The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq by John Crawford

From the Publisher

John Crawford joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college tuition. One weekend a month. Two weeks a year. A free education. But in 2002, one semester shy of graduation and on his honeymoon, Crawford was shipped off to the front lines in Iraq. Once there he was determined to get it all down, to chronicle the daily life of a soldier in all its brutal, terrifying, heartbreaking honesty. The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell introduces a powerful new literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.

Library Journal

Report from the front: newly married and just short of graduating, a young man who joined the Florida National Guard to pay for his college education finds himself in Iraq, where an embedded journalist encourages him to disseminate the stories he's writing about his experience. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

What People Are Saying

Gabe Hudson
This book blew me away. Powerful, haunting, hilarious, searingly honest, and shot through with all sorts of sorrow and rage and grief. It reminded me a little of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, but the truth is you've never read anything quite like this before. Mr. Crawford does a beautiful job of conveying the modern infantryman's torn heart, and our nation's war literature is richer by one outstanding book. Thank you, Mr.Crawford.
—(Gabe Hudson, author of Dear Mr. President)

David Amsden
Crawford's writing pulses with urgency, and, gloriously, his story of being an American soldier in Iraq is shattering and relentless. Most chillingly for us readers in our early twenties, Crawford's story universalizes the accidental way in which this war has affected us all.
—(David Amsden, author of Important Things That Don't Matter)

James Crumley
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell is a savage, gritty, and compelling work that reveals the true cost of the Iraqi Adventure, the price paid by young soldiers. It's not about heroism, but about heroic endurance against the desert, the war-torn neighborhoods, and the lies of their commanders, lies that will echo the rest of their lives. It's a major account of the Iraqi War, without pretense, without an axe to grind, and without complaint. A story about the heart of all wars - not politics, not principles, not money - your buddies. I was touched and overwhelmed.
—(James Crumley, author of One to Count Cadence, The Last Good Kiss and The Right Madness)

James Frey
This may well be the last true story John Crawford ever tells, but it's enough. He has written a vital book. Vital because we need to read it, vital because it reveals some truths about the war in Iraq that we have not seen, the human truths of young men waging war, vital because it's honest, raw and alive. It's a heartbreaking and perversely beautiful book that should join Catch-22 and The Things They Carried as this generation's defining literary expression of men at war.
—(James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard)

Thom Jones
I picked up Crawford's book and with the first paragraph I was hooked. I put it down at the half way point so I would have the pleasure of reading the rest later. It's f***ing dynamite. A young man pushed beyond endurance. Is a good book worth what he saw, felt, experienced? There are some bad things people know and wish they didn't. And I can just see it all: Something very dark in the human heart and it cannot be vanquished. War after war. I finished the book thinking this is like Vietnam all over again. And like Michael Herr in Dispatches, Crawford really has it down. He's got it nailed.
—(Thom Jones, author of Pugilist at Rest)

Product Details