What It Is Like to Go to War

By: Karl Marlantes / Narrated By: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins

Intensely Philosophical, Intensely Intimate

Okay, I listened to What It Is Like to Go to War some time ago, and I listened to it again for this year’s Memorial Day of 2022… and then I listened to it yet again for, like, a few hours here and there until I’d gone through the entire thing for a third time.

And I tell you, I’m having a hard time writing this review. So I’ve been putting off writing it, have been Googling the beJESus outta Karl Marlantes, because? Any time an audiobook makes me think this hard? I have so gotta try to figure stuff out. There are things I agreed with, with my heart, with my soul, would fight for veterans for…

There are things that have left me completely and unutterably bewildered.

What It Is Like to Go to War is kinda sorta a letter to Warriors of the Future, those young men (Read: Older boys) we would have travel to kill or be killed. We’d give them a cause, we’d give them a reason; it is our duty as those who will NOT be doing the killing or dying to give them principles and reasons and causes.

Each chapter is given a title which is a concept that Marlantes fleshes out. He uses stories from history, from mythology, grand heroes and baser circumstances, bloodshed, sorrow. Ignoble truths. Justice. Harnessing our innate aggression and turning it towards serving at the Temple of Mars. Young men (And I’m gonna chuck in young women here, tho’ this treatise by Marlantes was published in 2011, and women HAVE served, fought, been maimed, have died since then, no?) are utilized for their youth and for their ability to unswervingly follow orders, not really questioning morality or spirituality, having lesser impulse control which can be exercised in cause of the Mission.

And within the chapters, within the grand philosophies, are stuff Marlantes learned the hard way, through exceedingly painful experiences. What youth doesn’t wish to go to war and be a Hero, win that Medal? So Marlantes tells us of battles in Vietnam where, before he makes his choices, the thought flashes through his head: I want to be a Hero, and he acts accordingly. Through a hail of gunfire, shrapnel flying, he rushes to the aid of a very dead young man, a boy really, who may’ve had that same thought. A boy who has been told to stay put, NOT follow as Marlantes rushes to take out a machine gun nest to be the Hero, who follows, who’s cut down.

Is the Medal worth it? And what does Marlantes make of that? How does he live with the memories, the images?

It ain’t for me to tell the man what he’s experiencing, or how he should process ANY of it; we each have our own Journeys as we learn, as we wander. And Marlantes hates it when he’s specifically TOLD how he feels, as in: It must have been awful to kill. When, actually, he was serving at the Temple of Mars, and as a kid? It was pretty fun. I don’t feel judgment for that; truly, it’s the most heartbreaking thing when only alone, or only with Marlantes, flying, can a pilot admit: Jeez, it was great to light that place up. Why can’t we make room for that, for our returning warriors to be able to speak their truths, their feelings, how they’re experiencing their memories? We ask so much of them, why can’t we be still and Listen to their answers, all of them?

It would appear that Bronson Pinchot is the Go-To narrator for Karl Marlantes. I have had Matterhorn in my Library since my husband read the print book and highly recommended it. At the time that I dashed off to purchase the audiobook, I’d been a bit of a newbie, and I’d only remembered Pinchot as “Balki” in “Perfect Strangers”. I remembered all the pratfalls, the slapstick, the cumbersome and comical accent, and I’d been worried that I’d be unable to listen to the just over 21-hours of story, hearing “Balki” the entire time in my head. Since then, however, I’ve done a LOT of his audiobooks, and I’ve accepted him as a SUPERB narrator. His 1 Dead in Attic was a bravura performance, and now I’m positive that Matterhorn will be a superlative experience.

Because, you see, Marlantes writes so very well. He has such experiences, he seems to be quite in touch with shaping himself and is always keeping in mind the processing of experience, the integration of it on the physical, mental, spiritual levels. He has made this offering to future warriors as a Man Who Has Been There (Indeed, I’m capitalizing “Man” because this piece is all about the male experience) so that they might be provided with, or guided to, rituals, philosophies, rites of passage. Before the experience of War, but also After. With guidance to civilians as well, to women to be the softer side that Men need to reintegrate.

But I’m telling you, his Philosophical Pondering is deep and removed; his memories, however? Intense. Visceral. Slugs to the gut. A couple of dead bodies dumped at his feet after he made his men charge too hard, take risks at his command. A man cut in half by machine gunfire in search of Bravery. The ecstasy of killing and not being the one now dead in the pit.

This is a treatise for those who will follow in his footsteps.

This is a man who’s had to write his own Welcome Home…

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