Fives and Twenty-Fives

By: Michael Pitre / Narrated By: Kevin T. Collins, Nick Sullivan, Jay Snyder, Fajer Al-Kaisi

Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins

Stunning, just bloody brilliant…

Jeez.

From the Introduction, read by author Michael Pitre himself, wherein Pitre posits that no Marine goes in thinking war is going to be like a freakin’ video game, but that they also didn’t know just how very much they’d be left as strangers in their own country, all the way to the very end of the novel, man oh man, did Fives and Twenty-Fives have me on the edge of my (freakin’) seat, or what?

Each chapter opens with an official document being read re: whomever’s chapter it’ll be, and as the story goes along, things just start ominously, and the stories/chapters that follow build on that sense of dread the listener has felt from that get-go.

First, we’re introduced to Pete Donovan resigning his commission as an officer, and it follows to him waking from yet another nightmare. He eyes the empty bottles of beer, he feels his temples pound, and Ahhhhh, we think, This’ll be “just” another novel about PTSD and alienation. Cuz Donovan, going for his MBA, is NOT like the other college grads in his classes. When the Professor puts him on the spot, mockingly calling attention to Donovan’s time as a Lieutenant, Ohhhhh, the Professor purrs, CERtainly YOU’D know what it is to be a leader? What is YOUR take on “Empathy” being a MUST for Leadership?

Donovan is taken back in time, his thoughts, his memories, loom large and flit around, and he can only answer that Lives are at stake during war; where’s the column in the business spreadsheet that addresses THAT? The Professor mutters dismissively, and Donovan knows he’s well and truly out of place in this world. Good thing he has a dream of buying a wreck of a sailboat in post-Katrina Louisiana.

NOT a good thing is when he meets an ex-Marine once under his command and now swaying like the bar’s drunk. The guy (And as this is an audiobook and I could NOT find it ANYwhere in print, I’m gonna go with his last name being Zahn…) has hooked up with friends of his who all speak under their breath about what an embarrassment he’s become, p’raps of how to get rid of him. They’re relieved when Donovan shows up, and it’s here where the novel pretty much truly opens. Because? When Donovan, seeking a deescalation, steps into a confrontation between two bar patrons, he gets shoved by the one guy who’s just itching to do damage. Zahn does his own damage, not even batting an eyelash, and not even bothering to utter just how MANY ways he can kill, maim, cripple, the guy. He’s Back There, all his skills intact, even if his brain isn’t (Traumatic Brain Injury that “wasn’t documented properly” thus earning him no Disability).

Snap.

Then we’re on to the medic Doc Pleasant who started stealing opioids in an effort to Feel Nothing after the first of what became many many deaths. We watch him as he tries to build his new life back in the States, newly sober, always always wary and prepared. You never know when that Trauma Kit will be needed. His is a good story, especially his wartime friendship with the Iraqi “terp”, Dodge.

To me, Pitre’s story, however poignant Donovan, Zahn, and Pleasant’s own struggles might be, really shines (If “shining” can be used for such a low-key yet inTENSEly gritty novel) when it comes to Dodge’s journey. From his Sunni origins with a father “in” with Saddam Hussein’s regime, to the pondering of Huck Finn for his college thesis, to his attempts to gain entry into the US, a country that used him and his language skills then denied ever having an interpreter dubbed “Dodge”, his story is almost unbearable. From flights across the desert, to interpreting for a friend to sell to Americans, to trying to save lives. To looking at, and really seeing what this great war that America’s brought, has done to the country. To HIS country.

Until it’s not his anymore…

The evolution of the story follows the truly “mundane” daily routine of Marines tasked with filling the potholes left by IED blasts from the day before. It’s just that, one tiiiiiny thing: They’ve each been refilled with IEDs and explosives that the Marines have to find and neutralize. Mind your fives (Examine oh soooo closely the five meters surrounding vehicles before stepping out) and your twenty-fives (Scan oh soooo closely twenty-five meters that could still shred personnel). Metal detectors. Detonation. Praying to a god who may or may not exist that snipers or RPGs don’t kill as this sweaty, backbreaking, time-consuming work is done.

And then they “come home”.

The cast of narrators is stellar, each one doing a fanTAStic job with their chapters. NATurally, Fajer Al-Kaisi is the standout as Kateb, “Dodge”, as somehow he manages to make his enthusiasm for Huck Finn morph into an ever-increasing numbness, a deadness of the soul as he’s challenged once, thrice, too many times. The terror, the shame, the dawning horror and realizations of the world(s) around him seem to be just that last straw that breaks the back, no matter how much effort, how much hope has been put into action, been put into Life. There’s such a thing as Too Much, and Al-Kaisi delivers that, each word the thud of a nail on a coffin. But Bravo! Bravo! to all narrators… tho’ Fajer, dude, take a well-deserved bow.

Never should we forget that George W. Bush, as he sits at his ranch and paints bad portraits of war veterans, brought us this war that young men and women fought through, even as contractors and KBR/Halliburton raked in the big bucks (Oh, yeh, a mighty thanks to you, Dick Cheney). What was done to Iraqis was… well, I don’t have the words.

And what those young men and women endured, how they feel when they come back, uhm, not home, exactly? stateside?

Well, Thank You For Your Service sounds pretty woefully, godAWFULly inadequate…