Soldier Boy: At Play in the ASA

by Timothy Bazzett

In 1962 when Tim Bazzett graduated from high school he'd had enough of academia and classroom drudgery, so he joined the army - and received an education he'd never imagined. Perhaps one of the most unlikely and inept citizen-soldiers since Gomer Pyle, Tim somehow survives the terrors and tribulations of basic training at "Fort Lost-in-the-Woods, Misery," and after further training in the mysteries of Morse code in Massachusetts and Maryland, the small-town innocent is launched overseas and into the larger world. In northern Turkey he finds himself a link in the outermost defenses of America during a Cold War he only imperfectly understands. There he sees poverty and hatred in the faces of children and is forced to confront his own faults and inner demons. Later on in Germany, no longer quite so innocent, he chases girls and dreams of being a rock star. But at the heart of Bazzett's narrative are the characters - the friends he makes along the way. For this is ultimately a book about friendship - and about growing up. In his first volume of memoirs, Bazzett made his Michigan hometown in the fifties come alive for all his readers. In Soldier Boy, his military experiences are made just as real. Get ready to laugh, and maybe cry a little too, as the irrepressible Reed City Boy rides again.

340 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2005

About the author

I was a college English teacher for 5 years. That was long enough. Spent 8 years in the army and then 21 more years with the Dept of Defense. I've lived in MI, MO, MA, MD, CA, TX, Turkey and Germany. My wife and I have been married over 44 years. We have 3 kids and 5 grandkids. I retired in 2001 and returned to my home state of MI. For the past several years I have been writing my memoirs and other stuff. Five books published so far and I'm currently working on another volume of memoirs. My best selling book thus far has been SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA, Since its initial publication in 2005 it has been read in all fifty states and several foreign countries and continues to sell steadily, and I get letters and emails from veterans of all ages, telling me that my story was their story too. Go figure, huh?

Although RatholeBooks is my own "cottage industry," my lifelong love of good books and reading has enabled me to make contact with many other writers, some of them bestselling and award-winning authors who have read my books and provided some very nice blurbs. You will find these comments at the "reviews" section of my website. You will also find comments by faculty, current and retired, of various colleges and universities, including Princeton, Harvard and Yale.

I try to review most of the books I read. I call my reactions ABE reviews - "Awkward But Earnest." The truth is, I've been reading way too much lately (if that's possible). It's time I got back to my own writing. I hereby do so resolve.

Reviews

[Brandon Jennings · Rating 5 out of 5]

So what can a guy say about Timothy Bazzett's memoir? I read it more than a week ago, and many of the events in the book have stuck with me, and I think it's because even though this is a book about things that happened to and things that were done by Tim long before I was born, many of the things, good choices and bad, were choices that I made myself and that I watched others make as well.

Something I realized when I left the Air Force was that there were some places within it where progress seemed to have stopped, so it was not surprising to me when I found myself recognizing the same patterns of behavior in my own life as I read Tim's descriptions of his and his fellow soldiers' behavior in BMT and on into active duty in Turkey. I wanted to be shocked by the things that I read, but I don't think it's possible anymore. These same things that he experienced happen today, and I believe they'll always happen because there is no way to stop humans from being humans. We fail at things from time to time, and some of those failures might make a person believe he's irredeemable--even though redemption is always possible.

In this memoir, you will not find a lot of bombs and explosions or the kind of things you'll run across in a Tom Clancy novel (I honestly have never read a Clancy novel, so I probably shouldn't use his work as an example). You won't be pulled deep into the world of espionage during the cold war or read about a bunch of battle plans told from a general's POV. This is a book about what it was like for one farm boy to go from his life in Michigan to a very different life in the military. I want to believe that if I had read his book before I'd joined back in 1999 that I would've been better prepared for the situations I encountered, but I probably wouldn't have read it because at that age I was too preoccupied with my own self-centeredness to listen to any advice regardless of the source.

Bazzett's memoir almost makes me feel like continuing the work, writing these stories, essays, and fictions about the military and military life is no longer worth it. Who are we writing these stories for: old men and women no longer worried that they may have to serve? And that is not to say that I am going to stop or that I think others should, but it seems so many of us have had the same experiences and now many of us have talked about them and it hasn't "fixed" anything.

I do hope, though, that books like Bazzett's Soldier Boy continue to be written so that there is the chance for someone to pick it up and see that you can make bad decisions and you can end up in places that you never imagined you'd go and still come out the other side as a caring, compassionate human being.

Combat is not the only thing that wounds men and women in the military, and this book shows a good example of one of the moral wounds many men suffer while serving. Believe me when I say it does not wound all men, but it should. Timothy Bazzett does a great job in this memoir of reminding us that the world is full of people and that people make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes haunt us for the rest of our lives. But even if the specters of those choices never leave us, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't keep going on.

This is not a book for people who want to be excited by war and the military; this is a book for people who want to understand how the military affected one man psychologically and emotionally.
Read this book if you want to see the side of the military that most veterans see.

[Jeff Chase · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit that I'm writing this with a good deal of bias - Timothy Bazzett is an ex-ASA soldier. I followed in his footsteps, as what he'd call a Monterey Mary. When I joined, there was no more ASA, it had been absorbed into the "Big Army" and called INSCOM. But a lot of my mentors were ex-ASA types, and everything rings true. I've heard many of the stories before, with other protagonists, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen to him as well. I imagine they did, because when you mix intel soldiers and alcohol, you're bound to get similar results, even if it's 20 years later.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and Timothy Bazzett is a guy I'd like to drink a beer with.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having not read Bazzett's first memoir Reed City Boy, I didn't know what to expect. I usually enjoy reading about the lives and experiences of others. However, I found myself having to force my way through this book. The foul language was somewhat of a turn-off, although I'm sure it was necessary to preserve the authenticity of the story. I believe there is a specific audience who would enjoy this story, unfortunately it just didn't appeal to me.