"Shade it Black: Death and After in Iraq"

I read "Shade it Black" today in a single sitting and wanted to write this while the details were fresh in my mind. As I write, I'm listening to a recent interview Fresh Air's Terry Gross conducted with Jessica Goodell, a Marine Corps vet who penned this memoir about her time spent in the Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. I heard part of this interview on a commute home recently and was transfixed...I'm glad I took an opportunity to hear this again after reading Goodell's story. You can listen to the interview here. The title of the book is culled from the practice of indicating missing body parts on dead soldiers by shading those areas black on a diagram of a body.

The book itself is equal parts chronology of Goodell's time spent processing the dead bodies and remains of deceased Marines and a delicately poetic philosophy on death, war, feminism and PTSD.

There's an interesting conversation between herself and the co-author John Hearn where he asks her to imagine herself down the road with an eighteen-year-old son - here's the conversation as described by Hearn:

"What would you tell him if he were to announce that he was enlisting in the Marines?" I asked.
"I'd tell him to go for it," she replied.
"What would you say to an eighteen-year-old daughter who told you she was joining the Marines?"
"I'd say, No you're not."
"No discussion?"
"No."
"No compromising? You wouldn't suggest, for example, that she graduate from college first and then decide whether or not to sign up?"
"No."
"Just a straight-out 'No you're not'?"
"Correct."

One of the most interesting themes in Goodell's book deals with the conflict of women in the Marine Corps. She mentions often that women aren't accepted as proper Marines but always qualified instead as "Female Marines." Second class soldiers. Not strong enough, or fast enough, or tough enough, or...MARINE enough. To the male Marines -- the real Marines -- women are classified in vulgar categories as "either bitches, dykes, or whores." For those women, fighting not to become a stereotype means isolating yourself, chosing not to socialize, deliberately distancing yourself from the very solidiers who's lives you've sworn to die protecting. They've sworn to die protecting yours, too.

Add to that isolation the fact that she volunteered to be part of the Mortuary Affairs unit in order to get to Iraq in the first place. These Marines were particularly separate by virtue of the work they performed. When you're wading through unidentifiable remains all day, when you're responsible for identifying body parts blown to mush by roadside bombs, or when you're piecing missing limbs back together into some semblance of a soldier in order to return those fragments to the family back home, you're too close to death. You smell of death. You're unable to eat: burnt food smells like the burnt flesh you process all day. You live among the dead, you're unwelcome among the living.

Jessica Goodell's deployment ends after eight months. "Coming home," emotionally, takes years. Social anxiety, drugs and alcohol, abusive relationships -- they're all standing between Goodell and "normal life." The discharge from active duty does nothing to prepare a soldier for life back home. A quick questionnaire about libido and appetite and a terse suggestion to see a counselor back home are all the help that's offered. Medications are prescribed. That's about it.

Upon arriving home, she makes the observation that "everyday life had the feel of a shopping mall on Black Friday and you were there alone, among total strangers, wandering around or, at most, transacting business. The Mall of America.

"All of this--the rampant consumption, the materialism, the self-centeredness--the Corps had purged from us; then we were dropped back into the middle of it all. The experiences of war, of combat and death, left us jittery in public places, jumpy at the sound of fire crackers, sleepless at night. And it was these changes in what we saw as important, in who we were, in how we lived, in the bonds that connected us, or didn't, that created deeper problems in adjusting back to our old lives."

As she gradually re-engages with society, she begins re-forming her world view based on difficult questions she asks herself about the nature of war. Questions for which there are no easy answers. She reads voraciously. She points to Chris Hedges, to Peter Berger, to C. Wright Mills and draws parallels between life in a Marine platoon and life in society at large, ultimately concluding that, "the close bonds and deep meaning that characterize a Marine platoon can be created in the wider social world, even if not so easily in our own. And, importantly, the conditions that foster closeness and meaning in the Marines needn't be forced upon us. We can choose to be good based upon knowldge and truth, and upon freedom and choice. The traits that make a person 'good'--knowledge and wisdom and courage and justice and honest and humility and an ability to focus on what is important outside of oneself, among others--can be cultivated and used to make relationships and communities 'good.' A good community in turn will encourage virtues and will promote sacrifice, and sacrifice will generate meaning and love, both of which will be all the sweeter because they are freely chosen. This is what I believe. This is my hope."

It's a beautiful book that tackles difficult subject matter delicately, sensibly, colorfully. As she recounts her return back to "normal life" the storytelling was vivid enough that I felt uncomfortable with life in America as well. As she struggled to get out of bed, I empathized, felt a certain dark discomfort settle in at the thought of what a frivolous, selfish and consumer-driven nation we're shockingly proud to have become.

Toward the end of her interview with Terry Gross she's asked whether she believes the treatment of women in the Marine Corps will ever improve and, if so, how. She says that "...there's an easy fix, and that would be not to have women in the Marine Corps, but that's not the correct solution.....but rather to teach both the men and the women about the roles that we play....."

It's hard to reach the end of the book without giving serious consideration to the roles we're asking military service members to play. We're able to sit at home and watch sensationalized news stories about the grim conditions, but we're still fairly uncomfortable thinking about the toll those conditions take on the men and women who serve, particularly once they come back home.

HIGHLY, highly, highly recommend this book. It's a quick read, it's beautifully written, it's emotionally and spiritually and philosophically compelling, it's difficult and uncomfortable and vivid. Should generate great conversations.




"Shade it Black: Death and After in Iraq" (Jessica Goodell and John Hearn)