Johnson

Title: A Soldier Never Cries

Author: Laura E. Johnson

Published by: Lyrical Soldier Publishing

Reviewer: Barbara Nelson

Many people have absolutely no idea of what takes place in the Army and on the battlefield, so the title of this book, A Soldier Never Cries is definitely a drawing card. The fact that it is written by a Jamaican-born young woman who is in the U.S. Army is another drawing card especially to people in the diaspora.

The story is about a young Jamaican-born girl, Sara Cornwall, who migrates to the United States and later joins the army. "The real reason I joined the army (at 18 years old) was to get away from home ... to get out there and live my life with no rules. What I didn't know then is that I would still be in captivity," she admits.

One day Sara is told to "pack your bags you are going to war", and after hasty goodbyes to family and friends she and the other soldiers go first to Fort Drum, New York, before taking the long plane ride to Kuwait before going on to Iraq.

The description of the seven months Sara spent in Iraq brings into sharp focus many of the difficulties and hardships that soldiers endure. The heat, the aggressive and persistent flies, living in tents "with some nasty folk", using home-made toilets instead of regular toilets, the racism and the loneliness are all facets of a soldier's life in the war zone.

The author intersperses entries from a journal that Sara kept when she was a private at basic training and poems on different subjects into the narrative.

Laura Johnson has a gift for writing. She has the ability to easily draw the reader into the experiences and the emotions of the people portrayed in her book. "Mail was a necessity for us," Sara says. "Soldiers were desperate for mail."

'Thank God for (the) Red Cross and the people that donate to them ... I remember grabbing a six pack of Oreo cookies ... I had not had any cookies of that sort in over a month. Those were the best Oreo cookies I had in my life," says Sara.

Sargeant Johnson was on the front line "in Saudi fighting a war he had mixed views about ... He was killing human beings for reasons that were unclear to him."

Sara found it hard to deal with "soldiers getting killed left and right". She also realised that the hungry days in Jamaica" helped to develop qualities of resilience and strength in her.

True love, however, eludes Sara. The war separated her from her unfaithful lover, Jeff, and eventually she realises tha she loves him she is just not in love with him.

Near the end of the story she admits, "I was still searching for love in a congested hate-filled world. Love should not be so hard to find. So many of us are not loved by the ones we love."

A Soldier Never Cries is an interesting story. With time and the support of a good editor we should see many more stories from Laura Johnson.