Describe a 15-month combat deployment, all the firefights and anguish and boredom, in just six words.
“Four trucks out, three trucks back.”
“Candy and soccer balls, occasionally bullets.”
“I’ll never be this cool again.”
That’s the idea behind two Army veterans’ Six Word War project, a crowd-sourced memoir of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mike Nemeth '04 and Shaun Wheelwright '04 have been collecting ideas for the book-to-be for the last year and the pair have already collected dozens of submissions on their social media sites, giving a glimpse into the enduring truths of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The idea stems from an Ernest Hemingway legend, in which he challenged his peers to write a complete story in only six words. Nemeth said they considered limiting their war stories to five words “since the military is more efficient,” but eventually bowed to the literary great’s model.