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Five Wars: A Soldier's Journey to Peace
Five A Soldier’s Journey to Peace is a memoir and compilation of short stories that connects the experiences of a 29-year Army veteran of two tours in Iraq, and one each in Afghanistan and Bosnia with his most dangerous war of coming home. The stories weave events over a lifetime from a basketball player growing up in Southern Illinois to the leader of soldiers in combat, advisor to the most senior officer in the Afghan National Army and then as a husband and father who fails to recognize that war changed him until it was almost too late. It is the perspective of a soldier who never intended to remain in the Army past his initial tour. However, the pursuit of honor, sense of duty, and the brother and sisterhood of those with whom he served alongside kept him in for nearly three decades. It also offers a glimpse into the evolution of warfare from the "shock and awe" of Desert Storm, to "peace enforcement" in Bosnia, and finally America's longest war of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, it is a cautionary tale to all Americans of the cost of war and our obligation to participate in a dialogue with our national leaders in the decision of "if and when" to go to war. Five Wars is a personal account of the psychological impact of combat, moral injury, and the struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It describes one soldier's journey from the grand adventure of war to coming home where he finds himself on the brink of self destruction. However, family, friends and mental health professionals enable the healing process where he discovers his place as a healthy member of the community and learns that service to one's nation does not end when the uniform is taken off for the final time.
226 pages, Paperback
Published April 10, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 26, 2022
This book touched me. COL Johnson and I started active duty the same year and had some similar experiences, but also very different ones. I had four combat zone deployments, recognized a lot of familiar names in his story, and identified with the adrenaline rush he described. The rest of my story is significantly different than his.
Ultimately it made me realize how lightly I was touched by the PTSD that grabbed ahold of him, and how lucky I am to be able to say that.
Thank you Fred for sharing so completely.
Ultimately it made me realize how lightly I was touched by the PTSD that grabbed ahold of him, and how lucky I am to be able to say that.
Thank you Fred for sharing so completely.
May 19, 2017
It is an honor to know such an amazing person! Fred has accomplished more with his life than I could ever imagine doing - helping to rebuild foreign cities after the fighting. And, this book really gives an inside look at what it is like to serve in the military (before, during & after war) to someone like me who has never been in the military.
October 16, 2017
COL Johnson’s book allows the reader to get an inside look of how a leader takes care of his Soldiers while dealing with his own battles. His honesty is heartfelt.
I am glad to know Fred.
I am glad to know Fred.
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May 16, 2017About three-quarters of the way through his memoir of soldiering, Five Wars: A Soldier’s Journey to Peace (2017), Col. Fred Johnson (Ret.) recalls a scene from his time in Bosnia. It’s January 1995, and his commander is meeting with the Serbian military leadership in their area of operations. Fred takes a stroll around a bombed-out school, finds a room littered with crayon-covered drawings of the sort children make in the earliest grades. “Except,” he writes, “when I picked one up, I saw that the child had drawn a house completely engulfed in flames. Green blobs with rifle barrels—tanks, I assumed—lined the background. Stick figures formed a line out of the burning building; one of the stick figures was on fire, scratched over red and orange and yellow. Another stick figure was drawn in the yard beside the house, laid horizontally, with red crayon coming away from its mouth in drops."
Like so much in this book, it is the contrast between the comic and the tragic, the sacred and the abundantly profane, that penetrates our consciousness like one of the Iraqi EFP’s (Explosively Formed Penetrators) that can cut through the heaviest tank armor like a seasoned Sergeant Major through BS. Reading works of this type, military memories and the like is part of my job. I have read dozens of them, from the classics to the offbeat and iconoclastic and can say that Johnson has accomplished something special.
