Tuesday Teaser/Opening ~ Soldier's Heart

Some non-fiction is as good as most fiction. Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Elizabeth D. Samet appears to be one of those books for me.

Blurb:

Elizabeth D. Samet and her students learned to romanticize the army "from the stories of their fathers and from the movies." For Samet, it was the old World War II movies she used to watch on TV, while her students grew up on Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. Unlike their teacher, however, these students, cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, have decided to turn make-believe into real life.

West Point is a world away from Yale, where Samet attended graduate school and where nothing sufficiently prepared her for teaching literature to young men and women who were training to fight a war. Intimate and poignant, Soldier's Heart chronicles the various tensions inherent in that life as well as the ways in which war has transformed Samet's relationship to literature. Fighting in Iraq, Samet's former students share what books and movies mean to them--the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the fiction of Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee, the epics of Homer, or the films of James Cagney. Their letters in turn prompt Samet to wonder exactly what she owes to cadets in the classroom.

Samet arrived at West Point before September 11, 2001, and has seen the academy change dramatically. In Soldier's Heart, she reads this transformation through her own experiences and those of her students. Forcefully examining what it means to be a civilian teaching literature at a military academy, Samet also considers the role of women in the army, the dangerous tides of religious and political zeal roiling the country, the uses of the call to patriotism, and the cult of sacrifice she believes is currently paralyzing national debate. Ultimately, Samet offers an honest and original reflection on the relationship between art and life.

Opening: (from the Prologue)
SHAKESPEARE 3, THIS IS SHAKESPEARE 6--OVER

I had forgotten all about the radio in my hand. I was so startled when it crackled to life I nearly dropped it.

SHAKESPEARE 3, THIS IS SHAKESPEARE 6--OVER
SHAKESPEARE 6, THIS IS SHAKESPEARE 3--OVER
SHAKESPEARE 3, GIVE ME A SITREP WHEN YOU HAVE THE ENEMY IN SIGHT--OVER
WILCO--OUT

I have said "out" when I should have said "over." I have taken far too long to figure out that "SITREP" means situation report. Somewhere this might be fatal. Here the amused voice on the other end, that of my colleague Dan, grumbles that I'm not allowed to end a transmission I didn't start.

YOU CAN'T SAY OUT, SHAKESPEARE 3. ONLY I CAN SAY OUT.
OOPS.

Teaser:
Cadets also learn early on the ironic potential of hooah and other ritual expressions. Those ubiquitous "Yes, ma'ams" that seem to the outsider like hypercourtesy can in truth mean anything from "Thank you, ma'am, right away" to "F*ck you, ma'am, and the horse you rode in on." I've heard both and a great deal in between. The differences are as subtle as Mandarin tones.

Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! To see what others are sharing on the Teaser Tuesdays, check the comments at:: http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ 






Share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you are reading. Here's the link: Bibliophile By The Sea