[xoxoxoBruce]

Excellent short interview on shallow patriotism.

If you’re looking for a rose-colored view of the military, Marine and Iraq War veteran Matt Young’s new memoir Eat the Apple isn’t for you.

But if you want a glimpse of the regret and shame and confused pride that consumes many veterans after war, you’re in luck.

I’m also a veteran, and my feelings about my time in the service fluctuate between muted satisfaction and a sincere desire to forget it ever happened. Maybe this is why Young’s raw, disturbing, hilarious, and unsparing book resonated with me.

But his experience was also both dramatically different — and more difficult — than mine. He was, as he writes on the opening page, “exploded and shot at and made a fool of and hated and feared and loved and fellated and fucked and lonely and tired and suicidal.”