“Zarqawi’s Ice Cream”: One Vet’s Tales on His Time in Iraq

From Associated Content…

‘Zarqawi’s Ice Cream’: One Vet’s Tales on His Time in Iraq

Andrew Goldsmith Relives the Iraq War

By Amy and Nancy Harrington, Pop Culture Passionistas, Yahoo! Contributor Network

May 6, 2011

In 2004, 19-year-old Andrew Goldsmith was bored. So he did what any red-blooded American boy would do. He joined the Army. He served two tours in Iraq — the first in 2006 and the second in 2008. He climbed the ranks from private to sergeant and then left the military in 2009. He’s now written a book about his experiences. “Zarqawi’s Ice Cream” is a personal account about the effects of modern day war and his changed perception of the world.

In a recent interview, Goldsmith revealed that he thought joining the army would be “a little bit more action, more combat, a little more danger, more romance.” But that is not what he experienced. He divulged, “There was that element of danger and bravery and explosions, but like anything in life it tends to be 90% drudgery for all the excitement and danger that you face — a lot of hard work, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of menial labor. That’s kind of the source of a lot of my stories is that aspect of the un-military life, that aspect of the Iraq life. And I don’t think it’s covered in too many other places, but it’s a very important part of it.”

Goldsmith said the title, “Zarqawi’s Ice Cream,” came from one of the signature stories in the book, which took place during his first tour of duty in 2006. He explained, “It’s basically the mission that we all thought would be super cool, super cool infantry mission, but it ended up being a worse mission than some of the worst ones we’ve ever been on. I guess it’s a story of irony, twist of fate.”

Goldsmith described his time in Iraq, saying, “The impact made me less of an idealist, more of a realist. I saw that things in the real world are never black and white. It’s always shade of grey. No one’s ever wholly evil. No one’s ever wholly good. We all have our personal battles. And I’m just really glad I was able to get the perspective on the world and on the way it actually is by going to another country, a war torn country like Iraq and it’s really helped me understand my own country and my own people a little bit better as well.”

The veteran came back home with a new point of view, but was challenged by how to fit in to this now mundane, every day life. He started college in Hawaii and began to attempt reintegration. His biggest difficulty was finding commonalities with civilians, admitting, “Sometimes I have this alienation, this feeling that we don’t really have any shared experiences, any common history. So that’s been a big problem.” He added, “I don’t have any major PTSD events. Loud explosions don’t really spook me too much. They do sometimes but I deserve it, it means I’ve been staying up too late or something. But that’s about the extent of it. I think it’s mostly just social relationships, finding friends again. Trust is an issue a lot.”

Trying to find his way, Goldsmith spent a semester abroad in Europe — a period that would open the floodgates for the first-time author. He recalled, “That’s were the creative tendencies of this book really happened. That’s when I was reliving a lot of this stuff. The stories just kept coming into my head and that’s when I first stared writing it down and the idea for a book gradually formed.”

He noted, “This whole writing project was not something I really wanted to do… it’s always been something that I have to do. Something has been compelling me to write this. Whether that’s for catharsis, peace of mind. Whether it’s just that when we tell our stories, it lets us live with who we are, what we’ve done.”

And so “Zarqawi’s Ice Cream” was born. Goldsmith admits there is content that non-military readers may not relate to, but he also pointed out, “It’s for anybody. It’s for my mother, my father. But there’s some hidden stuff that Iraqi veterans, Afghanistan veterans, are really going to like. They’re really going to understand more than anybody.”

He has shown the book to some of his war buddies from Iraq and remarked, “They’ve all loved it. Positive responses.” He got a lot of support from his fellow vets during the process of writing the book.

“When this project was in its early stages, my ego wasn’t too built up yet, and I wasn’t really confident in my work. Whenever [the editors] would redo it and [my friends would] respond positively to it, that would give me a little more impetus to keep going, check it out.”

After he finishes his current semester at school, Goldsmith will embark on a two-month cross-country tour to promote the book. He’ll be traveling with Bob Harrington, an army buddy who has started a charity called AspiringWarrior.org to raise money for higher education scholarships for vets. The duo will stop at military bases, bookstores and country fairs. Goldsmith stated, “It’s going to be a mixture of selling books out of the trunk of the car and professional PR work.”

After the tour, the author will return to school but hopes to pen another work. He reflected, “This process of writing has been awesome. It’s been real natural. So I definitely see some more in the future.”

