybe my favorite story in the book ("Wisdom of Our Fathers") is “The Diagnosis.” It makes you laugh out loud and cry out loud.”

Another journalist concluded, “It’s the small moments that make the big difference.” This is the writing style that Mr. Scheer brings to the reader.

Mr. Scheer’s unique insights into everyday people allow the reader to poke fun at his characters, but more importantly at ourselves, stripping away our defenses and exposing our weaknesses for all to see. Mr. Scheer’s ability to craft comic exchanges among his characters and employ engrossing plots that contain surprising tidbits underscores his skill as a fiction writer of note. His stories prompt the reader to close the book with a smile on his face and a fullness of heart.

Author Don Scheer has selected six quotations from his favorite stories for this collection as follows:

The Diagnosis “… If I can’t make love to your mother anymore, I don’t want to live.”

Who Stole My Cane? “…When you’re deaf, life goes on unchanged … What are you going to miss, that Mrs. Krebs has a new dental implant?”

The Music Man …“While Marian was purring and meowing and Luigi was purring and Boccherini was meowing, Larry felt so good that his manhood was no longer threatened – and because he was a dog person, he began to howl out of relief and joy.”

El Loro Es Verde “…he often thought of kisses that should have been taken and loves that were never realized, of hugs not given and conversations never spoken."

Seeing Eye to Eye … “Dr. Gruen sped through his crowded waiting room screaming, “It’s an eyeball. Help me, God. It’s an eyeball!”

Platnikoff and the Canary: A Love Story “… the moment one zeros in on anything, even if it’s as inconsequential as a blade of grass or a canary, that thing can become an indescribably magnificent universe – mysterious and wondrous. It can become an entire life.”

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up

Smithson experienced the events of 9/11 while in high school and responded by enlisting in the Army Reserve after graduation. He married his high school sweetheart before being deployed to Iraq. Once there, he worked as an equipment operator in an equipment platoon, and while mortar fire was a regular occurrence, the missions he describes were all about bulldozing berms, filling craters created by IEDs, and convoying lumber. One gruesome section describes salvaging parts from Humvees in which soldiers died. A few missions, though, were more in the line of favors to the local population than anything that helps combatants. Some of the author's most poignant passages are his descriptions of interactions with Iraqi children. Where he was expecting rock-throwing, he encountered barefoot, dirty children grateful for the water the soldiers gave them. It is these children and the villagers he met that help explain for him the purpose of the war. The book ends with Smithson's return home, his almost magical escape from night terrors, and his work with children in his own hometown. Writing proves to be his therapy for PTSD. There are mixed metaphors aplenty, crude and morbid humor, and other evidence of a young author, but it all works together to create a tough but powerful look at one man's experience.-Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Kirkus Reviews

Ryan Smithson was a typical 16-year-old high-school student until 9/11. "I'd thought about joining the military the moment I saw the towers fall," he writes in this profoundly moving memoir. Smithson enlisted in the Army Reserve the following year and, a year into the Iraq war, was deployed to an Army engineer unit as a heavy-equipment operator. His poignant, often harrowing account, especially vivid in sensory details, chronicles his experiences in basic training and in Iraq. "Only after we have been completely destroyed can we begin to find ourselves," Smithson writes of basic training, offering an unflinchingly honest portrait of the physical and psychological brutality of that experience. His account of his tour of duty in Iraq is no less compelling. He lucidly recounts the intensity of battle and the pain of losing comrades. For Smithson, the war is a source of personal enlightenment, and this memoir is a remarkable, deeply penetrating read that will compel teens to reflect on their own thoughts about duty, patriotism and sacrifice. (Memoir. YA)

From the Publisher

He lucidly recounts the intensity of battle and the pain of losing comrades. For Smithson, the war is a source of personal enlightenment, and this memoir is a remarkable, deeply penetrating read that will compel teens to reflect on their own thoughts about duty, patriotism and sacrifice. (Memoir. YA) — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A tough but powerful look at one man’s experience. — School Library Journal (starred review)

Smithson avoids writing either prowar propaganda or an antimilitary polemic, providing instead a fascinating, often humorous-and occasionally devastating-account of the motivations and life of a contemporary soldier. — Publishers Weekly

Unflinchingly honest. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173429179
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/21/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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