Summary Of House To House By SSG David Bellavia
The book House to House by SSG David Bellavia is a great read for anyone looking for a modern book describing the details of urban combat in the current War on Terror. It is a memoir of David Bellavia’s time as a soldier in Iraq but mainly his experiences at the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, which was arguably the bloodiest battle of the War in Iraq. This was the turning point of the war when insurgents were causing most of the fatalities, and the Bush administration was under fire for the losing war. There was turnover in the upper levels of the military and government, unrest in the new Iraqi government and an emergence of a new disciplined and angry type of Muslim extremists who fought a new type of battle. Our newest threat,
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ISIS, was largely formed during this period of time in 2003 and House to House is a soldier's account of going face to face with this new enemy. A truly valuable aspect of this book is Bellavia’s honesty on his personnel well-being, his spirituality and his reasons for joining the infantry.
He tells a story in the beginning of the book of his life before he joined the Army. Bellavia said he was a prudent and skittish young man at home, proving it with a story of a home invasion where he stayed in the basement staring at a shotgun he did not know how to use while the intruders took what they wanted and left. In part, he describes how his father was the main reason he joined the army “…I have to confess it was the look on my dad’s face that day. That look shamed me, and the humiliation drove me to join the army in search of the heart and spirit I so deeply lacked” (Bellavia 46). But what kept me reading was his constant review of his conscious, his Christianity and where his relationship with God was. He whole-heartedly believes in his mission and follows through with his orders but reflects what facing death every day has done to him mentally and spiritually. He discusses the joy in his enemies suffering but with a realization of what he thinks this means about himself, but still with zero regret. He continued to be a proud server of the USA and to do that he had to silence a piece of his
conscious. There were many parts of this book that impacted me because it was a no-punches held back, non-politically correct memoir of war. Something particular I learned from this book is how the insurgents used children to take advantage of American troop’s morality. The animosity of these radicals is portrayed when they send young children out into the open to see how many troops and vehicles the Americans had and report back. This puts soldiers at such odds, they must decide whether their morality or their lives are more important. Bellavia also taught me that some insurgents were using drugs to fight longer and harder. The most ironic of these is American Epinephrine. The Epinephrine make the enemies heart continue to beat even after being exposed to nerve gas or chemical weapons. This really made me think about how soldiers are sometimes portrayed using “overkill” tactics on their enemies, but maybe these soldiers only bash their enemies head a few more times because they know they are doped up past the point of natural life.
“America is not at war, the Army is at war; the Marine Corps is jammed up against the gates; and America is at the mall.” – David Bellavia
ISIS, was largely formed during this period of time in 2003 and House to House is a soldier's account of going face to face with this new enemy. A truly valuable aspect of this book is Bellavia’s honesty on his personnel well-being, his spirituality and his reasons for joining the infantry.
He tells a story in the beginning of the book of his life before he joined the Army. Bellavia said he was a prudent and skittish young man at home, proving it with a story of a home invasion where he stayed in the basement staring at a shotgun he did not know how to use while the intruders took what they wanted and left. In part, he describes how his father was the main reason he joined the army “…I have to confess it was the look on my dad’s face that day. That look shamed me, and the humiliation drove me to join the army in search of the heart and spirit I so deeply lacked” (Bellavia 46). But what kept me reading was his constant review of his conscious, his Christianity and where his relationship with God was. He whole-heartedly believes in his mission and follows through with his orders but reflects what facing death every day has done to him mentally and spiritually. He discusses the joy in his enemies suffering but with a realization of what he thinks this means about himself, but still with zero regret. He continued to be a proud server of the USA and to do that he had to silence a piece of his
conscious. There were many parts of this book that impacted me because it was a no-punches held back, non-politically correct memoir of war. Something particular I learned from this book is how the insurgents used children to take advantage of American troop’s morality. The animosity of these radicals is portrayed when they send young children out into the open to see how many troops and vehicles the Americans had and report back. This puts soldiers at such odds, they must decide whether their morality or their lives are more important. Bellavia also taught me that some insurgents were using drugs to fight longer and harder. The most ironic of these is American Epinephrine. The Epinephrine make the enemies heart continue to beat even after being exposed to nerve gas or chemical weapons. This really made me think about how soldiers are sometimes portrayed using “overkill” tactics on their enemies, but maybe these soldiers only bash their enemies head a few more times because they know they are doped up past the point of natural life.
“America is not at war, the Army is at war; the Marine Corps is jammed up against the gates; and America is at the mall.” – David Bellavia