Diary of a Woman's Misadventures in Iraq

by Melia Meichelbock

This the true account of a woman used to LA’s lifestyle and creature comforts, organizing charity golf tournaments, formal lunches and dinners, being called up for deployment to Iraq. Once deployed, she quickly switches to riding machine gun, sand fleas, and pulling 4:00 a.m. guard duty, all while enduring investigations, arguments, backstabbing, and constant male attention. What did she do to keep her sanity? She wrote a journal, and you can read it here.

Publisher's Weekly BookLife Review
Meichelbock reveals the multifaceted life of a female soldier in a war-torn region. When her Civil Affairs unit gets deployed to Iraq, Meichelbock frankly describes her “to show the Iraqi people that Americans are good and not the infidels we are often portrayed to be in Middle East culture.” She chronicles her service in unfiltered, engaging snippets—the struggle of being one of the few female soldiers, the loneliness of being away from home, and the new camaraderie that forms amidst the immediate, ever-looming danger. Meichelbock’s story is a testament that life, even when shadowed by violence, somehow maintains its quiet normalcy.Through an engaging blend of humor, wit, and seriousness, she dismantles stereotypes and prejudices by embracing cultural differences while portraying Iraq through a lens of sympathy and understanding. "I also learned today that the most violent areas are also the most uneducated," she writes—a sentiment that calls forth the nuances of a country grappling with a difficult history and war-raved veneer.

Readers will appreciate the photographs scattered throughout, allowing palpable glimpses of Meichelbock's military life and the Iraqi landscape, and, when paired with her diary entries, those photos become graphically immersive. What sets Meichelbock's story apart is her remarkable authenticity in capturing the mundane amid the perilous—from enduring an unsanitary toilet, to seeking human connection, to binge-watching movies in dead hours, to experiencing compassion from the Iraqi people—she explores the lighter side of an emotionally charged experience. This is a compelling perspective of a female soldier fighting for those unable to fight for themselves.

Readers’ Favorite Review by K.C. Finn
Diary of a Woman's Misadventures in Iraq is a work of non-fiction in the military, autobiography, and slice-of-life subgenres. It is best suited to the general adult reading audience. Penned by author Melia Meichelbock, this candid and interesting work provides an unfiltered and authentic account of a female soldier's experience in a war-torn region. Meichelbock's diary entries offer an engaging blend of humor, wit, and sincerity, providing readers with a rare insight into the multifaceted life of a soldier. The book goes beyond the typical war narrative, shedding light on the struggles of being one of the few female soldiers, the loneliness of being away from home, and the camaraderie that forms amidst danger.

What sets this memoir apart from others I have read is the author's remarkable authenticity and the way that she offers readers her whole heart when describing her experiences. She dismantles stereotypes and prejudices by embracing cultural differences and portraying Iraq with sympathy and understanding, covering perspectives other than her own and offering a wise, big-picture view of the nature of military conflict. The inclusion of photographs adds a tangible dimension to her narrative, allowing readers to visually connect with her military life and the Iraqi landscape. Meichelbock's exploration of gender dynamics within her unit was also a huge point of interest for me and one which she delivers with balance and wisdom to create a compelling and nuanced perspective.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, War, Travel, Military Fiction, History, Biography Memoir

401 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2023

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

A woman who joined the Army Reserve finds herself in Iraq, a place where despite what military training she may have, she is ill equipped for. She almost never knows what is going on, and very insecure and needy, which is natural in a strange environment. Nobody knew what was going on.

Probably why the war there went the way it did.

Not an attractive picture of military life.

[Reader Views · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Diary of a Woman’s Misadventures in Iraq” by Melia Meichelbock is a heartfelt, enduring, and lighthearted account of one female soldier’s haphazard, unpredictable, and traumatic experiences while being deployed overseas. In the post-9/11 era, she gets a personal and realistic look at the Iraqis and their attitudes toward Americans who are just trying to help civilians.

I thought that reading this book would show me what life is like for a soldier on the frontlines in Iraq, but because the author was a Civil Affairs soldier, she did not go into combat. Yes, she sees some action when militants try to bomb a building she works at or when she is manning the guns on drives, but for the most part, it’s not that kind of military experience.

But it is still a military experience. Hers is mostly a story of what it’s like to be in the military — as well as what it’s like to be a woman in the military. She is often chided by the locals and Saudis for smoking or even sneezing (??). She is told “Women do not sneeze” and at least she has the temerity to say that women do indeed sneeze.

