Veteran Marine pens award-winning book about Iraq War, signs autographs at Main Exchange

Former Marine captain Phil Klay, winner of the 2014 National Book Award in the category of fiction, was at the Main Exchange March 11 for a book signing. Klay’s book Redeployment tells the story of the war in Iraq in 12 chapters from the perspective of numerous Marines and other characters.

Though Redployment is a work of fiction, the realism and imagery of the chapters, which are each told by a different narrator, make it seem almost as if he is telling the story of one real person at a time, with the names changed to protect the living. Klay said, however, that while each chapter was inspired by numerous real-world events and experiences, the medium of fiction enabled him to tell a richer story than would be possible from a single actual person’s perspective.

Klay said his goal in writing the collection of short stories was to “complicate some of the notions people have about war,” as he felt that the same types of stories were being told over and over. Klay said he wanted to present a new side of the story and fill in what was missing in the general conversation. Among other issues, he wanted to address what coming home to America was like for service members.

In a recent interview with CNN, President Barak Obama praised Klay’s book and said it was a good reminder for him as commander-in-chief that decisions made at the highest levels affect individual service members on the ground. Praise from the president, the National Book Award, and a recent appearance on The Colbert Report have Klay feeling upbeat and looking forward to writing his next book.

However, when asked how he feels, as a Marine veteran, about nearly everyone in the media referring to the characters in his book as soldiers, when they are in fact Marines, Klay rolled his eyes and sighed in mild exasperation. He said that when his book came back from the first round of copyediting, and the “M” in Marines had been lowercased throughout the manuscript by the editor, he changed it back to a capital letter.

— Writer: ebaker@quanticosentryonline.com