Following my post “The Feed From Foreign Fields”, Pete from SP’s Projects Blog recommended this book to me.

This was not a fun read but it was an excellent one, mainly because it deals with a very real but not often understood of working/fighting in a combat zone.

‘An extraordinary memoir of the Bosnian War … savage and mercilessly readable … deserves a place alongside George Orwell, James Cameron and Nicholas Tomalin. It is as good as war reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local. It is about the ditch in which the soldier crouches and the ground on which he fights and maybe dies. The same applies to the war reporter. Anthony Loyd has been there and knows it’ Martin Bell, The Times

Anthony Loyd arrived in the Balkans hoping to become a war correspondent. He wanted to see `a real war’, and in Bosnia he found one. The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him – the adrenaline lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among the Serbs, Croatians and Bosnian Muslims he was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered.

‘[Loyd] has written an account of its horrors that will wipe out any thoughts you might have had that we have reached the limit of the worst human nature has to offer. The monstrosities he describes are beyond belief. But the book is also compelling for what it tells us about fear’ National Geographic Adventure

Returning home from the conflict Loyd felt a void that could not be filled. It is a void that many soldiers returning to civilian life struggle with. No longer are ex-soldiers in a fight or flight situation and many of them find mundane employment and even friends and family just not satisfying. This often leads to depression, family violence and in Loyd’s case drug addiction.

Why? Put bluntly they are no longer in an adrenaline charged environment and are just not receiving the “rush” that the battlefield provides. It is not just a case of PTSD, although they often go hand in hand, but that they struggle to find fulfillment in their new life.

Loyd leads us through his personal journey and the seductive power that experiencing war provides.

Thanks Pete this was a great recommendation. So much so that I am going to purchase his second book Another Bloody Love Letter