I’ve been catching up the goings-on since I’ve been gone, and I came across a couple of stories on MAJ Jim Gant, the author of ‘One Tribe at a Time’ (who I mentioned in Monday’s post). At the Huffington Post, an article by David Wood that chronicles the rise and fall of MAJ Gant. And over at War is Boring, David Axe hones in on the fact that MAJ Gant “brought his girlfriend to war.”
It’s one of those wacky stories that you can’t possibly believe is true, yet somehow, is.
It reminds me of the story of Mary Anne Bell, the peppy girlfriend who visits her boyfriend in Vietnam in The Things They Carried. Once there, she gets swept up with a team of Green Berets (hmm) who are co-located on the same camp. She starts going out on missions with the team and quickly becomes enamored with the war. Over time, she completely disappears.
For anyone who has served in a war zone, the idea of having a loved one come to visit is absurd. Yet, it’s only a plane ticket away.
Is bringing your girlfriend to war that strange, after all?
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Carrying the Gun 