Michael Anthony > Quotes

“Am I awake or dreaming? It doesn’t matter anymore. When I close my eyes I dream of death and war. When I open my eyes I see death and war.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“I grabbed the closest box of books and heaved it onto my bed. It contained all the books I had read in Iraq. Dog-eared, with broken spines, speckled with dirt, food, and even a little blood, most of the copies were marked up with notes in the margins. The better the book, the worse it looked--that's the way it should be. As I saw it, they were almost more like diaries than books.”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“Tonight the thoughts were about how to end things, with a heavy emphasis on the how. The process of suicide isn't exactly easy. It takes preparation, scheduling, and a certain level-headedness to kill yourself. A person has to be ready for it. He has to make the necessary plans, take the necessary steps. And, most importantly, he has to not only feel like dying, but also like killing. And the two feelings couldn't be more different.”
― Michael Anthony

“A successful suicide doesn't just happen, although, of course, there are exceptions. Someone happens to be walking across a bridge when the feeling hits. Or they're on the roof of a building and realize they have nothing to live for. But most of the time, suicide takes planning. That's the way I figured. The was I was figuring...”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“I couldn't see killing myself if I had a book that was only half-read: Fountainhead, Catcher in the Rye, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, One Hundred Years of Solitude? No. I figured that those who killed themselves first had to finish whatever book they were reading...if it were any good, that is. Of course, there's always the occasional book that makes you want to throw yourself off a bridge just for having wasted your time reading it. But I usually finished those ones, too.”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“Sometimes a soldier returns home and all he can do is share his story in the hopes that somehow, in some way, it helps another soldier make sense of things. And although the stories may not be perfect, sometimes just sharing is enough to make a difference.”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“If God created everything, and if man is created in God's image, and if man can dream a fate greater than the one set out for him by God, could God dream a fate greater than his own?”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“I thought of To Kill a Mockingbird. I had finished reading it one night in a bunker, my knees bent and hunched together while mortars hit the ground, the glow of a cigarette and the moon as my only light. Standing there now, chain-smoking, I felt like I finally understood the ending.”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“Gunner shook his head; he wasn't in the mood. He stared down at his bottle as he spoke. "Yeah, and what if I do go after it and what if I find no one, and I'm alone for the next sixty years? What then? Huh? Friends and family will get married. I'll be stuck buying gifts. Years pass: children, birthday parties. At dinner parties, I'll be odd man out, forcing people to arrange five chairs around a table instead of four or six. Or, okay, let's say maybe twenty years down the line I meet someone nice and I've already given up on ever finding true love. Let's say the girl is a few pounds overweight, has fizzy hair and an annoying laugh, but at this point, I'm also a few pounds overweight and my hair is thinning and my laughter is annoying. Maybe then the two of us get married, and both our groups of friends will say, 'See I told you that you'd find true love. It just took a while.' And we'll smile, but we'll both know it's a lie--”
― Michael Anthony, Civilianized: A Young Veteran's Memoir

“You are going to war! It is no longer a question of if you are going to go, but a question of when. Look around! In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can’t stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“I don’t have to worry about what I’ll do on any given day because I already know—I work. All decisions are made for me. The only thing I have to worry about is the possibility of dying.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Other nights I lie in bed and think about everything and anything, and the only thing I can feel is nothing. I think about the war and I feel nothing. I think about life and death, mine and everyone else’s, and I feel nothing. I think about myself and I don’t care if I live or die. On these nights, mortars go off and I won’t get out of bed. I’ll lie in bed as the bombs go off. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I live or die, nothing matters—I like it when I feel nothing.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Soon I’ll no longer have to worry about death; now it’s life I have to worry about. It’s now time for me to be a man, and it’s the scariest thing I’ll ever do. It really scares me. It really scares me that I won’t have what it takes. That’s a scary thought.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Sometimes I go into the hospital and have to do surgery just as the sleeping pills begin to kick in. I spend the rest of the night pinching myself and throwing cold water on my face. At night I tell myself it’s not worth it. I tell myself I hate the Army and wish I’d never joined. I curse the war on both sides, American and Iraqi. I wish everyone would just...die...so that I could go home.”
― Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq

“Love is the absolute worst.”
― Michael Anthony, Just Another Meat-Eating Dirtbag: A Memoir