White Plains Native Pens A Series of Soldiers’ Tales
Phil Klay, a White Plains native, has published a compendium of short stories about the madness of war as related through the experiences of soldiers on the ground in Iraq.
The book, titled “Redeployment” and published by Penguin Press was released March 4. Klay began a tour of the country to promote his new book this week.
In an interview last Wednesday with The White Plains Examiner, Klay said he was happy to be remembered in the community where he grew up.
Still young at age 30 today, Klay lived as a child in the Gedney neighborhood of White Plains, attending Ridgeway Elementary School, Highlands Middle School and then commuted by train every weekday from the White Plains Metro North Station to Regis High School in New York City. He went to church at Our Lady of Sorrows on Mamaroneck Avenue.
Klay fondly remembers the places where he played with friends and the streets and parks he roamed as a kid. He now resides in Brooklyn and his family has since moved on to Boston, but White Plains is the city that holds his childhood memories, where he developed his roots.
Attending Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Klay studied English and Creative Writing, and he signed up for Marine OCS (Officer Candidate School), which required several years of military commitment and eventually a 13-month deployment in Iraq.
Klay said he wanted to support his country, to do the right thing, to work to make things better.
As a Staff Officer –he was a First Lieutenant – Klay did not get first-hand experience on the front lines of the Iraq War, but he listened to the stories of those soldiers and Marines who did.
“The environment of war is so much more complicated than most people realize,” Klay said. “The extremes are so severe. No matter what policy you support, it is important that people think through the process of what they are asking when they determine war is the decision they want to make.”
Klay believes that most people have no idea about the extreme life and death situations presented by war and he is determined to try to get them to stop, take a good hard look and understand.
In “Redeployment” Klay retells the stories of Marines he interviewed. He kept notes during his time in Iraq, but he did not know he would turn these events into a book until he had returned home and had time to think through all the ramifications of his experience.
Klay writes often about being in a state of Orange Alert. “Soldiers are constantly in a state of Orange Alert,” he says. They are aware of everything around them, noticing every move, every noise, and every action because they are in a constant state of physical danger. They are responsible not only for their own welfare but for the welfare of the people they are protecting as well. When the alert rises to Red, then the immediate response is action. In most cases, because the situation is one of death or survival, the reaction is extreme.
For us, here at home, the constant is White Alert – no threat. But there can be sounds and actions that happen around us, which for a soldier used to being in a continual state of readiness, trigger the upgrade to Red and that is what makes it difficult to come home, because the response can be very inappropriate.
Klay witnessed the difficulty of soldiers in the field and then on their return home.
While the stories are all real, Klay says he did a lot of research to make certain his portrayals were realistic and accurate. The result is a poignant and moving book with a bold message.
“No matter whether you are pro a particular policy or not, when we ask people to go to war and when we consider the people we are fighting that war for, we must give thorough and vigorous thought to what that really means,” Klay concludes.
Reviews and portions of “Redeployment” are available for view and purchase on Amazon.com.
