Phil Klay
Phil Klay
Phil Klayis an American writer and United States Marine officer who won the National Book Award for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, Redeployment...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
people war
People have a very political way of looking at war, and that's understandable.
according marines mood people politics suppose war
I suppose it is the lot of soldiers and Marines to be objectified according to the politics of the day and the mood of the American people about their war.
easy experience gain notions rare reality simple war
Going to war is a rare experience in American culture, so it's easy for simple notions to gain a lot of weight. The reality is always more complex.
served war
I'm not anti-war. I served in a war, and I served proudly. But just or not, necessary or not, war is the industrial-scale slaughter of other humans.
activity experience form human people priesthood separating varied war
Supposedly, going to war initiates you into this gnostic priesthood of people who've had a liminal experience forever separating them from civilians. Except... you go there, and it is what it is. A form of human activity as varied as any other.
intensely iraq war
I didn't want to write a 'this is how it is' Iraq book, because the Iraq War is an intensely complicated variety of things.
compare experience open readers tendency using war
We have a tendency to think of war as this quasi-mystical thing, and that interpretation flattens the experience - by using different perspectives, I wanted to open a place for readers to compare and contrast, to make judgments, to engage.
deal treating war
Treating war as farce is one way soldiers deal with it.
assume bad civilians embark iraq nation ownership wars
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen's wars as they are the veterans' wars. If we don't assume that civilians have just as much ownership and the moral responsibilities that we have as a nation when we embark on something like that, then we're in a very bad situation.
collective embedded mankind notion rest separates war
The notion that war forever separates veterans from the rest of mankind has been long embedded in our collective consciousness.
takes time understand war
War is complicated and intense, and it takes time and thoughts to understand what it was.
arena courage display experience impose millions narratives politics touch war
War is an arena for the display of courage and virtue. Or war is politics by other means. War is a quasi-mystical experience where you get in touch with the real. There are millions of narratives we impose to try to make sense of war.
bit easier interview open people talk vet war
It's easier to get people to talk to you if you're a vet and you want to interview a vet about war. Sometimes they open up a little bit easier.
goes sees skeptical truth veteran war
There's a tradition in war writing that the veteran goes over and sees the truth of war and comes back. And I'm skeptical of that.