BLANKET PARTY IN DESERT STORM
From Beatdown and Spiritually Broken to Eternally Blessed
by Darnnell Reese & Deidra Wilson
A young Black woman joins the U.S. Army on a quest to find a better future in this memoir, co-written by her daughter.
Reese and her younger brother were raised by a single mother in Washington, D.C., and to the teenage author, the future looked grim: “My day-to-day existence taught me this: my mother was poor, I was smart enough to dream, and dreams cost money I didn't have.” A bright student, she longed for a better, and perhaps even glamorous, life. An Army recruiter showed up at her high school in 1989, shortly after her graduation, and Reese enlisted, scored high on Army tests, and picked military intelligence as her field. She writes that basic training was tough, physically and emotionally, but she struggled on. Then came the Gulf War, and to her shock (“War wasn’t supposed to be part of the equation”), she found herself in the desert during Operation Desert Storm, right behind the front lines as soldiers pushed on to Baghdad. It proved to be a brief war, but due to an act of passion with a fellow soldier during the conflict, Reese became pregnant, complicating her struggles with Army life: sergeants who singled her out for hard duty (including burn-pit duty, tending “fires that consumed not just human waste but trash, plastics, electronics, chemicals”) and the loneliness and fury that plagued her but also motivated her. When she was ordered to report for a year’s tour in Turkey but told that she had to leave her infant daughter stateside, she took a hardship discharge.
This is a powerful account that states the author’s feeling plainly: She describes soldiers’ MREs (meals, ready-to-eat) as “individually packaged sadness”; her heart breaks for the ragged young Iraqi soldiers lining the roadside, and she’s moved when Saudis, recognizing her isolation, invite her to their Ramadan fast-breaking meal. Both the author and Wilson, Reese’s daughter, are credited as co-authors, which works well; Wilson, a successful fashion designer, writes the prologue and epilogue and is effusive in her love for her mother. (Reese also went on to a successful career, in the federal government.) The memoir is presented in a rather blocky typeface, with a lot of white space and extremely short paragraphs that give a telegraphic feel to the reading, resulting in thoughts and observations that feel scattershot. This style is effective at times—when stung by injustice, Reese ruminates with a controlled fury: “I’d survived it all. / And I’d survive this too. / Because I had her. / And she was worth fighting for”—but it also gives the work a feeling of fragmentation. Overall, although Reese’s account of her circumstances and struggle is sympathetic, but the formatting of the text, as striking as it sometimes is, becomes wearying. Interspersed throughout the text are reproductions of military documents (including awards), letters home, and photographs of happy times, including a cascade of images at the end.A sincere and passionate remembrance that will draw readers in, despite occasionally uneven execution.