But aside from getting barbs from the locals, many of whom marvel over seeing a woman in uniform, she also experiences sexism from male soldiers. Thankfully, she is not the only female soldier, and she often turns to other female soldiers over these incidents to help keep her cool.

At the beginning of the story, though, she DOES do a lot of complaining. She hates the food, she hates the MREs, her barracks are in crappy condition, the shower is nothing but a drip, etc. This does not look good for her as a female soldier trying to prove she can handle herself just as well as her male counterparts. She tries to be a good soldier and she also develops a sense of humor to deal with the teasing and pranks.

One theme that runs throughout the book is receiving unfair treatment in the military because she is female. Sexist attitudes towards women in the military are a very real thing. It’s not just an American thing, either. She is also treated like some kind of anomaly by the Iraqi soldiers, who of course do not approve of women in the military. Even so, Iraqi diplomats behave in a civil manner towards her, even asking to have their picture taken with her.

I’m leaning toward the no women in the military idea more and more, not because we’re not capable human beings, but because it’s impossible to get equitable treatment.

She also shares other military-related experiences, like how one soldier discovers that his wife cheated on him while away and how her own spouse used up $5,000 of her savings and even forgot her birthday. These are common relationship issues when a spouse is deployed overseas. The worst of it, though, is the cheating. It happens so often that some soldiers are indifferent about it. Some of them even refer to cheating on their spouse while overseas as a “deployment thing,” like it’s no big deal to cheat on your spouse by being intimate with someone on the base.

Even though some bad stuff happens while is she deployed in Iraq, there are also funny moments. And Melia does joke around a lot with some of the soldiers. It’s good that she has managed to keep her sense of humor despite everything.

One very funny although probably frustrating thing that often happened while she was there is that she and the other females, had “movie star status.” I mean, the Iraqis and other male soldiers would act like they have never seen a girl before. One soldier even refused to let her go along with him for a task because the last time he did, a lot of people came up to him and asked, “Who’s that girl?”

As I neared the end of the book, I was grateful that I got to read all of it, even the parts with complaining. Why? Well, how the heck else do you manage to keep your head above water while you are trying to survive in a war zone?? It is human to complain when things go wrong and this author had every right to. Besides, this was her journal! As she writes,

Although if you can’t whine in your diary, who can you whine to?

At least readers get her honesty and she doesn’t try to BS her way through the whole experience.

And what a surprise her story had at the end!

A word of warning: While the writing about the violence from militants and terrorists in Iraq is not graphic, it is disturbing to read. This reviewer ended up having bad dreams because of it. So if this subject matter upsets you, proceed with caution.

“Diary of a Woman’s Misadventures in Iraq” by Melia Meichelbock is a unique personal story told by a female soldier who saw it all and lived to tell it all. An unforgettable read!

[The Curious Spoonie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a difficult time deciding on how I should rate this book. It honestly wasn’t exactly what I was expecting so I had a hard time really engaging with it. However, I received it from a Goodreads giveaway and I am always appreciative when an author chooses to share their work in that way so I feel a little guilty leaving a low review.

I wanted to read this book because I was interested to learn about what it is like to serve in the military, especially as a woman. I was hoping that reading a firsthand account of the day to day life of a soldier in the U.S. Army would help me to understand a perspective that I do not know much about.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure Diary of a Woman’s Misadventures in Iraq gave me the type of insight I was looking for. This book feels very much like the author took her daily journal and put it into print. The problem with this is that the types of things that we find important to record in our daily lives are usually not the same types of things that are interesting to the average reader. The result is a book filled with missed flights, evenings of drinking, roommate issues, and personal complaints. These types of experiences take up the good majority of the book and make the book feel a lot more like a teenage diary than an insightful memoir. Because of this, I’m still not quite sure exactly what someone serving in a Civil Affairs unit actually does.

The sections of the book I enjoyed the most were the parts that focused on the author’s interactions with the Iraqi people and the details of her military duties but these topics were mentioned much less frequently and, when they were, with less detail than I was hoping for. On occasion, there were references and abbreviations that someone outside of military life might not understand and a lot of the little details and nuances that really help to describe a situation or setting were just missing. This was remedied a bit by the pictures that were included, which I appreciated, but overall I couldn't help feeling like the image being painted was left incomplete.

