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The Mysteries of Haditha: A Memoir
M. C. Armstrong secured his embed as a journalist with the Navy SEALs in 2008. Shortly before he left for Iraq his father asked him to tell the story no one else seemed to be telling, the story of the people sometimes constructed as our friends and other times our the Iraqis. “But what about them?” he asked. “Who’s their good guy? Who’s their George Washington? That’s the story you want to find. Talk to them.”
Armstrong’s searing memories about his relationship with his father, his fiancé, and his SEAL team companion take the reader on a nosedive ride from a historically Black college in the American South straight into Baghdad, the burn pits, and the desert beyond the mysterious Haditha dam. Culminating in the disclosure of a devastating secret, The Mysteries of Haditha explores the lengths Armstrong was willing to go to prove himself and to witness a truth he couldn’t have prepared himself to receive. At once daring, dark, and hilarious, this memoir of Armstrong’s journey pulls no punches and lifts the veil on the lies we tell each other and the ones we tell ourselves. The Mysteries of Haditha is a coming-of-age story and an unprecedented glimpse into the heart of the war on terror.
Armstrong’s searing memories about his relationship with his father, his fiancé, and his SEAL team companion take the reader on a nosedive ride from a historically Black college in the American South straight into Baghdad, the burn pits, and the desert beyond the mysterious Haditha dam. Culminating in the disclosure of a devastating secret, The Mysteries of Haditha explores the lengths Armstrong was willing to go to prove himself and to witness a truth he couldn’t have prepared himself to receive. At once daring, dark, and hilarious, this memoir of Armstrong’s journey pulls no punches and lifts the veil on the lies we tell each other and the ones we tell ourselves. The Mysteries of Haditha is a coming-of-age story and an unprecedented glimpse into the heart of the war on terror.
- GenresMemoir
192 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 20, 2020
I have been a fan of Armstrong's writing for years, particularly his Missouri Review piece "Between the Sailor and the Sail: The Faith of Ken Kesey," his pitch-perfect tribute to Delillo's "Libra" in "The Spotlight Trial," and, most recently, "Axe," the short story that became Chapter 1 of this memoir.
"The Mysteries of Haditha" delivers on the promise of "Axe," as we follow Armstrong's descent from the ivory tower into a literal war zone, as perhaps the only 'self-embedded' journalist of the U.S. war in Iraq, interspersed with stateside reflections. I read it in three days, and, now that it's finished, I can only grin and say:
Write more stuff, Mr. Armstrong.
"The Mysteries of Haditha" delivers on the promise of "Axe," as we follow Armstrong's descent from the ivory tower into a literal war zone, as perhaps the only 'self-embedded' journalist of the U.S. war in Iraq, interspersed with stateside reflections. I read it in three days, and, now that it's finished, I can only grin and say:
Write more stuff, Mr. Armstrong.
December 3, 2020
“I had to travel seven thousand miles away from home to find out the history of my own backyard.”
– MC Armstrong
A Review of Mysteries of Haditha: A Memoir by MC Armstrong
by Jake Stephenson
Mysteries of Haditha: A Memoir is an adventure for the soul. It is an inner journey as much as it is an outward one and fills that hole where adventure once happened in places like Kesey’s bus, “Furthur.” Although Armstrong's band of “Merry Pranksters,” actually face up to reality. Nonetheless it’s still a travelogue at heart that covers the writer’s incredible journey through Iraq. It’s that good. For that writing accomplishment, we need to remember MC Armstrong’s Haditha. It is a place, as much as it is a story. A burning pit where too many were forgotten. Even if you do not buy Matt’s book, please remember Haditha. But if you are lucky to purchase and read it, you will be in for a wild, bittersweet, lyrical ride that would make Kesey, Wolfe, and Burroughs proud. MC Armstrong engages the reader much like the hook in a good song:
Sadly, like any good song, a book gets buried and you become that college kid in the back of the record store again shouting on those forgotten piles of $1.99 CDs overflowing from the bin, grabbing your newly found vinyl, “What about this one!? Why aren’t we hearing more about this one outside of the regular small bookstores and wonderful writers’ networks?!” It’s that good. And you purchase your “too good for the meat puppets to find” and hope that other “cool kids in the know” out there hear your plea. And much like that record store find, this book burns true heart.
