Sometimes you pick up a book and don’t remember where you got it. This one we seem to have picked up in a thrift store named “Heart & Hand” for the inflated price of 91¢! It’s from a land Far, Far Away: Letters From the Front Line of the War On Terror by Wes Trueblood. He served as an English teacher, a civilian employee for the US Military. Earlier in his life, Trueblood had been in the military. In one letter he mentioned he was “no longer an ordained minister”, so that’s also an item on his resume.

The book is a series of letters Trueblood wrote to a mailing list back home—family, friends, and friends of friends. The letters told his impressions of the countries he went to: first Iraq in 2007, then after a year in the USA, to Afghanistan in 2009. The book looked interesting especially due to our time in Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

In terms of information, the book did not disappoint. Trueblood’s impressions and conclusions about the two countries pretty much match my own. He was hampered in learning about the countries because he was essentially in a war zone and could not get out among the local population.

Thus he gave a lot of information about the bases he was at. Who lived with him, as roommate and as other base residents? What were the site rules? What type of recreation did they have? Were they in danger? After a while, it got tiring. Trueblood kept trying to distinguish between miliary people and civilians (such as him) who worked for the military. Those parts became kind of boring after a while. I read them all, but not closely enough to really understand the differences.

One other problem was that the “letters” were really a newsletter sent by e-mail. It reads differently than letters do. That was a little off-putting for me.

So, should you read this book? is it a keeper? How do I rate it? I think you would have to ha e a special interest in these countries or in this part of the world to make this book worth your while. It is now a keeper for me, and will go straight out to the donation pile. And I rate only 3-stars. It is really 3.5 stars for me. It’s well put together, and I’m glad I read it, but the stars rating is for others, not for me.