Chanukah sucked. Spent it in this beg tent camp called Camp fly Military City while were were waiting for our equipment to arrive. I didn’t have a menorah, so I just set up the candles on a crate outside my tent. By the eighth night, I ran out of candles and had to borrow some from my loader. Of course he’s Catholic and doesn’t know anything about Chanukah. I had to explain to him all about the Macabees and the temple and the miracle. Said he didn’t realize Jews had won so many battles...
I had to do the candle lighting in secret, didn’t want to p*ss off the Saudis. Hell, I’m not even supposed to be here, Jews aren’t allowed in the country.
Willam Stroock's first novel, A Line Through The Desert, tells the story of one Jewish soldier with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment who is deployed to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.
I was stunned to learn that Stroock is not a veteran himself. However, he is a professional writer about military subjects. In our interview, he told me he'd talked to over two dozen veterans of that regiment, who have praised the novel's realism and accuracy.
That, with the GenX "attitude" Strook brings to this unsentimental, fast-paced book, should make it a favorite with history and military buffs.
I talked to Stroock via email to find out more about him and his first novel.
Could you tell me a bit about your background?
Stroock: "I am originally from Peekskill, NY. During the first 18 years of my life, nothing much happened. I was a college dropout until 2001, when I went back to school and earned a degree on line at American Military University. My writing career began when Professor Brian Todd Carey suggested to me that a paper I had completed was good and should be submitted to a military history magazine."
What made you decide to write this book?
Stroock: "The idea had been floating in my head for a year or so. I thought a story based VERY loosely on a relationship I had with a girl would be interesting (I never snuck into her bedroom, and if I had, I probably wouldn’t have had to write A Line Through the Desert). But it needed to have more punch than anything I ever did in my life so I figured I’d put it in a war story, starting in a year that’s very important to me culturally, 1988.
"I wanted to talk about Generation X (I was born in 73), clothes, music-heavy metal really; I rocked the mullet from 88-89. Music is very important to the protagonist, Sgt. Jake Bloom, as it is to me.
"Jake is Jewish like me, and I wanted to talk about Jewish identity. As he tells his love interest, the fair Patricia, ‘I always wanted to play Raid on Entebbe, they wanted to play Fiddler on the Roof)."
Do you have another book forthcoming?
Stroock: "I have some ideas for straight novels dealing with the war in the Pacific- Bataan, Merrell’s Marauders, the 501st jumping into Corregidor - and am working on a pair of sci fi short story collections. Other than that, I write tons of history articles for magazines like Strategy & Tactics and Military Heritage, among others."
You can buy A Line through the Desert: The First Gulf War
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