In those first two pages, he--known as “Eat Boy”-- “wolfs” down the words on the page – in a funny, insufferable style that beguiles the best of Gonzo, yet with a humble sensitivity that remembers Vonnegut – this Kool-Aid is Eclectic and profoundly human. Difference is, this is NON-FICTION; It’s been verified by independent fact checkers for all you aluminum tubers out there; this here “Kool-Aid” quickly becomes Imperial IPA.
In The Mysteries of Haditha, M.C. 's words weave and bob and then hit you with the truth in the way that William S. Burroughs wrote about Nixon. Yeah, I said it. William S. Burroughs. You want to dispute my review, go read the book. Convince me I’m wrong. It’s that good. Because in the first two pages, he’s already given you the car keys. But you ain’t going to Vegas, baby; you’re going to Iraq. And it’s one hell of a ride as he takes you on a mind’s journey – you’re grabbing the strap on a C-130. He sits you down with embedded journalist, Evil Media Chick– Moni Basu– as he recounts his adventures writing for an almost unheard of magazine sponsored by North Carolina A&T University back in 2008. The connection to A&T and Armstrong’s assignment is, he comes to find out, KSM. KSM, for me, used to be a radio station down in Florida: WKSM. We’d travel, grooving to KSM on the car radio to visit family in Tampa. Now, thanks to Armstrong, KSM will forever be that college kid that attended NCA&T. That college kid that lived in Greensboro and pretended to be an American on Friday nights. Right next to me. In my backyard too. I had no clue. That college kid that would become THE mastermind of 9/11: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Let that one sink in. And Armstrong seems to understand our innocence in ignorance as he slings his pen into a heavy sword, cutting his bombshell into lyrical prose, recounting a conversation with the aforementioned journalist, Basu, on a “midnight plane to Bagdad,” small talking of A&T:
So it goes. He recounts his story to you and me, the reader, with an ease of humility and naivete that’s easy to listen to and hard to swallow. For me it was this: KSM is no longer that memory of a distant Florida station playing rock and roll to me and my traveling kids. In my head, KSM is now 9/11. Even more incredulous to me: He may even be a hero to some, a possible monument to his people; their Washington as the Twin Towers tumble again in my mind.
I want to be cute here and say we’ve got a new “MC'' here laying on a heavy bridge of lyrical prose, but that would be dismissive; he wrote Haditha out of wanting, grieving. It’s personal. As Stephen King writes in The Gunslinger, “do not forget the face of your father,” Armstrong fires true. His story of family, about writing and loss, chasing down this lead for his father without becoming the tail wagging the dog and never forgetting family and friends and the things he holds dear. He finds humor even in letting us in to tell of his dying mother, “Wild Mary K,” as he labors over his story; he knows he must get to the truth and recognizes mortality in himself and in all of us: “we all die, the seed of sickness blooms with me like a strange and patient fruit.” Maybe Armstrong’s line here echoes how we deal with history as well? That “seed of sickness” also becomes a truth too awful, but must be recognized because it’s too much to bear alone -- “a jagged little pill.” The poet, AR Ammons said swallowing the truth was like taking medicine: “We take our history like medicine and wait.” Castor Oil be dammed, I keep going back to this case of Haditha, I keep going back and swallowing more. I cannot wait. Trying not to forget. Trying not to be Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock going back into that lily white, safe American ether that demands our love without question – that America scares the shit out of me.
Mysteries of Haditha is a read that seems easy at first, with lyrical prose, but then heavy comes Matt’s bridge. It’s hard to swallow. To quote Todd Mohr, “It’s bittersweet, sweet and bitter. Bitter then sweet.” The book makes you go back and swallow, “What?! That really happened?”
AR Ammons may have been right. We do seem to wait after we swallow our history. But like an all-night college kegger, Armstrong shotguns you wicked fast prose like an Imperial IPA Strat solo and it goes down like a burning bittersweet pit in your throat. If you do read it, let’s remember Haditha this time. Swallow it whole but don’t forget to eat.
