my book – "bagels in kandahar" – (the first three introduction pages) [View all]

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The following is the beginning of the introduction – the first three pages as it appears right now* - of my first book, Bagels in Kandahar. This will be the only part of the book I put online until it is completed.

- JK

* – words subject to change.

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NEW YORK

NOVEMBER, 2009

For a Jew, this one was real bad with money.

It was with those thoughts the Army recruiter tacked up his latest photograph to the wall of “future soldiers.”

Army Staff Sergeant Benjamin Zona didn’t have to do much to convince the 31-year-old white boy from the upper middle class part of Long Island to come slumming it at his downtown station.

Out of work for the last eight months. Running up thousands in credit card debt. This one had no savings and nothing to fall back on when he awkwardly stumbled in here like so many had been the last year.

The 2008 economic collapse had been the best thing that happened to SSG Zona since he became a recruiter18 months ago. Two nasty tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2005. Got blown up twice. Brain scrambled a few times. Wanted to stay in the infantry, but his wife nudged him to switch jobs.

Go home to New York, they told him.

We’ll let you do recruiting out on Long Island.

Never mind he was from Upstate New York and felt as uncomfortable as a country boy could be around all the blacks and Hispanics that leeched over the border from NYC years ago and now made up pretty much all of his recruits.

You’ll get a nice housing stipend to live over there.

You’ll get stuck in the hood for a little while, sure.

You do that for a few years you can move on to drill sergeant.

You’ll feel like a real soldier again.

Bullshit.

He knew this was probably the end of the line for him. He didn’t care. His contract is up in 18 months anyway. He could re-up for another three. Keep paying a grand a month for a place in Jersey. Wake up at 3:45. Do the 2-4 hour commute.

But with Obama in office now? How long is it until the “spending” on “the war” winds down? How long until the first thing to get cut are the balls off of men like him? Men who served their country. Know what this country needs right now to win these wars. More men on the front lines.

Fucking Obama.

These are the type of shitbag recruits I get nowadays?

He stepped back and looked at the photo wall. Only halfway through the month and this was his seventh recruit. Six blacks, none older than 20 – and one 30 year old Jew.

Sounds like a joke

Just two of the seven going infantry. One he snagged outside a nearby movie theater that was showing District 9. This new one was an older recruit.

Big crooked nose. Wisps of gray hair sprouting like weeds from his faux buzz cut – something he walked in with probably thinking it would show me he was “prepared” to join the Army. He had a thin stubble that looked like he hadn’t shaved in four days, so he wasn’t trying too hard.

--snip--

http://thesterlingroad.com/2013/10/12/my-book-bagels-in-kandahar-the-first-three-introduction-pages/