{"id":711,"date":"2013-01-15T13:05:39","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T18:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=711"},"modified":"2013-01-15T13:05:39","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T18:05:39","slug":"a-story-of-life-a-review-of-ken-conklins-dont-thank-me-thank-your-recruiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2013\/01\/a-story-of-life-a-review-of-ken-conklins-dont-thank-me-thank-your-recruiter.html","title":{"rendered":"A Story of Life: A Review of Ken Conklin’s, “Don’t Thank Me, Thank Your Recruiter”"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been quite some time since the fictional character, Rocky Balboa, has achieved the stature of a cultural icon.\u00a0 Sylvester Stallone\u2019s hugely successful film franchise has his beloved \u201cItalian Stallion\u201d exchanging blows with one adversary after the other.\u00a0 Yet Stallone has repeatedly insisted over the decades since the debut of the original Rocky <\/em>that the series is not ultimately about boxing at all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather, it is about life<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As he reveals in his recently published, Don\u2019t Thank Me, Thank Your Recruiter, <\/em>Army veteran Ken Conklin is one person who knows the value of using metaphors to better discern the pearls that life has to offer.\u00a0 But there are two differences between Conklin and Stallone in this regard.<\/p>\n

First, it is by way of the imagery of the military<\/em>, not boxing, <\/em>that Conklin delineates for his readers the contours of life.<\/p>\n

Second, it is from his experience <\/em>in the military that Conklin draws.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That is, in contrast to Rocky, Conklin, and the story that he recapitulates, are real.<\/p>\n

Yet Conklin\u2019s book is dramatically unlike any other centered on the military in supplying readers with an insider\u2019s account of life among \u201cSupport <\/em>Soldiers\u201d\u2014not \u201cCombat Soldiers.\u201d It would be a grave mistake, however, to think that it is any less ridden with action and adventure for this.<\/p>\n

And it would be an equally grave mistake to think that Support Soldiers generally, and Conklin in particular, aren\u2019t the most determined of fighters.<\/p>\n

Written in an earthy, matter of fact style, Conklin pulls no punches as he shares with readers his nearly ten year journey in the United States Army. \u00a0This is a journey that originates in the weeks following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and ends (well, sort of ends) in 2011 when the author leaves the military.\u00a0 It is a journey that, despite its humble beginnings in Smallville, USA, Conklin\u2019s beloved Saint Johnsville, New York, winds up transcending continents: Iraq, South Korea, and Afghanistan are just some of the far off places on Conklin\u2019s itinerary, lands that he describes with all of the blood, sweat, and tears of which only an American soldier is capable of shedding.<\/p>\n

Yet in the last resort, Conklin\u2019s is not a journey about places and times. It is a personal odyssey, an adolescent\u2019s trek toward manhood. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Again, Don\u2019t Thank Me, Thank Your Recruiter <\/em>is not about the military, much less about war.\u00a0 Readers are no more required to take an interest in such matters to delight in this book than are the millions of Rocky fans worldwide first required to be fans of professional boxing.\u00a0 In fact, whether one shares Conklin\u2019s vision of the good life or distrusts the military and vehemently opposes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq\u2014wars that Conklin believes America was justified in prosecuting and in which Americans like himself, from the love, not of government, but of country, were justified in serving\u2014one can still appreciate, and even fall in love, with Conklin\u2019s book.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is twofold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First, it is a story to which every human being can relate.\u00a0 Despite its particularity, Conklin\u2019s is a narrative that strikes a universal chord insofar as it reenacts the failures and successes, the trials and the joys, of the human experience.<\/p>\n

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is Conklin\u2019s perspective<\/em> upon life\u2014his philosophy of life, <\/em>so to speak\u2014from which any reader promises to reap an incalculable reward.\u00a0 Uniting the emotionally varied episodes that he relays is an eternal optimism that the reader can\u2019t help finding infectious.<\/p>\n

Conklin, though, while an optimist, is not a \u201cwide eyed optimist.\u201d\u00a0 He has neither the will nor, given his experiences, the ability to view the world through the proverbial rose-colored glasses.\u00a0 His optimism is not naivety, a denial of pain, suffering, and outright evil in the world.\u00a0 Conklin of all people is all too aware of the brute fact that as long as our world exists, such things are here to stay.\u00a0 His optimism boils down to a faith that, for however dark and dismal one\u2019s circumstances may be at any given time, the darkness is never impenetrable.\u00a0 Light can and will prevail.\u00a0 Yet for this to happen, one must be willing to fight for right.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Edmund Burke famously said: \u201cThe only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.\u201d\u00a0 Conklin would agree.\u00a0 The evil, though, is as frequently\u2014and probably more frequently\u2014within oneself as it is outside of it.\u00a0 Nor are those with whom one is joined as a comrade in arms exempt from acting treacherously.\u00a0 This Conklin makes clear. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Thank Me, Thank Your Recruiter <\/em>is an inspirational work of the first order.\u00a0 It is the book for those who want to \u201csupport the troops.\u201d\u00a0 Yet it is also the book for those who are interested in rediscovering the timeless truth that the only things worth having in life are those worth fighting for. \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been quite some time since the fictional character, Rocky Balboa, has achieved the stature of a cultural icon.\u00a0 Sylvester Stallone\u2019s hugely successful film franchise has his beloved \u201cItalian Stallion\u201d exchanging blows with one adversary after the other.\u00a0 Yet Stallone has repeatedly insisted over the decades since the debut of the original Rocky that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Story of Life: A Review of Ken Conklin's, "Don't Thank Me, Thank Your Recruiter"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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