Iraq blog becoming a book

Some time back, I posted about a soldier in Mosul with the Army who had been maintaining a blog. The soldier's name is Colby Buzzell, now rotated stateside and out of the army. The writing in his blog resembles a 21st century Punk/Skater combination of Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemingway, both writers he admires.

Now G. P. Putnam's Sons is to publish a book version of Buzzell's blog plus other journal information he had kept on paper rather than posting on his blog. The book, My War, is scheduled for publication in the Fall of this year.

One chapter of the book will be published in March's issue of Esquire.

I highly recommend this guy's work. His style is gritty and immediate. Apart from an irreverence for Army bureaucracy and a sardonic sense of humor, the blog is apolitical. The nearest thing to a political comment I can recall is Buzzell's comment that he could never vote for John Kerry because young Kerry threw his medals over the White House fence.

The archives of the blog entries from Iraq have been taken off line, no doubt to protect the salability of the book. The blog now contains entries about the ex-soldier's life and other material. Still well-written and sharp.

I am going to read the article next month. And I will buy the book next Fall. I hope many others will do the same.