That you’re holding this volume in your hand is proof that unexpected good luck still exists.
When I decided to go to Iraq in January 2004 with the intention to write, it was not just that I suspected corporate news outlets were leaving the U.S. public in the dark about some very important stories. It was because I had seen it for myself, multiple times, during my first trip there just prior to the U.S. invasion of March, 2003. So when I went back for two months early in 2004, it didn’t take me long to find some of those stories. As you’ll see from the instance at the courthouse in Ramadi, so many people had so many compelling stories you could get literally swept away.
But as I’ve heard it said, that unless you’re Emily Dickinson, if you want to be a writer you need readers. Luckily the internet provides an outlet, albeit unpaid, for writers with something to say. Thanks to sites like Counterpunch, the Baltimore Chronicle, MRZine, Antiwar.com, and LewRockwell.com, my work found responsive readers and I was encouraged to keep writing.
Another bit of good fortune was that in Iraq I met Dahr Jamail, now probably the most influential independent journalist covering that country, just as he began his work. Although I’ll not likely attain his level of skill and certainly not his prodigious output, I did learn from him not to be discouraged by lack of a hardcopy portfolio or compensation, and just “get it out there” on the internet.
After many electronic articles and responses, the unprecedented thought struck me to compile these stories in a book. Because Hilary Claggett at Praeger Publishers believed they deserve to be told, you are holding Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq.
In these pages you’ll meet some of the people who’ve inspired me to continue working in the peace movement and to become an author. Two deserve special mention.
The first is my wife, Sue Carter, who thinks I’m brave but is in reality the courageous one of us – not only for being an unfailing peace activist but for staring down a timeclock every morning, allowing her late middle-aged spouse to discover the work he truly loves.
The second is not really a single person but 24 million of them – the people of Iraq. Whatever success this book has will be measured by the extent to which readers begin to see them as fellow human beings.
