Though not perfect, THE GUIDE—Survival, Warfighting, Peacemaking is a well-written memoir, often compelling, and sometimes genuinely touching. Born in Ohio, author Greg Munck’s family relocated to California in the early 1970s. The household was chaotic; Munck’s father battled alcohol and drug addiction and ran afoul of the law on multiple occasions before later developing a dependence on heroin, becoming homeless, and winding up in prison. Munck speaks the language of psychology very well. A self-described “latchkey kid,” and well-aware that his childhood family dynamic was dysfunctional, he observes of his father that his reliance on a disreputable “friend” who had a hold on him—he would periodically assault Munck’s father if he transgressed in some way—was akin to that of “a codependent battered spouse.” As he reached adolescence, Munck would frequently assume the role of the parent, taking away his father’s car keys to prevent him from drunk driving.
Later came a school football career, and, in 1989, enrollment in the Marines. Munck took to the job, and served in the Gulf War. A promotion followed, and, after the Marines, a lucrative career in tech—as well as a happy marriage and children.
Munck’s wartime experiences certainly make for some remarkable reading. As one-sided as the Desert Storm campaign was, the book strikes a surreal note in its account of Munck with his platoon, seeing nothing on the horizon but oil wells on fire in every direction; and his encounters with the hideously disfigured corpses of Iraqi soldiers had predictable effects. (He was later diagnosed with PTSD.) The author’s accounts of his rocky childhood are moving, too, told with disarming honesty.
Not all of the material here is compelling, though. The parts of the memoir that fail to sustain interest are the moralizing passages Munck inserts. A devout Christian, Munck found God shortly before leaving for Iraq, and while no one can dispute the profound effect that religious teaching has had on Munck’s life, the sermonizing on certain Christian beliefs regarding this or that subject—an implied judgment of those who seek abortions and some highly doubtful material about evolution being cases in point—seems to militate against the narrative.
One example is his response to his younger self’s attitude towards sex. Earlier in the work, one finds a few episodes of a sort most teenage boys will find familiar: chancing upon some pornography and surreptitiously transporting it home for the obvious reason, time spent in the backseat of a car with early romantic partners, and the like. “I still can’t believe the level of my depravity and boldness in those times,” Munck says of one episode in particular—which, frankly, is not all that shocking. At times it feels as though THE GUIDE would be better suited to the self-help shelves; but, for readers looking for tales of triumph over adversity, it still has much to offer.
Greg Munck’s memoir THE GUIDE—Survival, Warfighting, Peacemaking benefits from many interesting and touching passages, though the mixture of memoir and sermonizing can make for some odd reading.
~Craig Jones for IndieReader