I think a lot of the reason for this is due to the fact that this is written in journal format. Being a diary almost necessitates that the minutiae of everyday be included. It also makes it more difficult to add additional information later that might help to round out what is being described. Perhaps simply using the original journal as a jumping-off point to create a personal memoir might have allowed for supplemental information and future reflections to be included and allowed more editing for content. (I really didn’t need to know about the author’s UTI or how someone was “pleasuring” her dog.)

But there is also an upside to the author’s particular style of writing. Meichelbock is nothing if not completely honest. There is nothing hidden from the reader in her words which means that I was never left in doubt of the realism or authenticity of her story. The same type of guts that led her to her time in service is reflected in her writing. Her recording of events is believable evidence that Iraqis are human beings just like us (something I believe), our military is often a bureaucratic mess (something I honestly don’t doubt), and that being a soldier is not easy (something I have grown to respect).

And interestingly, my opinion of this book did change as I continued to read. At first I really struggled to enjoy it and, to be completely honest, there was a point about thirty percent in when I almost put it down for good. But then, on a whim, I googled the author and bumped into a short interview in which she explained her motivation in publishing this book. She described how, just prior to her deployment, she had gone in search of resources that would give her an idea of what she might be facing as a woman in the military and came up with almost nothing. She shared that…

“My vision in publishing this journal is to give female soldiers an idea of what to expect when deploying, and to also give civilians insight to what life was really like over there.”

While I personally might not have meshed with the way this story was told, this quote made me realize how important it is that people make an effort to share these kinds of stories. I appreciate that Ms. Meichelbock saw this need and took the initiative to respond to it. I think including this motivation in the author’s note at the beginning of the book would have been helpful to me, as a reader, to understand why the author thought it was important to share her story and would have given me a different perspective while I was reading.

In the end I have to admit that this book was very “hit or miss” for me, but it did leave me with more understanding of what it is like to serve our country and a stronger appreciation for the people who make the sacrifices necessary to do that and then take the time to share those stories.

[E.H. Espriella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very personal and candid account of the moments that the author experienced while deployed to the Iraq war as a Civil Affairs Reservist. It portrays some of the realities of military life and asks many questions about the challenges they face as an organization. I quickly learned that despite any training anyone can receive, transitioning from normal lifestyles to being part of a war is difficult both physically and emotionally. I was mostly struck by the poor communication, lack of organization and preparation, and egotistical behavior by different levels of leadership, including the palpable absence of teamwork and professionalism that she often faced.

Meichelbock’s diary is often funny in the way she describes the different characters she comes in contact with and all the unique situations she experiences. To set roots and build relationships she discovers a male-dominated military flooded with inflated egos, sexism, and a social environment where all rules are off. She has to constantly watch her back for the grotesque chauvinist and immature behavior of many men (and some women), childish gossip, anger, and not to mention the poor decision-making skills and carelessness of some of the leadership that adds to the already heavy stresses of living in a war-torn country.

After accepting her reality, the author begins to build close relationships with others she can trust and support her need for human interaction. As the book progresses, so is her process for setting roots regardless of the many times she is moved around to different bases.

Because this is a day-by-day account, the author writes in a literal manner, often sharing deeply personal feelings, her state of mind, and how her personal life is affected by all the changes she experiences. As she is exposed to the Iraqis out in the field, she discovers how different our societies are, yet also shows us descriptions of how we are so similar to them in many other ways.

In the end, despite the challenges she faced, as a true service member, she succeeded in her job with whatever technology and materials she had available. I would not survive 5 minutes of what the author experienced, so I respect her even more for having the guts to do this. She returned home a different and much more mature person having been exposed to so much adversity during her deployment. I felt like the literal fly on the wall as if watching and hearing all the drama unfolding, shaking my head at times, feeling very sad for the losses, and laughing at the odd situations put in front of her. Finally, I’d like to highlight something that she describes in her book, the losses were not for nothing, Iraq with all its complexity, some we will never understand, was still worth fighting for. This book is worth the read.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a woman’s journal from her first deployment in Iraq. It is a series of casually written entries about how her day was, such as her work assignments as well as mundane day-to-day stuff like showering and going to the canteen. She complains about the facilities, and her colleagues, and often repeats conversations that she has had with them, (many of which she apparently thinks are funny, but they are not). There is nothing deep here and sometimes the meaning isn’t even clear.
I had expected this to be interesting due to the exotic locale & because it is from the point of view of a woman in a very male dominated work environment. I thought that she would be brave and have an interesting perspective, but instead she came across as needy and juvenile. It often felt like I was reading about someone in high school or at summer camp. I didn’t connect with her at all. I gave up at one third, when she mentioned that there was nothing to do in Europe but drink.
I won a free copy of this book (thanks to the author & publisher!) and am voluntarily providing an honest review.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to rate. It's a diary, so the reader should expect a lot of mundane details. For those who have not been exposed to military life, those details will likely be more informative and fascinating. I would have preferred to read more about the military missions and the Iraqi people, but I understand that this type of information might have been restricted and not available for publication. This book was particularly good for picking up and reading when I had brief periods of time available. Melia comes across as a kind-hearted and likeable person, and that makes her stories more endearing to the reader. And most importantly of all, I would like to thank Melia for her service and the sacrifices she made for her family and our country. {H}