If I may add, personally too, this book rang a distant memory for me. A classmate of mine from NC State who worked for Getty, Photojournalist Chris Hondros, covered Iraq too. Later, he would die while on assignment in Libya. Let’s not forget the sacrifice of our veterans and those who died embedded with them. It’s incumbent upon us to remember that without The Press, without courage, without stories to shine a light on difficult truths, we lose our Fallen. Our veterans. Our heroes. And let’s not forget our fellow patriots and journalists like Matt and Moni who embedded and risked their lives to bring home the truth. (Even if it was in Matt’s backyard all along and not too far from Furthur’s hole). Please – remember Haditha.
-Jake Stephenson
– MC Armstrong
A Review of Mysteries of Haditha: A Memoir by MC Armstrong
by Jake Stephenson
Mysteries of Haditha: A Memoir is an adventure for the soul. It is an inner journey as much as it is an outward one and fills that hole where adventure once happened in places like Kesey’s bus, “Furthur.” Although Armstrong's band of “Merry Pranksters,” actually face up to reality. Nonetheless it’s still a travelogue at heart that covers the writer’s incredible journey through Iraq. It’s that good. For that writing accomplishment, we need to remember MC Armstrong’s Haditha. It is a place, as much as it is a story. A burning pit where too many were forgotten. Even if you do not buy Matt’s book, please remember Haditha. But if you are lucky to purchase and read it, you will be in for a wild, bittersweet, lyrical ride that would make Kesey, Wolfe, and Burroughs proud. MC Armstrong engages the reader much like the hook in a good song:
The Grateful Dead played low and the intricate designs of those Pakistani prayer rugs spoke of other lives in the dim darkness....
Sadly, like any good song, a book gets buried and you become that college kid in the back of the record store again shouting on those forgotten piles of $1.99 CDs overflowing from the bin, grabbing your newly found vinyl, “What about this one!? Why aren’t we hearing more about this one outside of the regular small bookstores and wonderful writers’ networks?!” It’s that good. And you purchase your “too good for the meat puppets to find” and hope that other “cool kids in the know” out there hear your plea. And much like that record store find, this book burns true heart.
In those first two pages, he--known as “Eat Boy”-- “wolfs” down the words on the page – in a funny, insufferable style that beguiles the best of Gonzo, yet with a humble sensitivity that remembers Vonnegut – this Kool-Aid is Eclectic and profoundly human. Difference is, this is NON-FICTION; It’s been verified by independent fact checkers for all you aluminum tubers out there; this here “Kool-Aid” quickly becomes Imperial IPA.
In The Mysteries of Haditha, M.C. 's words weave and bob and then hit you with the truth in the way that William S. Burroughs wrote about Nixon. Yeah, I said it. William S. Burroughs. You want to dispute my review, go read the book. Convince me I’m wrong. It’s that good. Because in the first two pages, he’s already given you the car keys. But you ain’t going to Vegas, baby; you’re going to Iraq. And it’s one hell of a ride as he takes you on a mind’s journey – you’re grabbing the strap on a C-130. He sits you down with embedded journalist, Evil Media Chick– Moni Basu– as he recounts his adventures writing for an almost unheard of magazine sponsored by North Carolina A&T University back in 2008. The connection to A&T and Armstrong’s assignment is, he comes to find out, KSM. KSM, for me, used to be a radio station down in Florida: WKSM. We’d travel, grooving to KSM on the car radio to visit family in Tampa. Now, thanks to Armstrong, KSM will forever be that college kid that attended NCA&T. That college kid that lived in Greensboro and pretended to be an American on Friday nights. Right next to me. In my backyard too. I had no clue. That college kid that would become THE mastermind of 9/11: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Let that one sink in. And Armstrong seems to understand our innocence in ignorance as he slings his pen into a heavy sword, cutting his bombshell into lyrical prose, recounting a conversation with the aforementioned journalist, Basu, on a “midnight plane to Bagdad,” small talking of A&T:
“Do you know who graduated from there?” Moni asked.
“Uh, Jessie Jackson?
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?”
