I decided to write this book because I felt the actions of the regular soldier in Iraq had not been recorded in the media. There have been a lot of excellent books written by and about special operations soldiers since 9/11 (I’ve read most of them), but they don’t represent the experience of the majority of servicemen and -women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. SOF soldiers are selfless professionals who continuously put themselves in harm’s way, but they were a minority of the troops who were on the ground. I wanted to record what it was like for the average soldier in Iraq in 2005. To be tasked with holding and occupying a part of the country. To interact daily with the Iraqi people and try to develop relationships that might make their lives better and save ours. To bring democracy, when what the people wanted was security. To drive on the same roads, never knowing if the parked car you were about to pass was about to blow up.

When I was an undergraduate studying the American Revolution, I discovered that most primary sources had been written by the great men on both sides; think George Washington and William Howe. But when I stumbled across the diary of an American or British soldier recording his observations of daily campaign life, I learned more about the Revolution and the people who fought it than I did from any of the generals’ books. I wrote Driving Around, Waiting to Get Blown Up in the hope that it might inform Americans now or maybe one day in the future about what the American occupation of Iraq was really like. There are a couple of chapters posted here under “Excerpts” as well as some pictures in the Gallery. They’ll give you an idea of what the book is like, but please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thank you for reading,

Mark