If we fetishize trauma as incommunicable, then survivors are trapped – unable to feel truly known by their nonmilitary friends and family. Phil Klay Read Quote
Less than 1 percent of American have served in 12 years of war, and serious public conversation about military policy is sorely lacking. Phil Klay Read Quote
It’s a professional military. You sign up and agree to allow your countrymen to use your life as they see fit for the next four years. And I think we all should have a greater role in ensuring that we use those lives wisely. Phil Klay Read Quote
A great writer is a great writer… Tolstoy was not a woman, but ‘Anna Karenina’ is still a pretty good book. Phil Klay Read Quote
Certainly, my exposure in high school to writers like Flannery O’Connor, Shusaku Endo, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Graham Greene was formative. Phil Klay Read Quote
The civilian wants to respect what the veteran has gone through. The veteran wants to protect memories that are painful and sacred to him from outside judgment. Phil Klay Read Quote
A lot of the great pieces of journalism from Iraq showed how important command influence was in violent, aggressive environments, where Marines and soldiers had a constrained set of choices to make in sudden moments. Phil Klay Read Quote
I’m generally not a fan of didactic art because it papers over many of the hard experiences about war or anything else in life. I wanted to explore various aspects of the experience without an eye towards delivering any particular message. Phil Klay Read Quote
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. Phil Klay Read Quote
