Book Captures Rebellious Spirit of Gulf War Veterans

Surrender

I’ve been excited to read Brian O'Hare's Surrender (Syracuse, 2022) ever since it was announced as Syracuse University’s 2021 Veterans Writing Award winner and it did not disappoint. This is a collection of short stories loosely tying together the pre-war, war, and post-war stories of a squad of Gulf War Marine Veterans, with the primary focus on their Lieutenant, Francis Keene. Throughout the stories, the men encounter the full spectrum of life's trials, from casual bigotry in a small town, to an unhinged, alcoholic Marine Commander, to the bittersweet emotions of homecoming, reassimilation, and loss. Many of the stories take place in the late 1980’-into-early-90’s and the author does an incredible job capturing the casually rebellious attitude that seems to be the hallmark of time. 

For me, one of the best qualities of Surrender is that, while it’s beautifully written, it also feels accessible to a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal like myself. I’m not a smart man (read that last bit in your best Forrest Gump voice), but I know what I like and I liked this book immensely. O’Hare is brilliant when it comes to building lyrical prose that punches hard but avoids pretentious verbiage, which I often find myself stumbling over in similarly styled works. There are no bouts of ostentatious lingual preening or loquacious pontifications meant to showboat the author's prodigious lexicon (see what I’m doing here?). O’Hare’s prose is straight forward, smart, and satisfying. I particularly love the style of his analogies, with many references back to the pop culture of my youth. I felt more than a few Captain America “I understood that reference” moments throughout the stories.

The title Surrender is appropriate and sums up the tone of much of the collection. The narrations are unique in that they feel like just that, a surrender. They are not seeking approval, pity, or sympathy. Nor are they are self-serving—they do not lament life’s losses or inequities, they do not make excuses or point fingers. Instead, O’Hare’s narrators seem to lay bare each story from a position of somber resignation, personal appraisals of an unchangeable past that perhaps the reader can dissect and take lessons from. Oftentimes, when I’m reading or reviewing a book, I like to compare the work with other familiar pieces of pop culture to make it more relatable in my own brain and provide a frame of reference for the reader. For me, Surrender felt like a combination of the movies SLC Punk! and Jarhead, if that does anything to help convey the tone.   

Brett Allen is a humor writer and author of the Afghanistan war novel, Kilroy Was Here. He is also a contributing writer for Task and Purpose as a member of their Gear Review team. Follow him on Twitter at @hogwashwriting.