[Paul Bean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diary of a Woman’s Misadventures in Iraq is a great book because it's a no-filter take on what it’s like to be a female soldier thrown into a war zone. She tells it like it is—sometimes its surprisingly funny and sometimes it's downright frustrating to read what she goes through. The diary-style storytelling makes it feel personal and immediate, like you're experiencing it alongside her, and the photos give it a lot more context and depth. I really like it because it’s not an overly polished or sugarcoated war memoir—it’s real, messy, and often hilarious, making it a refreshing and engaging read.

[♏ Gina☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Melia Meichelbock was enjoying her life in Los Angeles with all the perks that go with that when she found herself deployed to Iraq.

I am so glad she kept a journal of her experiences. This is a great read in which she pulls no punches and tells it like it was, for which I am grateful.

Not one with an affinity with insects, the sand fleas alone would have done me in. She dealt with a lot more than that, though.

Thank you Melia for your service, and for having the brilliant idea to keep this journal.

[B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whine. Whine. Whine. I’m not a dumb girl. Whine. Oh, my gosh, all the boys love me. Whine. Whine. The girls all flirt with the boys, but I would never do that. Whine. Everyone here is dumb except me. Whine. Whine. I’m a perfect wife. Whine. My husband is stupid. Whine. Whine. Oops, I fell in love with All American and had an affair. Whine. Whine. Whine. I’m just like all the other dumb girls, but I’m still hotter than them!
Gag. Vomit. Gag.
That’s the whole thing in a nutshell. Save 400 pages for another book!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads.

The conversational tone of the author’s writing made for an entertaining read. Insights into the day to day life on duty overseas is the gist of the book.

My only criticism is that there are so many entries and stories that could have been edited out and the book would not have lost their flavor. It was kind of like sitting at the table with a friend who thinks all stories are entertaining. Nope. Some of them, you just had to be there. In other words, you thought it was amusing but the amusement doesn’t translate to funny for the rest of us. Sorry.

[Luella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a unique, personal perspective of a Civil Affairs Reservist who was deployed to Iraq. Her take on the experience was interesting and a bit surprising. The names given to " The Cast of Misfit Characters " was a story in itself. To the author, Melia Meichelbock, thank you for your service. Thank you to Goodreads Giveaways and MOJO for the book.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written well from the perspective of a female soldier. It's great to see that a woman who was used to the luxury life was able to adapt to a war zone. The book gives a lot of insight into the does and don'ts allowed of a female soldier. Highly recommend!

[Danielle Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

This compelling book offers a unique perspective on a woman's deployment, skillfully combining humor and entertainment. I highly recommend it—an absolute page-turner that kept me hooked from start to finish!

[Sherry Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a heartfelt book to read. Very interesting! The author Melia Meichelbock shares her journey while in Iraq with pictures and the stories that had me definitely intrigued from the beginning to end. So glad I read this book!

[Doe · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an honour to be reviewing this ARC.

The author shares her journals of her time in Iraq - the good and the bad. It was quite an eye opener, but amazing that she made the best of the situation.

I highly recommend this oh-so-interesting book!

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, so realistic and I cannot imagine what the author went through. To be a woman in the Iraq war is tough but she did her best for the US and the Iraq people.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

[Nicole Cleaveland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this insightful read about a female soldier life in Iraq. I won this book from goodreads and its one of my favorites. Highly recommend this memoir. Its a very entertaining read.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

First and foremost, thank you Melia for your service. Overall an easy read although I did get confused about all of the convoying to different areas. I needed a map. This book can give people a wider view of what our military does in these areas and why we are needed at times. The book did need an editor because there were a lot of simple mistakes in some sentences like words missing. However, it was a journal so I guess it’s ok. Also the formatting was off. But I read it on a kindle so that happens sometimes.

[AMAO · Rating 5 out of 5]

🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