She said it like that, like a question, like she couldn’t even believe that I was here with her and didn’t know this crucial fact. It was early March 2008, the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion. I’d been working at A&T as a lecturer in interdisciplinary writing for the past three years but didn’t know a thing about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“This is the guy who masterminded the attacks on 9/11,” Moni said. “You don’t know who Khalid Sheik Mohammed is?”
Moni glanced at Curtis, who was applying a cloth to a lens with calm, circular strokes. It was beginning to dawn on me that I was in way over my head…
So it goes. He recounts his story to you and me, the reader, with an ease of humility and naivete that’s easy to listen to and hard to swallow. For me it was this: KSM is no longer that memory of a distant Florida station playing rock and roll to me and my traveling kids. In my head, KSM is now 9/11. Even more incredulous to me: He may even be a hero to some, a possible monument to his people; their Washington as the Twin Towers tumble again in my mind.
I want to be cute here and say we’ve got a new “MC'' here laying on a heavy bridge of lyrical prose, but that would be dismissive; he wrote Haditha out of wanting, grieving. It’s personal. As Stephen King writes in The Gunslinger, “do not forget the face of your father,” Armstrong fires true. His story of family, about writing and loss, chasing down this lead for his father without becoming the tail wagging the dog and never forgetting family and friends and the things he holds dear. He finds humor even in letting us in to tell of his dying mother, “Wild Mary K,” as he labors over his story; he knows he must get to the truth and recognizes mortality in himself and in all of us: “we all die, the seed of sickness blooms with me like a strange and patient fruit.” Maybe Armstrong’s line here echoes how we deal with history as well? That “seed of sickness” also becomes a truth too awful, but must be recognized because it’s too much to bear alone -- “a jagged little pill.” The poet, AR Ammons said swallowing the truth was like taking medicine: “We take our history like medicine and wait.” Castor Oil be dammed, I keep going back to this case of Haditha, I keep going back and swallowing more. I cannot wait. Trying not to forget. Trying not to be Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock going back into that lily white, safe American ether that demands our love without question – that America scares the shit out of me.
Mysteries of Haditha is a read that seems easy at first, with lyrical prose, but then heavy comes Matt’s bridge. It’s hard to swallow. To quote Todd Mohr, “It’s bittersweet, sweet and bitter. Bitter then sweet.” The book makes you go back and swallow, “What?! That really happened?”
AR Ammons may have been right. We do seem to wait after we swallow our history. But like an all-night college kegger, Armstrong shotguns you wicked fast prose like an Imperial IPA Strat solo and it goes down like a burning bittersweet pit in your throat. If you do read it, let’s remember Haditha this time. Swallow it whole but don’t forget to eat.
If I may add, personally too, this book rang a distant memory for me. A classmate of mine from NC State who worked for Getty, Photojournalist Chris Hondros, covered Iraq too. Later, he would die while on assignment in Libya. Let’s not forget the sacrifice of our veterans and those who died embedded with them. It’s incumbent upon us to remember that without The Press, without courage, without stories to shine a light on difficult truths, we lose our Fallen. Our veterans. Our heroes. And let’s not forget our fellow patriots and journalists like Matt and Moni who embedded and risked their lives to bring home the truth. (Even if it was in Matt’s backyard all along and not too far from Furthur’s hole). Please – remember Haditha.
-Jake Stephenson
October 12, 2020
Judging by its cover, The Mysteries of Haditha, is a book about war.
But don't judge the book by its cover. M.C. Armstrong's memoir is a poignant love story whose characters are remembered long after the book is read.
Much of the tale is told through the eyes of Eat Boy, Armstrong's nickname bestowed by his childhood friend, Diet. They are a study in opposites until they aren’t. Something ties them together.
The plot begins with Eat Boy's obsession to see the Iraq war up close and personal. Diet, is the Lieutenant of a platoon of Navy SEALS based in Haditha, Iraq. Diet challenges Eat Boy "to be a man" and witness the war.
When Eat Boy finagles a way to go, his father offers advice that will guide him on his journey to uncover dark secrets of the war and discover a surprising twist in his own backyard. How much do you know about Greensboro’s connection to the War on Terror?
