My New Reads

I know that I will never know what all my boyfriend will witness and go through while he is in the war zone.  However, to try to understand a little more about what he will be going through, I went to Borders recently.  I picked up three books about Afghanistan, all ranging with different ideas and stories about the war and the soldiers that bravely battled through it.  The first book I read I finished within a day.  It is called Greetings From Afghanistan: Send More Ammo.  The author, Benjamin Tupper, was in the Army, and while he was over there, he blogged about his stories and what he all went through. This book is what his blogs consisted of.  It is a very interesting read, one that doesn't hold back what he and his fellow soldiers went through.  It talks about his good friends that made it through, and others that lost their lives.  He also talks about how it was hard for him to come back to the United States after being over there for so long.  In one instance, he states that one of his soldiers e-mailed him, saying to him after both returning home: " I would trade everything I have to be back over there."  Tupper talks about how it was hard to find the adrenaline he had experienced in Afghanistan, here at home.  He also goes into discussing the issue on why so many soldiers act the way they act when returning home.  The book opened my eyes to how I should think my boyfriend may or may not feel while over there and when coming home.  Earlier in the book, Tupper hit home to me in a sentence he said the phrase, "thousand-yard stare".  As soon as I read that sentence, I instantly thought of my boyfriend, who has shown that expression time and time again to me.  And thanks to Tupper, I now know why he would sometimes use it.