Prompted by Fedarko to explain the term – which means talking up a soldier to exchange him for another one – Romesha realised that there is so much unsaid that goes on between military people that outsiders cannot understand. In one instance, Romesha referred to a “drug deal” when speaking with Lieutenant Andrew Bundermann about their strategy for building up the platoon before heading to Afghanistan. “It’s about that unspoken language, the words in between the words.” “Having Kevin there to interject and have us fully explain things made us aware of when we’re talking in our military language, made us hear those meaningful pauses or those awkward glances at each other,” he said. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Imagesįor Romesha, working with Fedarko highlighted the strength of the military bond. The body of US army specialist Michael Scusa is returned to the US, one of eight American soldiers killed in the battle of Kamdesh. “Because the experience is more foreign, there are people out there who want to know what it’s like, and if we as veterans put our candle under a bushel and don’t let other people see our sacrifice it will be forgotten.” “We live in a time now where less and less are serving, and with that comes a disconnect between those that serve and those that haven’t,” he said. Romesha, whose father served two tours in Vietnam, said there has been a rise in such memoirs because direct knowledge of the military is increasingly rare. Red Platoon, out this week from Penguin Random House, joins the ranks of war memoirs like Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell and American Sniper by Chris Kyle. “If it wasn’t for those eight men who gave up everything I wouldn’t be here, but there’s been a one-sided perspective.” With journalist Kevin Fedarko, Romesha went back and spent hours discussing and reliving the battle with his “battle buddies”. “I get the attention on a daily basis, but the other men that were there with me that day were just as important,” he says. ( The film rights to Red Platoon already have been optioned by Sony Pictures.) But he knew that many troop members were uncomfortable speaking with journalists, and these members encouraged him to write a first-person account that would tell a fuller story.
“I didn’t want to do a book about the individual perspective of Clint Romesha,” he says, especially since CNN journalist Jake Tapper had already written a book, titled The Outpost, about Kamdesh. Romesha was apprehensive about the prospect of courting attention.
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