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Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Survive, and Get Back to the Fight, Revised and Updated (Fox Chapel Publishing) The True Story of Surviving a Car Bomb Attack in Baghdad, Iraq in 2006 [Glossy Cover]
CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier, who battled back from critical injuries sustained in a Baghdad bombing on Memorial Day in 2007, seizes that event as a pivotal moment from which to assess her world—-her rise to network broadcasting, the demands on and perils of women covering dangerous events, and the politics around her.
288 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2008
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August 9, 2011
Kimberly Dozier is a former CBS news correspondent who became the news during an embed assignment in Baghdad over the Memorial Day weekend in 2006. What was to be a ’routine’ assignment, if such a thing existed, turned into a hellish nightmare after a 500 pound car bomb was detonated at the scene. Assigned to follow a patrol over the holiday while Americans at home were eating their barbeque and doing their best to forget about the war, the incident put the war back ‘above the fold’. Four members of the party, Captain James Alex Funkhouser, USA, CBS cameraman Paul Douglas, CBS soundman James Brolan and Captain Funhouser’s Iraqi translator, Sam, died at the scene, all but Douglas, instantly. Breathing the Fire is Dozier’s account of that day and the aftermath it wrought.
The story is engrossing, and as a reporter, Dozier makes it a compelling read. The book opens with Dozier setting the scene the night before the assignment. From there she darts back and forth through time, recounting the story as well as how she put the pieces of the story together. Not unusually for a traumatic brain injury (TBI) sufferer, it took a lot of time and a lot of digging to get the pieces to fall into place. She had to rely on information from outside sources until her slowly recovering brain could fill in all the facts.
Breathing the Fire gives an in-depth view of trauma care and a small glimpse of the people who provide it. Dozier sets the scene from the Baghdad street corner all the way through her return to work. Included are stops at the Combat Support Hospital (CSH) in Baghdad’s Green Zone and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a “way station” in Germany for injured troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as troops based in Germany and their family members. From there Dozier is transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and finally to Kernan Hospital for further rehabilitation.
Through each step, Dozier paints a vivid picture of her injuries, her pain and her care. The tale is emotionally raw and honest. She describes the toll that the bomb took not only on her and her loved ones, but those of the other victims as well. She talks to other service members from the scene as well as family members of those that were lost. In the process, she also tells the story of how she got to her position in Baghdad. The book is really an autobiography of her entire life, including her fight to return to ‘normal life’ and get back in the field.
Overall, this was a riveting read; almost in stream-of-consciousness mode, the pages keep turning as the tale moves along. The faults are few: Dozier shows a tendency to repeat herself occasionally; the quickly shifting timeline can be a little confusing at times; she also tends to break situations, things and people into simply dichotomies. There is very little grey; there is good and there is evil. And, with very few exceptions, regarding people, the split is class-based: military figures in the field are all good, administrators, not so much. Nurses and corpsmen are good, doctors tend to be evil. (This is one area where exceptions can be found, notably Dr. Dunne at Bethesda)
Additionally, Dozier spends a decent amount of the book justifying herself, her life and her career choices. While understandable given the context, at times it doesn’t come across very well. She mentions in the postscript to the paperback edition that with some time and distance, she saw the writing as “angry” and chose not to edit that out, as it was her true self at that time. I didn’t sense anger so much as defensiveness and I don’t know that Dozier has anything about which to be defensive.
The story is engrossing, and as a reporter, Dozier makes it a compelling read. The book opens with Dozier setting the scene the night before the assignment. From there she darts back and forth through time, recounting the story as well as how she put the pieces of the story together. Not unusually for a traumatic brain injury (TBI) sufferer, it took a lot of time and a lot of digging to get the pieces to fall into place. She had to rely on information from outside sources until her slowly recovering brain could fill in all the facts.
Breathing the Fire gives an in-depth view of trauma care and a small glimpse of the people who provide it. Dozier sets the scene from the Baghdad street corner all the way through her return to work. Included are stops at the Combat Support Hospital (CSH) in Baghdad’s Green Zone and the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a “way station” in Germany for injured troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as troops based in Germany and their family members. From there Dozier is transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and finally to Kernan Hospital for further rehabilitation.
Through each step, Dozier paints a vivid picture of her injuries, her pain and her care. The tale is emotionally raw and honest. She describes the toll that the bomb took not only on her and her loved ones, but those of the other victims as well. She talks to other service members from the scene as well as family members of those that were lost. In the process, she also tells the story of how she got to her position in Baghdad. The book is really an autobiography of her entire life, including her fight to return to ‘normal life’ and get back in the field.
Overall, this was a riveting read; almost in stream-of-consciousness mode, the pages keep turning as the tale moves along. The faults are few: Dozier shows a tendency to repeat herself occasionally; the quickly shifting timeline can be a little confusing at times; she also tends to break situations, things and people into simply dichotomies. There is very little grey; there is good and there is evil. And, with very few exceptions, regarding people, the split is class-based: military figures in the field are all good, administrators, not so much. Nurses and corpsmen are good, doctors tend to be evil. (This is one area where exceptions can be found, notably Dr. Dunne at Bethesda)
Additionally, Dozier spends a decent amount of the book justifying herself, her life and her career choices. While understandable given the context, at times it doesn’t come across very well. She mentions in the postscript to the paperback edition that with some time and distance, she saw the writing as “angry” and chose not to edit that out, as it was her true self at that time. I didn’t sense anger so much as defensiveness and I don’t know that Dozier has anything about which to be defensive.
September 17, 2009
Putting their lives in danger to get the story is what literally catapulted Kimberly Dozier’s body and career into the limelight. While reporting a story in Baghdad about American soldiers working with Iraqi security forces, Dozier and her team and envoy were victims of a car bombing.
Having the opportunity to sit in on an interview between Dozier and my colleague Bill Thompson, I heard her tale first hand.
After reading her book however, I realized just how similar we are. She describes herself as a “workaholic news nerd.” Speaking of her two man team killed in the blast, “They’ve watched me climb my way from radio to affiliate to network TV. No matter what I think I am, to them I’m the former wannabe who is still trying too hard.”
She describes her dangerous work as “hard, dangerous, and often monotonous, the same sad story over and over. Even my own family thinks I’m nuts for spending so much time covering the war. I was first assigned to Iraq because no one else wanted it.”
Her book is an incredibly personal insight into the recovery period that many of our troops are undergoing. Once I started, I couldn't put it down, finishing the book in a few days. What I told Kimberly the second time I met her, was that it was so impressive that although she became the story, she continuously related it to the soldiers who haven't found the words yet to describe their recovery.
She told me many therapists are buying her book for their military patients. Their reactions more often then not are relief that someone else experienced it too.
While undergoing her recovery, doctors were pessimistic. “We don’t know if you’ll ever use that leg properly again.” But through pure defiance and gumption, she, “dubbed him, ‘sad sack’ and in that moment I hated him. His dire prediction made me angry and scared. It would be weeks – actually months- before I’d have any idea whether he was right or whether I could prove him wrong.” Sound like anyone else we know?
In true journalism fashion, “throughout my whole reporting career, I’ve despised the Pollyannas who try to spin me with an overly optimistic line. But just this once I could have used a man wearing those obnoxiously hued rose-colored glasses.”
She describes her co-worker, the way I describe my roommate linds and myself: “We were two independent ass hell women who took orders from on one and were getting more stubborn as we grew older.
I value truth above all else, and to find someone who is not afraid to tell you it the best quality a person can have. “Chris’s lens was a harsh, unforgiving mirror. ‘Your stand-ups are crap.’ I’d never felt uglier in my life. And seldom before or since have had I looked better on camera. He told me all the things that previous producers and managers were too polite to say. But Chris had to work with me every day and he doesn’t suffer fools. And he doesn’t, ‘like his name going on crap.’ So I was used to hearing harsh truths from a man who thinks Hugh Lauries House character is modeled after him…. When Chris left a day or so later, he left me with some things to think about. ‘ You have no business being here,’ he said. ‘Look, this is your second chance. This is the start of your second life. Don’t fuck it up.’”
Other great quotes revealing the true dedication and strong will of Kimberly:
“A few of my CBS colleagues had witnessed my two-decade-long struggle to secure a network TV job in the Middle East. I didn’t intend to let the bombing jettison all that hard work. And as I recovered in New Zealand, I could only reflect on how learning to walk normally again was just about as hard as getting this job had been in the first place.”
“Look around,” said veteran Post correspondent Thomas Lippman. “See these writers? They’re only a decade or so older than you, and they’re not going anywhere.” And the stack of resumes to fill their spots came from writers at the best newspapers in the country.”
“He told me I had to do something to distinguish myself. ‘Go back to school or go overseas,’ Lippman said. I wonder if he even remembers the conversation. I find it indelible because it changed my life. I decided to do everything he recommended: go back to school, get a degree in Islamic affairs, and then go overseas to become a foreign correspondent.”
“Professor David Newsom was once ambassador to Libya, Indonesia, and the Philippines and later served as undersecretary of state for President Jimmy Carter. He’d also been a top journalist, so he knew both sides. He told me, ‘you’d hate diplomacy. You could never keep your mouth shut.’”
“ ‘You want to use this grant to become a foreign correspondent, don’t you? That’s half truth and half beauty right?’ the woman who left the message said. ‘So we’re being true to the spirit of the grant.’ That’s how I ended up in Cairo Egypt with $10,000, two suitcases, no job, and not knowing a single word of Arabic.”
They also knew I needed a lot of improvement to become a top reporter, which I of course, didn’t realize. But as Lippman had predicted, I was a warm body in a place that’s tough to find able help, so I was snatched up.”
After a week or so in Baghdad, Paxson asked me when I wanted to leave, expecting me to say that most correspondents said: After a month.” Four weeks was the standard rotation. I said, “why leave.”
So I guess I’ve come full circle. From all that, I’ve learned a couple things which apply to business. First of all you don’t do this job for the ‘thank you.’ You do it because you think you’re doing the right thing. If you don’t take the risks of telling the unpopular stories or taking the hard route, you are letting the critics win, and you will let people down, which means you just have to get comfortable with risk – to your career and, in extreme cases, to your life.
I’ve realized that because my job is to hold up a mirror to show us our failings, as well as our triumphs, that my message will never be popular. But if I let the critics be my internal compass and keep quiet, I am failing the American people and that voice in my head and heart, which tells me to do what’s right. And last, on a personal note, surviving the psychological slog of reporting in Baghdad is great training for recovering from a car bomb.
Having the opportunity to sit in on an interview between Dozier and my colleague Bill Thompson, I heard her tale first hand.
After reading her book however, I realized just how similar we are. She describes herself as a “workaholic news nerd.” Speaking of her two man team killed in the blast, “They’ve watched me climb my way from radio to affiliate to network TV. No matter what I think I am, to them I’m the former wannabe who is still trying too hard.”
She describes her dangerous work as “hard, dangerous, and often monotonous, the same sad story over and over. Even my own family thinks I’m nuts for spending so much time covering the war. I was first assigned to Iraq because no one else wanted it.”
Her book is an incredibly personal insight into the recovery period that many of our troops are undergoing. Once I started, I couldn't put it down, finishing the book in a few days. What I told Kimberly the second time I met her, was that it was so impressive that although she became the story, she continuously related it to the soldiers who haven't found the words yet to describe their recovery.
She told me many therapists are buying her book for their military patients. Their reactions more often then not are relief that someone else experienced it too.
While undergoing her recovery, doctors were pessimistic. “We don’t know if you’ll ever use that leg properly again.” But through pure defiance and gumption, she, “dubbed him, ‘sad sack’ and in that moment I hated him. His dire prediction made me angry and scared. It would be weeks – actually months- before I’d have any idea whether he was right or whether I could prove him wrong.” Sound like anyone else we know?
In true journalism fashion, “throughout my whole reporting career, I’ve despised the Pollyannas who try to spin me with an overly optimistic line. But just this once I could have used a man wearing those obnoxiously hued rose-colored glasses.”
She describes her co-worker, the way I describe my roommate linds and myself: “We were two independent ass hell women who took orders from on one and were getting more stubborn as we grew older.
I value truth above all else, and to find someone who is not afraid to tell you it the best quality a person can have. “Chris’s lens was a harsh, unforgiving mirror. ‘Your stand-ups are crap.’ I’d never felt uglier in my life. And seldom before or since have had I looked better on camera. He told me all the things that previous producers and managers were too polite to say. But Chris had to work with me every day and he doesn’t suffer fools. And he doesn’t, ‘like his name going on crap.’ So I was used to hearing harsh truths from a man who thinks Hugh Lauries House character is modeled after him…. When Chris left a day or so later, he left me with some things to think about. ‘ You have no business being here,’ he said. ‘Look, this is your second chance. This is the start of your second life. Don’t fuck it up.’”
Other great quotes revealing the true dedication and strong will of Kimberly:
“A few of my CBS colleagues had witnessed my two-decade-long struggle to secure a network TV job in the Middle East. I didn’t intend to let the bombing jettison all that hard work. And as I recovered in New Zealand, I could only reflect on how learning to walk normally again was just about as hard as getting this job had been in the first place.”
“Look around,” said veteran Post correspondent Thomas Lippman. “See these writers? They’re only a decade or so older than you, and they’re not going anywhere.” And the stack of resumes to fill their spots came from writers at the best newspapers in the country.”
“He told me I had to do something to distinguish myself. ‘Go back to school or go overseas,’ Lippman said. I wonder if he even remembers the conversation. I find it indelible because it changed my life. I decided to do everything he recommended: go back to school, get a degree in Islamic affairs, and then go overseas to become a foreign correspondent.”
“Professor David Newsom was once ambassador to Libya, Indonesia, and the Philippines and later served as undersecretary of state for President Jimmy Carter. He’d also been a top journalist, so he knew both sides. He told me, ‘you’d hate diplomacy. You could never keep your mouth shut.’”
“ ‘You want to use this grant to become a foreign correspondent, don’t you? That’s half truth and half beauty right?’ the woman who left the message said. ‘So we’re being true to the spirit of the grant.’ That’s how I ended up in Cairo Egypt with $10,000, two suitcases, no job, and not knowing a single word of Arabic.”
They also knew I needed a lot of improvement to become a top reporter, which I of course, didn’t realize. But as Lippman had predicted, I was a warm body in a place that’s tough to find able help, so I was snatched up.”
After a week or so in Baghdad, Paxson asked me when I wanted to leave, expecting me to say that most correspondents said: After a month.” Four weeks was the standard rotation. I said, “why leave.”
So I guess I’ve come full circle. From all that, I’ve learned a couple things which apply to business. First of all you don’t do this job for the ‘thank you.’ You do it because you think you’re doing the right thing. If you don’t take the risks of telling the unpopular stories or taking the hard route, you are letting the critics win, and you will let people down, which means you just have to get comfortable with risk – to your career and, in extreme cases, to your life.
I’ve realized that because my job is to hold up a mirror to show us our failings, as well as our triumphs, that my message will never be popular. But if I let the critics be my internal compass and keep quiet, I am failing the American people and that voice in my head and heart, which tells me to do what’s right. And last, on a personal note, surviving the psychological slog of reporting in Baghdad is great training for recovering from a car bomb.
December 27, 2017
I have the privilege of calling Kim Dozier a close friend, but first I read the book, which is inspirational, even in its darker moments. My admiration for KD has only grown since I got to know her.
Read
January 7, 2009Breatheing The Fire: Fighting to Report and Survive the War in Iraq; by Kimberly Dozier, narrated by Kimberly Dozier, produced by Tantor Media, downloaded from audible.com.
This is another example of injuries sustained in the war in Iraq by journalists, this time a woman. There are marked differences between Dozier’s experience and Woodruf’s experience. Their injuries were different with different brain injuries to overcome. But beyond that, Dozier had to face the things a woman journalist, not an anchor, would have to face. First of all, she was injured, but her cameraman and soundman were killed along with the army captain they were following and his interpreter. Some people blamed Dozier for the death of the cameraman and soundman. The assumption was, by some, that she was an upstart woman who insisted on reporting and put the men in danger. She goes through the whole grueling recovery, with progress and with setbacks. She does talk about the amazing amount of support she got from friends who remained friends, from her family, from her boy friend, and from her employer, the CBS network. She thanks Bob and Lee Woodruff for their assistance. Bob had been injured just about six months before she was injured. Her story is interesting because, in some ways, just being a woman, she had to fight harder to get back her independence. Also, she deals with the fact that she will not be gorgeous again-although she does admit that she never was gorgeous. After we go through her grueling recovery, we also learn about how she got into television journalism, and the risks she and her camera people took to get a story. This is an amazing book-showing much more emotion than Bob and Lee Woodruff did in the telling of his story, and also showing the anger she needed to overcome. Woodruff didn’t talk that much about having to listen to everyone else’s stories of survival or loss, but Kim, a woman, was expected to listen and come up with wisdom from somewhere for folks. It is an amazing book of tragedy and survival. Strongly recommended.
This is another example of injuries sustained in the war in Iraq by journalists, this time a woman. There are marked differences between Dozier’s experience and Woodruf’s experience. Their injuries were different with different brain injuries to overcome. But beyond that, Dozier had to face the things a woman journalist, not an anchor, would have to face. First of all, she was injured, but her cameraman and soundman were killed along with the army captain they were following and his interpreter. Some people blamed Dozier for the death of the cameraman and soundman. The assumption was, by some, that she was an upstart woman who insisted on reporting and put the men in danger. She goes through the whole grueling recovery, with progress and with setbacks. She does talk about the amazing amount of support she got from friends who remained friends, from her family, from her boy friend, and from her employer, the CBS network. She thanks Bob and Lee Woodruff for their assistance. Bob had been injured just about six months before she was injured. Her story is interesting because, in some ways, just being a woman, she had to fight harder to get back her independence. Also, she deals with the fact that she will not be gorgeous again-although she does admit that she never was gorgeous. After we go through her grueling recovery, we also learn about how she got into television journalism, and the risks she and her camera people took to get a story. This is an amazing book-showing much more emotion than Bob and Lee Woodruff did in the telling of his story, and also showing the anger she needed to overcome. Woodruff didn’t talk that much about having to listen to everyone else’s stories of survival or loss, but Kim, a woman, was expected to listen and come up with wisdom from somewhere for folks. It is an amazing book of tragedy and survival. Strongly recommended.
November 18, 2008
These are the memories of a woman who was blown to pieces while doing the work she lived for.
If you're not a CBS news watcher you're probably unfamiliar with Kimberly Dozier. A longtime & respected foreign correspondent who lives in Jerusalem, she was patroling the streets of Baghdad on Memorial Day when a car bomb blew up killing her cameraman, Paul Douglas & soundman James Brolan together with members of the unit of US soldiers they were filming.
KD tells of what she remembera of the blast in articulate detail & continues through the stages of triage in a war zone & how US soldiers saved her to the airlift to Landstuhl in Germany where her loved-ones hurried to her side, & eventually Stateside to military hospitals & recovery centers.
Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Report-and Survive-the War In Iraq is a gripping account of KD's journey out of the blast that shattered her legs, peppered her with shrapnel & burnt her skin into reconstruction as her body battles to survive the endless surgical procedures & she struggles with the military medical system & the memories.
Like Bob Woodruff, who survived a bomb blast & with his wife, Lee, wrote In An Instant, Kimberley Dozier has ably told her dreadful story, paying homage to those who died & thanking those who brought her back to life.
I could not put it down. Very well done! What did I learn? That the will to live is a powerful force & that luck, being able to think & love can pull you through.
If you're not a CBS news watcher you're probably unfamiliar with Kimberly Dozier. A longtime & respected foreign correspondent who lives in Jerusalem, she was patroling the streets of Baghdad on Memorial Day when a car bomb blew up killing her cameraman, Paul Douglas & soundman James Brolan together with members of the unit of US soldiers they were filming.
KD tells of what she remembera of the blast in articulate detail & continues through the stages of triage in a war zone & how US soldiers saved her to the airlift to Landstuhl in Germany where her loved-ones hurried to her side, & eventually Stateside to military hospitals & recovery centers.
Breathing the Fire: Fighting to Report-and Survive-the War In Iraq is a gripping account of KD's journey out of the blast that shattered her legs, peppered her with shrapnel & burnt her skin into reconstruction as her body battles to survive the endless surgical procedures & she struggles with the military medical system & the memories.
Like Bob Woodruff, who survived a bomb blast & with his wife, Lee, wrote In An Instant, Kimberley Dozier has ably told her dreadful story, paying homage to those who died & thanking those who brought her back to life.
I could not put it down. Very well done! What did I learn? That the will to live is a powerful force & that luck, being able to think & love can pull you through.
October 18, 2008
I read this from start to finish quickly - I was sure that otherwise I wouldn't finish it and I felt I should make the effort to do so. I can't say that I enjoyed reading it or that it is a well-balanced story - a central fact is that she feels that here home is the Middle East after she visited there as a student and that she wants to return there even after having almost died from a car bomb, but I can't tell you from reading this why that is because she doesn't explain this attraction to that region. Is it the people? The culture?
As another reviewer wrote and Ms. Dozier herself seems to say, writing this book was more for her recovery than for the readers' pleasure. Therefore the details about her medical recovery, which she describes in excruciating detail apparently is something she needed to do. If you look at the photographs, you get a good sense of what the book's trajectory is like. If you find some of them even slightly off-putting then you probably don't want to read this one.
As to the number of stars - I don't think much of rating books by a single metric in this way. Here I give two stars because I had to work at it to read this all the way through - so for me, that means fewer stars. If one is thinking of the author's personal effort to put the story on paper, then she deserves five stars (or more).
As another reviewer wrote and Ms. Dozier herself seems to say, writing this book was more for her recovery than for the readers' pleasure. Therefore the details about her medical recovery, which she describes in excruciating detail apparently is something she needed to do. If you look at the photographs, you get a good sense of what the book's trajectory is like. If you find some of them even slightly off-putting then you probably don't want to read this one.
As to the number of stars - I don't think much of rating books by a single metric in this way. Here I give two stars because I had to work at it to read this all the way through - so for me, that means fewer stars. If one is thinking of the author's personal effort to put the story on paper, then she deserves five stars (or more).
May 30, 2009
Another one of those books where you can visualize the pain that this person went through. The horror of the war in Iraq and Dozier's recovery is shocking. It was sad to think about how many people don't make it out of the war, and some that do are so critically injured they are never the same. Dozier takes you through her experience of getting injured by a car bomb that killed two of her colleagues while reporting the war in Iraq. She shares her journey to recovery and what she went through physically and emotionally.
September 25, 2012
The CBS correspondent recounts the after-effects of the car bomb that took the lives of two other CBS journalists and left her clinging to life, with head and legs devastated by the blast. She also talks about her early efforts to become on on-camera reporter. I found the story interesting, mostly from the medical aspect, as I'm not particularly interested in the war in Iraq and all things political. I read the book in audio, which is read by Kimberly Dozier herself, which made the story all the more fascinating.
November 21, 2011
Started listening to the book on XM radio on a trip to see my daughter and had to buy it so I could hear the end of the story. It is the story of a journalist who is injured while covering the war in Iraq. It brings the war home to many of us who have been lucky to not have to deal with it and makes us realize what many people have gone thru. Kimberly Dozier writes this book as a tribute to her crew who died that day with her. Awesome book.
November 20, 2012
It's a story about a brave journalist who risks a lot to report in a dangerous, unpredictable conflict. think it's more for journalists and those interested in journalism than people who want to learn more about the Iraq war, though. If you are trying to learn more about the war itself, I would choose another book.
April 15, 2009
This book gives you areal insight to what really goes on in war and what our men & women really go though after they get hurt though war time, it made me pray harder for our Troops and thier families, even though she was a reporter it does open ones eyes, I could not lay this book daown very long
April 28, 2009
A painfully detailed step by step narrative of Ms. Dozier's recovery after being hit by a car bomb in Iraq. The life of a foreign correspondent as described seems to be filled with danger, hardship, and frustration.
July 9, 2011
I had trouble putting this book down. Kimberly tells her story of recovery following an IED attack, but also so much more. Her investigation into a time period of recovery that she doesn't remember brings in so many other people and their stories of work and care that helped keep her alive.
June 22, 2011
Amazing! I met this woman and you would never know from looking at her that she had been nearly blown to kingdom come! Truely remarkable story of survival. I admit I couldn't finish it though, I was reading it while my husband was in Afganistan and it caused me too much anxiety.
March 21, 2012
I found this book to be a really good insight into the 'why' of journalism. Well-written, and very honest. If you have ever questioned why we need to have journalists in the field, this will be a good book for you to read.
May 20, 2008
This was a great read. Kimberly went through so much and fought back from her injuries, both physically and mentally, to come out the other side whole.
July 29, 2008
A heartbreaking and intimate view of the war in Iraq, and its effect on Kimberly. The story of a truely brave and heroic woman - I laughed and cried and stayed up until 3 am to finish it.
September 1, 2008
Kimberly Dozier, the CBS foreign correspondant who was severly injured in a road side bombing in May 2006 and of her struggle to survive the trauma of the event, both physical and mental.
Read
December 1, 2008Will shortly review for my newspaper, the Deseret News.
January 4, 2009
Very interesting account of her experiences and recovery from an IED blast. I got a better understanding of the situation in Iraq and imaging what it must be like to be there.
August 15, 2009
A tough, revealing book.
January 1, 2012
Would recommend this book for the 10th honors reading list.
March 26, 2012
Excellent book on the challenges she faced when coming back from the car bombing.
January 25, 2013
This was a great book. Kim really knows how to right. The part about the nurses going out for slushies for the patients, nearly broke my heart.
April 9, 2013
Listened to the audio book read by the author. An amazing story by a tenacious and dedicated journalist.
January 27, 2014
Just watched the hurt locker and remember I listened to this book a while back. So good.
Read
August 23, 2011Recommended for any active person slated for surgery and/or therapy after injury.
June 7, 2015
This is amazing!
April 28, 2017
A fantastic memoir from the perspective of a news correspondent on the War in Iraq. Kimberly sustained and lived through a car bombing while out on assignment in 2006, losing the rest of her team as well as several soldiers that were leading the embed in which she was participating. The book is well thought out, with enough grit to be true to reality, and enough grace to realize the realities of both the situation in which she survived, and the larger societal issue at hand. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a memoir of the war that is from a different perspective. The audiobook is fantastic, it was read by Kimberly, and she was able to capture all of the emotion that she put into her larger story.
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