From the first chapter, Armstrong proves a gifted storyteller, effortlessly shifting the setting from Iraq to America. Armstrong tells his story both in his voice and in Eat Boy 's. But it is Eat Boy, the endearing "everyman,” who steals the show with his hilarious attempts to prove his manhood.
Armstrong's convincing characters are reminiscent of Harper Lee's character, Atticus, in To Kill A Mockingbird and Reynolds Price's Anna in Roxanna Slade.
They are unforgettable.
Meet Captain Al'a Khalaf Hrat, the mullet- headed leader of the Iraqi SWAT team Diet's platoon trained in Haditha. Stand close to “Captain Allah”—“Captain God”—and smell his American cologne. Join Armstrong and make that American connection.
"He was gangly, a silver pen clipped to his breast pocket, his white dress shirt and olive suit freshly ironed, his eyes moving left to right in a furtive display of awareness and anxiety that evoked Kramer's character from Seinfeld. But he was a man like me, who did not know his role, and no feature of his appearance suggested this more than the feathered mullet," Armstrong writes.
Armstrong deftly weaves narratives into his story that become stories within stories; his broken engagement, his taste of death, and the heartbreaking loss of a loved one.
The Mysteries of Haditha is more than a book about war.
I read it in two afternoons. Then I read it again.
But don't judge the book by its cover. M.C. Armstrong's memoir is a poignant love story whose characters are remembered long after the book is read.
Much of the tale is told through the eyes of Eat Boy, Armstrong's nickname bestowed by his childhood friend, Diet. They are a study in opposites until they aren’t. Something ties them together.
The plot begins with Eat Boy's obsession to see the Iraq war up close and personal. Diet, is the Lieutenant of a platoon of Navy SEALS based in Haditha, Iraq. Diet challenges Eat Boy "to be a man" and witness the war.
When Eat Boy finagles a way to go, his father offers advice that will guide him on his journey to uncover dark secrets of the war and discover a surprising twist in his own backyard. How much do you know about Greensboro’s connection to the War on Terror?
From the first chapter, Armstrong proves a gifted storyteller, effortlessly shifting the setting from Iraq to America. Armstrong tells his story both in his voice and in Eat Boy 's. But it is Eat Boy, the endearing "everyman,” who steals the show with his hilarious attempts to prove his manhood.
Armstrong's convincing characters are reminiscent of Harper Lee's character, Atticus, in To Kill A Mockingbird and Reynolds Price's Anna in Roxanna Slade.
They are unforgettable.
Meet Captain Al'a Khalaf Hrat, the mullet- headed leader of the Iraqi SWAT team Diet's platoon trained in Haditha. Stand close to “Captain Allah”—“Captain God”—and smell his American cologne. Join Armstrong and make that American connection.
"He was gangly, a silver pen clipped to his breast pocket, his white dress shirt and olive suit freshly ironed, his eyes moving left to right in a furtive display of awareness and anxiety that evoked Kramer's character from Seinfeld. But he was a man like me, who did not know his role, and no feature of his appearance suggested this more than the feathered mullet," Armstrong writes.
Armstrong deftly weaves narratives into his story that become stories within stories; his broken engagement, his taste of death, and the heartbreaking loss of a loved one.
The Mysteries of Haditha is more than a book about war.
I read it in two afternoons. Then I read it again.
August 19, 2020
Full disclosure....the author is a friend. Most of the stories presented in his memoir, The Mysteries of Haditha, I had heard before, over beers, long walks, dinners or at baseball games. When told that his book was to be published, I couldn’t wait to get my copy. When I did, I devoured it. Those stories now have a life of their own and they glow on the page. M.C. is a storyteller at heart and his first book is as engaging, intelligent and wide ranging as he is in real life. This book is a job well done.
Written from the heart, this memoir comes across as an eager, young developing writer’s coming of age story. M.C. is not afraid to admit his shortcomings and misgivings as he enters into the dangerous world of a war zone journalist, where the dangers are real and lives are changed in an instant. Those stories mix in well his with remembrances from back home of failed relationships, family, old friends, astonishing revelations at his place of work and in his family, and the tragic loss of loved ones. I encourage you to read this book with an open mind and an open heart. The people in it are real, with stories both heartrending and triumphant and all points in between and M.C. has engaged his empathy and curiosity and brought us not just another story of war, but well rounded stories of what it means to be human in the face of the Global War on Terror.