For now he hopes people walk away from reading this book with a new understanding of the military. He commented, “First off, they’re going to like the story. It’s a great story. Secondly, they get to follow the hero in a modern era. This is how our generation goes to war. So anybody who wants to experience that is going to enjoy this book. This book is going to enlighten a lot of people as to how war is these days. What it does to people, the consequences of it. Who the enemy is… It’s good stories. Everyone’s going to laugh. There are some parts where you’re going to want to cry.”

“Zarqawi’s Ice Cream” goes on sale in May 2011.

Bin Laden’s Death

I was in Iraq, never in Afghanistan, and any links to Iraq and bin Laden are pretty sketchy. Despite this, many of my friends and I’m guessing a good part of the American people, through a mixture of ignorance, folk wisdom, lazy thinking, and government and media propaganda, think things like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden are simply one and the same.

And in a way they are. Since 9/11 almost ten years ago, our country has engaged in the War on Terrorism, whose jurisdiction does certainly cover Iraq and bin Laden. I remember that day clearly. I woke up around seven and groggily met my dad in the kitchen, where he was every morning making coffee and toast. He was watching the TV silently; I looked at it too, and saw a plane smash into a huge building.

“Is that real, Dad?”

I was sixteen and saw the terrorist attacks of 9/11 as something very intriguing. I couldn’t believe the bastards had the balls to do something like this. “Don’t they know that we’re America, what we’re going to do now?” I instantly knew big changes were coming. I knew America was going to go to war and crush whoever did this. I grew up in the ’80s and early ’90s; I was taught that America is an enlightened superpower, that we would be an industrial and democratic powerhouse for centuries, the New Rome. 9/11 made me bloodthirsty. I, like almost every American, wanted bin Laden’s head, and I wanted it now.

Three years later, I was still somewhat bloodthirsty, eager to go to War. I joined the Army and went to Iraq.

Now bin Laden is dead, but it’s not as satisfying as I might have hoped. It’s been almost ten years since 9/11 and a lot has changed in America. My classmates who saw the towers fall with me haven’t joined a vibrant powerhouse economy; they’re waiters and temp workers with bachelor’s degrees not worth the paper they’re printed on. Not even Americans believe we own the new century, as China and other world powers are steadily gaining prominence in world affairs. The apathy and disconnect most Americans express for the War on Terrorism is scary. Percentage-wise, very few Americans are actively connected to this war, and the all-volunteer army ensures that many privledged classes are virtually untouched by combat losses. I joined the Army partly because I thought that my service now may prevent my little brother (who is ten years younger than me) from himself having to suffer and bleed in a foreign country. He’s sixteen now, and there is plenty of war to go around.

So, am I happy that bin Laden’s dead? I guess, sure. But does it mean anything? The man himself probably hasn’t contributed anything to his cause. For the last ten years he’s been a living martyr and fugitive. Knowing as little as I do about geo-politics, just using my soldier’s sense, I’d say that on the balance sheet, killing bin Laden will add up to zero. It’s a useful media stunt, it’ll be on the front pages of the news mags for the next week or two, but after that, business as usual. The decay of the American superpower and the seemingly insolvable insurgency in Afghanistan are the most important legacies of bin Laden. Killing him is great, but we need to fearlessly address not only the man, but his effects, and most importantly, what’s he’s done to us, what we’ve become.

Faces of the War in Iraq

Here’s an article from Associated Content…

Faces of the War in Iraq

We All Have Our Own Definition of What it Means to Be Successful

By Emily Rogers, Yahoo! Contributor Network

Apr 27, 2011

 

I sat at a cubicle for nine hours today. I did some things that I liked and some that I did not. At the end of the day, I felt that I had worked hard. However, never once did I ask myself if I felt heroic or not.

We all want to be successful, but we all also have different definitions for what being “successful” means. Iraqi war veteran and author of Zarqawi’s Ice Cream: Tales of Mediocre Infantrymen, Andrew Goldsmith, envisioned success as becoming a hero. Growing up in Redondo Beach, CA, Andrew saw nothing more potentially heroic than serving the country where he was raised, sacrificing the comforts of life that the rest of us enjoy, and challenging his mind and body beyond normal standards.

“I was looking forward to serving my country and wanted a good challenge,” explains Andrew.

After deploying on two tours to Iraq at the young age of 19 and graduating from Ranger School, Andrew finds that the quest for heroism is still illusive and feels betrayed by the ruling organization. “This book is the last call of a warrior. My rise and fall. This is my mission now.” A collection of 35 war stories, Andrew covers tales of battle, guns, booze, sex, and violence. For those of us well informed about the war in Iraq, and for those of us not so informed, we will all be enlightened by the reality of what is truly going on overseas.

“The people of America know very little. The media is brief and focuses mostly on casualties. My stories are unique and important. It is important for people to realize the consequences of their policies. It says a lot for our country.”

Although his experience as a soldier was not at all as he expected, he regrets nothing and is glad for the memories and lessons learned. Even after the close of his service, he is still connected by an intense brotherhood to his fellow infantrymen. “We miss each other and talk all the time. It just makes our day to hear from one another.”

With the release of his book in May 2011, Andrew aims to remind readers that there are faces to war and that these faces should not be ignored. All of his characters and stories are 100% real and honest. Despite his self-perceived lack of heroism, he also supports young men who are currently interested in enlisting in the military. “Go ahead,” says Andrew, “But take it as it comes and do not have any preconceived expectations. You will learn a lot and you will never have another chance like this. It is good for your character, but it will break you down.”

Zarqawi’s Ice Cream: Tales of Mediocre Infantrymen is straightforward and unconventional. It will open your eyes, heart, and mind to the reality of war. “Serving in Iraq made me wary of the world. Nothing is wholly good or wholly evil. There is always a mixture.”

Andrew is currently studying philosophy in Hawaii where he describes himself as a “workaholic” since deciding to publish this book.

Iraq War Stories: A Veteran’s Catharsis

Here’s the latest story to feature Zarqawi’s Ice Cream. Iraq War Stories: A Veteran’s Catharsis was written by B.L. Turek and published on Articles Base April 18, 2011:

Andrew Goldsmith was one year into community college when he was hit with a revelation:

“Join the army, go to war,” were the words that popped into his head as he sat bored in Economics class. “It never left me,” he recalls, recounting the initial epiphany. Four months later, Goldsmith enlisted in the United States Armed Forces. He was 19.

Goldsmith served in the army from 2004 to 2009, deploying to Iraq twice for year-long tours. He was a machine gunner for an Infantry fire team during the first tour; the second time around, he was a team leader and squad leader, steadily climbing the ranks from “Private” to “Sergeant” over the course of those five years.

“I thought the Infantry was going to be more hardcore, harder somehow then it was,” he admits. “Iraq was similar: I thought somehow that there would be more combat, and that it would be more glorious.”

Still, his time in the army left a deep imprint on Goldsmith’s psyche. Upon leaving the military, he moved to Hawaii and began attending school on the G.I. Bill, studying philosophy. He also began to write…and write some more. War stories poured from his mind and onto paper, compiling into hundreds of pages worth of firsthand tales. The result is Zarqawi’s Ice Cream, a personal account of Goldsmith’s time in Iraq.

“It’s not as if I wanted to write this book,” Goldsmith says. “I had to write this book.”

Writing Zarqawi’s Ice Cream was Goldsmith’s means to a catharsis, a way to make sense of what he experienced as a soldier. The book is broken down into five parts, sequentially written from the time leading up to his enlistment to military training to combat in Iraq to Ranger School to combat again and finally, to his journey home.

“Making stories out of traumatic, stressful, and extremely influential events in our lives helps us to process them, learn from them, and live with them,” he says.

Since leaving the army and attempting to reintegrate back into civilian life, Goldsmith has been faced with a number of challenges, and in many ways, feels as though he hasn’t really left at all.

“Getting used to the mundane, steady pace of normal life is hard, and so is finding people willing to listen,” he confides. “Sometimes it seems as if I have very little in common with the people around me, especially on the college campus.”

The approximate release date of Zarqawi’s Ice Cream is May of 2011. Goldsmith will then embark on a 10,000 mile cross-country road trip for two months, promoting his book on military bases as well as in book stores.

“I’m looking forward to exchanging outrageous stories [with other soldiers and veterans], meeting people and hearing their stories, life on the road, finishing this damn [book], and seeing how people react.”

Aside from writing and philosophy, Goldsmith practices Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, a passion he began cultivating nearly ten years ago while growing up in Redondo Beach, CA.

“I also like to ride my skateboard, read a lot, and take any opportunity I can to travel,” he enthuses. His impending book tour should satisfy the latter quite sufficiently!

To learn more about Zarqawi’s Ice Cream and Andrew Goldsmith’s cross-country book tour, visit www.zarqawisicecream.com.

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