I Don't Know But I've Been Told: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.58 (983 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0060955694 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 272 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-10-06 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
But drawn to shady schemes and seedy bars, the narrator and the Recon Dogs get shipped to Panama, where something unexpected happens to give the soldier a heart-wrenching story of his own. He is also discovering the power of stories told by bull-slinging buddies and Vietnam vets to give him a connection to the past, a place in the world, and a sense of self -- even when they're not true. To escape trouble at home, the young narrator enlists in the U.S. A cathartic free fall of a novel, I Don't Know But I've Been Told captures the cadences of real men talking to create a portrait of the military that is dead-on, funny, harsh, and true.. It's where I come from." So begins Raul Correa's raw, mesmerizing tale of a peacetime soldier. Soon he's one of Fort Bragg's Recon Dogs, wild, scrappy, and jumping from airplanes -- after taking mescaline to heighten the experience. Army. You don't know me without that. "I was a paratrooper in the 2nd 304 Scout Reconnaissance Platoon, 82nd Airborne Division
Eskimo [something] is mighty cold (end of the Jody call) Ten stars, terrific book. Want to know what enlisted life in the Army is like without leaving your comfortable armchair? Buy this and turn off the phone. Brilliant reconstruction of Army life, that alternate society that too few Americans today know. Shows the love and esprit de corps that a small unit can develop, where it comes from, and what can tear it apart. Plus the author writes prose that is as cool, clear, and swift as a flowing mountain stream. The proofreader needs to spend several months doing PT at Ft. Bragg -- parachute lines are "taut" not "taught" and it is inexcusable to have "173rd" and "1/73rd" on the s. Really fabulous new book! Wow! I just started to read this book and am very impressed! Mr. Correa's book is a tremendous accomplishment. In reading it I feel like I am right there with his narrator, experiencing all the ups and downs, good times and bad, all the sights and smells. There are some excellent reviews mentioned on the cover of this book, some of them comparing Mr. Correa very favorably to other authors. I would certainly not question these but, to me, this book reminds me completely of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. While the subject matter, writing style, etc., are not exactly the same, in reading Grapes of Wrath I felt like I was right. A modern Huck Finn joins the airborne Kindle Customer In case you never heard the Jody chant (Jody is the 4F who gets all the girls while we are off studying war ;-), "I don't know, but I've been told" ends with an unprintable, biologically improbable claim about lady Eskimoes. But that's the kind of thing that makes sense if you are doing close order drill, learning to assemble machine guns by touch, jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, etc.Back in the Bad Old Days, Jimmy Carter had been mugged by reality, but people like Colin Powell and Norman Scwartzkopf were still doing damage control - my own nerve gas "protective suit" was made of terry cloth left over from the Ko
Correa writes with all the macho swagger of his narrator's fun-loving, carefree past, turning in a memorable debut. Now working on tugboats in New York harbor, our hollow man reveres two talismans: Paola's only letter and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The good times, for him, stopped long ago. --Michael Ferch. First-time novelist Raul Correa gives us a nameless protagonist who wistfully recounts how decades earlier he was part of an invincible band of wild, peacetime soldiers, affectionately called "Recon Dogs." Bored with the routine of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Recon Dogs (with suspiciously little thought) take over the second job of their beloved "Platoon