There is no lack of literature that takes us inside the world of soldiers at war. From Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel which paints a picture of trench warfare in World War I as sublime to Piers Platt’s Combat and Other Shenanigans which is subtitled Tales of the Absurd from a Deployment to Iraq. Five Wars delivers the quiet pathos of too-wise children’s drawings alongside the frenetic summary of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission with endless repetitions of the “You gotta keep ‘em separated” lyric from the Offspring's song “Come Out and Play." It puts the perennial soldier’s game of dropping the perfect quote from a hit movie into conversation—as in the case of the memorable Staff Sergeant Hudgeons who would invariably end his daily briefing on the insurgents in the area with, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
There is, however, another layer to this book, in my mind the most important. Col. Johnson delves into the aftermath of war. At this point, PTSD has become something akin to a cliche in American culture, all-too-often imagining combat veterans as psychological basket cases. Fred’s story—the story of a retired bird colonel and twenty-eight-year veteran—humanizes the reality of psychological damage. He recounts the siren call of suicide and the useless oblivion of self-medication. He admits to basking in the addictive drug of war and to an obsessive push to physical challenge. Most importantly, he relates the complex ways in which soldierly experience intertwines with memories of beloved friends who never came home and the pain of those who continue to wait for a spouse or parent present in body only.
If you are a veteran or a family member of a veteran, there will be much here that is familiar, though it is crucial to bear in mind every vet’s story is unique. Near the end of the book, Col. Johnson tells us about the healing power of art in conjunction with a willingness to seek help from therapeutic professionals. On a personal note, I will add that as a beneficiary of the Shakespeare With Veterans program that he created—in collaboration with the wonderful folks at Kentucky Shakespeare—I will add that you have done more than I can say for your fellow vets. Fred, reading your story only confirms for me what I already knew: we are, as human beings, made of stories at the most fundamental level. Thank you. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
Like so much in this book, it is the contrast between the comic and the tragic, the sacred and the abundantly profane, that penetrates our consciousness like one of the Iraqi EFP’s (Explosively Formed Penetrators) that can cut through the heaviest tank armor like a seasoned Sergeant Major through BS. Reading works of this type, military memories and the like is part of my job. I have read dozens of them, from the classics to the offbeat and iconoclastic and can say that Johnson has accomplished something special.
There is no lack of literature that takes us inside the world of soldiers at war. From Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel which paints a picture of trench warfare in World War I as sublime to Piers Platt’s Combat and Other Shenanigans which is subtitled Tales of the Absurd from a Deployment to Iraq. Five Wars delivers the quiet pathos of too-wise children’s drawings alongside the frenetic summary of the Bosnian peacekeeping mission with endless repetitions of the “You gotta keep ‘em separated” lyric from the Offspring's song “Come Out and Play." It puts the perennial soldier’s game of dropping the perfect quote from a hit movie into conversation—as in the case of the memorable Staff Sergeant Hudgeons who would invariably end his daily briefing on the insurgents in the area with, “And that’s all I have to say about that.”
There is, however, another layer to this book, in my mind the most important. Col. Johnson delves into the aftermath of war. At this point, PTSD has become something akin to a cliche in American culture, all-too-often imagining combat veterans as psychological basket cases. Fred’s story—the story of a retired bird colonel and twenty-eight-year veteran—humanizes the reality of psychological damage. He recounts the siren call of suicide and the useless oblivion of self-medication. He admits to basking in the addictive drug of war and to an obsessive push to physical challenge. Most importantly, he relates the complex ways in which soldierly experience intertwines with memories of beloved friends who never came home and the pain of those who continue to wait for a spouse or parent present in body only.
If you are a veteran or a family member of a veteran, there will be much here that is familiar, though it is crucial to bear in mind every vet’s story is unique. Near the end of the book, Col. Johnson tells us about the healing power of art in conjunction with a willingness to seek help from therapeutic professionals. On a personal note, I will add that as a beneficiary of the Shakespeare With Veterans program that he created—in collaboration with the wonderful folks at Kentucky Shakespeare—I will add that you have done more than I can say for your fellow vets. Fred, reading your story only confirms for me what I already knew: we are, as human beings, made of stories at the most fundamental level. Thank you. “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews