Gwen Haugen: News Record
"He is skillfull in his use of conversation ... In my opinion, Jones is a master of suspense."


Book Description
"Faraway Thunder" is a common soldier's story. Intensely personal, it tells the story of modern army life and war in the Persian Gulf. From the recruiter's office to the battlefield, it is a journey into the thoughts and observations of one soldier as he sees and feels war, and the aftermath of war.


About the Author
Carey Jones is a U.S. Army veteran. During his four years of service he was assigned to an armored tank unit; the 4th Battalion, 32nd Armored Regiment, better known as the "Red Lions". His unit was part of the 3rd Armored Division, which at that time was based in Frankfurt Germany. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, 3rd Armored Division was called to duty in the Persian Gulf. Participating with General Fred Franks VII Corps in some of the heaviest action of the war, the 3rd Armored Division was largely responsible for destroying the Tawakalna Division of Hussein's Republican Guard in Iraq. Jones received the Southwest Asia Service ribbon with two bronze campaign stars, and the Army Commendation Medal for his work during the conflict. Jones has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Denver and currently resides in southeastern Minnesota.


Excerpted from Faraway Thunder : A Journey through Army Life & the Gulf War by Carey Jones. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
We crossed the Neutral Zone at 1621 hours yesterday afternoon. We traveled a good part of last night and all day today through this part of Iraq. It is desolate here, absolutely nothing in sight for miles ... I can't believe the rain. Isn't this supposed to be the desert? There are no windows in any of our vehicles and driving this humvee through the rain without the damn windows is no fun. I guess the enemy can see the sun glaring off windshields from a great distance, but hell, the sun hasn't shown for two weeks! How could there be any glare? I keep worrying about this damn broken-down air force hummer. Just how did I end up driving an air force humvee? There's a good story. The air defense guys attached to my unit drove the thing over a cliff bending both front wheels to the outside of the vehicle. It sat around the maintenance area at least a month waiting for parts. When the parts didn't arrive and the war was about to start the mechanics decided to heat the torsion bars and bend the wheels straight. We never really told the air force their vehicle is fixed; technically it's not. You see, our high speed decision makers at battalion HQ figure a lowly couple of commo guys don't really need a vehicle. Sergeant T's been pissed about this for months. I've got to calm him down about every other day when he finds out we've got 18 radios to transport to higher maintenance and no vehicle to get them there. That's been my main mission; keeping Sergeant T from tearing somebody's head off at battalion. Anyway, we just loaded this humvee and started driving it. Everybody keeps quiet about it around the air force boys. They think the thing is still parked back in the desert somewhere. So the wheels mechanic who heated the torsion bars and bent them straight says it's in good shape. He tells me not to drive faster than 35. He's not sure what would happen if those bars decided to give. We drove a hundred miles today and didn't see anything. No towns, no people, no animals, nothing. Just this desert weed; like sagebrush but not quite. The sand and hard rock-like crust of this place remind me of pictures I saw from Apollo moon-shots when I was a kid. Total desolation. We stopped for the night at 2100 hours. It's 0300 hours now and the shelling to our south keeps me awake. The artillery bombardment from that area has been incessant. I can't imagine how much lead, steel, and shrapnel we must be dropping on those guys. I pity anyone in its path. I can occasionally see flashes of light from explosions as the shells and missiles hit their targets. The ground shakes. I guess they are 20, maybe 30 klicks to our south, though I can't be sure. Sergeant T is sleeping on the hood of the hummer. We took one of the tents in the back and draped it over the top of the vehicle down to the front of the hood. He climbed through the non-existent windows and laid out his bag. I sleep across the front seats. With my softer gear underneath for padding it's somewhat comfortable. I crank up the vehicle now and then to get some heat out to the front of the hood, the only advantage I can see to having no windows. 40 degrees and rain. What kind of desert is this? I begin to think about how it is that a college boy like myself ends up in the army, driving a broken down air force humvee, in the middle of a desert fighting a war. Wouldn't any reasonably bright person be somewhere else? These are good questions. I guess I've got time to think about them. The shelling isn't slowing. A far-off incessant rolling storm, distant and pounding, almost comforting. Like faraway thunder on a dark summer's night; only the thunder is manmade. I won't be sleeping any time soon.

SYNOPSIS

Coming to the top of the low hill that lay at our front all that afternoon, the battle lay before us. A long low basin stretched into the distance with burning vehicles smoldering at innumerable places. In my night vision goggles streaking shafts of light slammed into their targets; white fireballs exploded at the end of their laser beam straightness. The streaks of seeming laser light happened in rapid succession, one after another after another. The tracer-like M1A1 sabot rounds piercing the atmosphere, accentuated by my infrared night vision, created a horrific scene of fire in the valley. As artillery boomed constantly somewhere very near, the steadily increasing noise of the battle seemed to reach a crescendo. The incredible succession of rapid tank fire roared up at us like waves; the chaos and mayhem threatening to overwhelm my senses.

I looked over at Sergeant T as he held a lit cigarette under his poncho. Neither of us spoke. I followed the vehicle at my front, into the valley.

Faraway Thunder is a common soldier's story. Intensely personal, it tells the story of modern army life and war in the Persian Gulf. From the recruiter's office to the battlefield, it is a journey into the thoughts and observations of one soldier as he sees and feels war, and the aftermath of war.

Gwen Haugen, News Record, writes, "Was this a book I really wanted to read, considering my built in aversion to weaponry and war? Yet when I had finished the reading I was grateful for the experience. The book held so much more than an accounting of factual events; it took us into the mind of a young man who struggled with devotion to duty and the suffering which results from waging war..."