IRAQ VETERAN, (MCT) Michael Pitre faced a dilemma when he returned home from his two deployments to Iraq between 2005 and 2007 but has since decided to “keep it real.”

He didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. So he told them “decoy stories,” comical tales he hoped would satisfy their curiosity and allow the conversation to drift elsewhere. But all that has changed now. Pitre said. “I’m not doing myself any good because I’m avoiding dealing with some of the things that still were bothering me. And I was not honoring the memory of the people who I served with — some of whom did not come home — and those who were still serving. So I wanted to make sure I told the real stories, the stories that I had avoided telling for years… that were uncomfortable.”

He wrote down the grittier, more uncomfortable stories for himself into a gripping and penetrating novel, “Fives and Twenty-Fives” (Bloomsbury). The New Orleans author is scheduled to discuss his first novel at the AJC Decatur Book Festival Aug. 30. The novel exposes the alienation that can stem from combat. After surviving harrowing deployments in Iraq, Pitre’s characters struggle to fit in back home with friends and family who know little about what they experienced.

“And when you come away from military service you want to be able to reenter the civilian world and just be part of it. You want to come home. But you can’t come home when no one knows what you did. And it becomes a secret. And when it is a secret, it’s a burden.”

At times both tragic and comic, Pitre’s story follows a Marine platoon responsible for filling potholes in Iraq. Sounds like a mundane task. But every one of the holes they fill is loaded with a bomb planted by insurgents. The novel’s title refers to a tactic the Marines use to protect themselves. When their white-knuckle convoys come to a stop, the troops scan for bombs five meters around their trucks. And when they climb out of their vehicles, they widen their search to 25 meters.

Kateb loves American music and literature and even carries around a worn copy of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” But he is also critical of the Americans and their mission in Iraq. In one scene, Kateb reacts angrily as the Marines stand by while Iraqi security forces roughly treat some prisoners — his countrymen — forcing them to go without water under a blazing sun.

After he returned home, Pitre got an MBA at Loyola University in New Orleans and started work in the surety industry. He spent his nights writing “Fives and Twenty-Fives,” usually from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m. and wherever he could find a quiet spot, including on his dining room table and at a local coffee shop. He is now writing a novel set in Louisiana during both the last year of the Civil War and the last year of Reconstruction. He said it deals with how the public’s perception of war differs from reality. Guilt plagues him after several of his platoon members are killed or injured. When he returns home, he struggles to adjust. At one point, the character in his novel is chatting and drinking at a bar with his civilian boss and some acquaintances when he realizes he has shared too much. He tells them about the bombs insurgents planted in the road, in dog carcasses and even in headless bodies.

Rob Findlay, also an Iraq Veteran has his stories too, like when Iraqi men were strapping bombs to their young children, and telling the children to give soldiers hugs and witnessing suicide bombers and local Iraqis being shot by their own people. Yes, there are many veterans out there with stories to tell, horrible stories that they keep to themselves.

Rob Findlay shown in today’s photo suffers from TBI, Concussions, Seizures and PTSD. Please click on our sponsored fundraiser gfwd.at/1oHnGGP and leave a donation or words of encouragement.

Comes A Soldier’s Whisper, recognizing all soldiers of all wars and the silent weapon they return with affecting friends, family and America in general.

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Portion Text Story Source: http://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/iraq-war-vet-s-novel-wraps-some-ugly-truths-in-fiction-1.298901