Written from the heart, this memoir comes across as an eager, young developing writer’s coming of age story. M.C. is not afraid to admit his shortcomings and misgivings as he enters into the dangerous world of a war zone journalist, where the dangers are real and lives are changed in an instant. Those stories mix in well his with remembrances from back home of failed relationships, family, old friends, astonishing revelations at his place of work and in his family, and the tragic loss of loved ones. I encourage you to read this book with an open mind and an open heart. The people in it are real, with stories both heartrending and triumphant and all points in between and M.C. has engaged his empathy and curiosity and brought us not just another story of war, but well rounded stories of what it means to be human in the face of the Global War on Terror.
August 19, 2020
I purchased this book when I saw it posted on a friend (and author)'s page. Armstrong is a college professor and writer who wants to imbed with a Navy Seal Team in Iraq for a few weeks. His childhood friend is part of that team. Before he left, Armstrong's father asked him to tell the story of the Iraqi's, posing the question of "what about them, who is the good guy" The memoir intertwines the authors relationships with his childhood friend, father, and fiance with his ardent desire to find out the real story of Haditha. Armstrong's memoir was not a regurgitation of facts. It is a journey of emotions and perseverance. I empathized with him as he traversed through frustration, anger, sadness, and laughter in his quest to reveal the humanity within our enemy and some of the untold truths of this war.
August 21, 2020
MC Armstrong works hard at his craft and that work pays off with this first book. This is the memoir of a writer whose chaotic life had little direction but he found one goal: to see what being in a war meant to the people involved. And by achieving that goal -- no easy feat -- the writer found his way and formed his craft. While only embedded for a short time, that experience provides direction for his work and he finds purpose; on his return he does some great reporting. The embedded experiences are no joke and without them he still might be floundering. Through this devotion to craft, Armstrong learns so much more about family, friendship, and love. He risked his life to find it, which is always an inspiring tale.
September 17, 2020
A first book from Greensboro-based writer, teacher, and musician, Matt Armstrong. It's a record of his time as an embedded journalist with a Navy SEAL team in Haditha, Iraq. It is also a beautifully written memoir of a life on the edge of turmoil. At times funny, irreverent, and searingly honest, it leave you with as many questions as it answers, like all good nonfiction should do.
Armstrong writes with refreshing humility, covering as much about what he doesn't know as what he discovers. He doesn't pretend to be a soldier or an expert, but a curious journalist with a knack for empathy. I look forward to more from this author.
Armstrong writes with refreshing humility, covering as much about what he doesn't know as what he discovers. He doesn't pretend to be a soldier or an expert, but a curious journalist with a knack for empathy. I look forward to more from this author.
November 10, 2020
I grew up watching my country's 'war on terror' on the television from age 11 onward. Simply put, I learned more about 'the war' from this book than I did from over a decade of other medias. Highly recommended.
September 8, 2020
I absolutely loved this book! This is a timely and important book that you should share with anyone wanting to learn more about The War on Terror. The author folds in personal stories at just the right moments and is one of the most relatable people I have ever read.
June 28, 2020
Armstrong writes about his experience being embedded with a military unit in Iraq. An American college professor and journalist, Armstrong sets out to discover the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and whether or not the United States was justified in entering Iraq. Armstrong also weaves stories of his own childhood, family, and past relationships into this book.
At times I found the novel to be an intriguing look into the United State’s involvement in the War, but other times found his writing disjointed and hard to follow. A lot of the book seems to be based on the author’s opinions instead of facts.
At times I found the novel to be an intriguing look into the United State’s involvement in the War, but other times found his writing disjointed and hard to follow. A lot of the book seems to be based on the author’s opinions instead of facts.
July 7, 2021
Full disclosure, I've known the author for 20 years.
This is a book about war. Just not the Iraq war.
This is a book about war. Just not the Iraq war.
October 11, 2021
I read this book because I am acquainted with the author. It's a quick, enjoyable read.
November 29, 2021
interesting account of a non military person's experience in Iraq during the war.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews