War Flower: My Life After Iraq. Brooke King. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2019

War, it seems, is always with you.

The jacket of War Flower says it is “the story of a girl who went to war and returned home a woman,” that she “reflects on what violence does to a woman and how the psychic wounds of combat are unwittingly passed down from mother to children.”[1] This is the story of not only what war can do to a human brain, but what it specifically did to Brooke King’s brain. War Flower is a story of a child of a broken home going to war, getting spat out broken, and trying to piece her life back together for the sake of her sanity and the well-being of her children. It is a memoir of war.

War Flower is not so much a linear memoir of a woman’s time in Iraq, but rather a collection of short stories, vignettes, allegories, and poem-like passages.

The book is set up in seven sections, each containing more than just what happened. They are each a piece of a puzzle, of King’s childhood, her time in Iraq, her life post-war. Her story is occasionally interrupted with flashbacks to her childhood, her time just before Iraq, and quick post-war asides.

War Flower is mostly told in chronological order. After an opening scene at a court-martial—not King’s—it takes the reader to her arrival in Iraq. The reader follows as she adjusts to being in a war zone, through her transformation as a young woman into a hardened, cynical soldier.

After Brooke King joined the U.S. Army, she was deployed to Iraq in 2006 as a mechanic. She was also assigned to a recovery team, whose job it was to recover the remains of killed soldiers. She quickly adjusts to being in a war zone. One way she adjusts, intentional or not, is to begin othering the Iraqis. The first two sections of the book are sprinkled with stereotypical descriptors of Arabs. Descriptions of brutality and humiliation follow: wiping boots on prayer rugs; American men interacting with Iraqi women without husbands or fathers present; random beatings; shooting at a boy on a sidewalk until he jumped into traffic to avoid the bullets, only to be hit by a vehicle. Perhaps othering is a way to cope with the experiences of war, a way to distance yourself from those you fight against, as well as removing yourself from the situation. Yet, King sprinkles her story with little anecdotes of humanity and compassion, perhaps to remind the reader—and herself—that she is still human.

In several passages, King adopts a second-person narrative, almost as a way to distance herself from the violence she was experiencing. She uses it when recounting recovery missions, as well as the mortar attack on her base that left her wounded. Other times, she is clinical as she explains the details, step-by-step, of recovering the remains, as if she is explaining it to herself. When King later recalls seeing a homeless man in Seattle settle into a black garbage bag, it seems out of place until the reader recalls how King’s recovery team used black bags.

A scenario that follows the reader through the book is one of King’s first recovery mission, responding to a Stryker struck by an improvised explosive device. The shock and horror of the scene haunts King through nightmares. A young Iraqi boy killed in front of King also frequents her nightmares.

Once the book shifts from King’s time in Iraq to her post-Army life, the tone darkens. Stories from her life in Germany with her new husband feel like filler. The graphic depictions of the carnage she witnessed at war manifesting themselves as nightmares become the story.

Separated from the U.S. Army and pregnant, King soon returns to her childhood home in San Diego, and it is there that she must confront the reality of her post-traumatic stress syndrome. She is nudged by her family to go to Veteran Affairs for treatment, only to be rejected because the doctor did not believe she saw combat. Defeated and bitter, King’s nightmares seem to intensify with new details of the Stryker and the killing of the young boy.

King’s experiences even manifest themselves in her gruesome depiction of her own caesarean section, echoing the carnage of war, including death. Her comparisons to war follow through to motherhood. Flashbacks are brought on while her son watches the movie Iron Man. Guilt weighs heavy after she lashes out at her son, scaring him. Seeing the effect on her family, King is again convinced to go to Veterans Affairs. The definitions of post-traumatic syndrome are read by her new doctor and listed through King’s experiences in Iraq.

Post-Iraq, King returned to school and earned her Master of Fine Arts, and it shows in her writing. Even the most graphic scenes seem poetic. As she leaves Private King behind and becomes Brooke, she faces her war head-on through her thesis. She finally gives the young boy of her nightmares a life in detailing his death. She gives new rules to her sons, “don’t play war” among them. She finds a way to live with her ghosts.

The book’s vivid details of war and the trauma of post-traumatic stress syndrome make War Flower a must-read for those curious about the effects of war on the human mind. It joins an ever-growing library of memoirs by women who experienced combat. But what sets War Flower apart are the details of post-war life and the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome on King’s life and family. It joins Shade It Black, by Jess Goodell, as a detailed account of how war affects a woman after she returns home. Goodell, a U.S. Marine, was also on a recovery team, assigned to the mortuary affairs unit in Iraq. Like King, Goodell describes the damage war does to her psyche after returning home from Iraq. Both women detail the nightmares left by war, the eventual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome, and a sort of salvation found during time in university.

My only critique of War Flower is its use of U.S. Army acronyms and slang, with little to no explanation. Those unfamiliar with the military may not get what King refers to in a few passages. It is minor, and does not affect the story King is telling or the message she seeks to convey.

Overall, War Flower is an excellent memoir of war and its aftermath. It is a woman’s memoir.

Brandee Leon writes about terrorism and international relations. Her main area of focus is terror in Europe and women in terrorism. She has written for The Strategy Bridge and Business Insider, as well as other forums.

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Header Image: Poppies at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. (Katartix/Shutterstock)

Notes:

[1] Brooke King, War Flower: My Life After Iraq, (Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2019)