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Old 07-18-2017, 04:33 PM   #16 (permalink)
Lisnaholic
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Join Date: Nov 2010
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Eye-witness accounts are often fascinating simply because of the immediacy of having a person telling it like they saw it. It's the literary equivalent of a stranger in a bar who suddenly confides to you some memorable events in his life. Travel books, memoirs and of course autobiographies all fall into this "I was there" category, as does Paul Riekhoff's book, Chasing Ghosts.

Paul Riekhoff was there, as a Lieutenant in the US infantry, when his platoon were stationed in Baghdad for a year. The year being 2003, Paul was literally on the front line during the US occupation of Iraq and the capture of Saddam Hussein. On a daily basis he and his men were patrolling a city of violent chaos, which he likened to Mogadishu in BlackHawk Down. That comparison gives some general background to this scene, which serves as a respite from the catalogue of snipers, explosives and terrified Iraqis that the soldiers were otherwise facing:-

Quote:
"A local Iraqi had set up an Internet café where soldiers could get e-mail maybe once a week. We prayed for good news, baby pictures, spam, ridiculous forwards, and porn clips from home. Ten PCs were circled around a small TV that played an Egyptian music video channel. The bizarre video for the Darkness song "I believe in a Thing Called Love" blared constantly."


Paul R's opinion: "There was something especially weird about watching a retro eighties heavy metal singer with long hair and spandex pants while I sat in Iraq wearing camouflage waiting for the Hotmail home page to download at a snail's pace."
My opinion: After Paul R's description, I was pleased to hear that it wasn't that heavy metal after all. I liked the guy's falsetto vocals and the sense of humour with which the video was made. If anything, it reminded me a little of Sparks' This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us - and like the Sparks' song, this one is ok but doesn't particularly speak to me in any way.
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