Ryan Smithson
Ryan Smithson served with the Army Corps of Engineers from 2004–2005 in Iraq where he conducted road repair, base fortifications, and various earth-moving operations. When he came home, he went to college on the GI Bill and began writing about his war experiences. With the encouragement of a professor, he kept writing and eventually published his memoir, "Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI" (HarperCollins, 2009).
He has had several short stories and poems published in various journals and anthologies, and enjoys visiting schools to talk with young people about writing, war, and life. He wrote a play, "10 Klicks South of Whiskey" for his Master's thesis, and he was lucky enough to see it produced at Averill Park High School in 2015. Proceeds benefited a local not-for-profit veterans' organization called Soldier's Heart. The novel version of "10 Klicks" was published in 2018.
Ryan lives in Rotterdam, NY with his wife and two crazy kids. Besides writing, he likes to hike, fish, hunt, ski, volunteer, play guitar, and build the occasional moss terrarium for no good reason at all. His advice for young people is, "You're put here to climb your mountain, so don't give up. Others are climbing their own, so encourage them -- there is nothing gained by judging them against your incline.”
“What does crying ever really do for us? It doesn't solve our problems. It doesn't make us run faster or shoot better. If anything, crying just delays the solution to our problems.”
“I guess that's one good thing about dying young: you're remembered for your purity, vigor and spontaneity. Dying young you're remembered for your youth.”
“This isn't a weapon cache-search mission during which we kick down doors looking for suspects. We pour concrete lands where IED exploded to keep insurgents from planting more. No news reporters followed us around, because soldiers saving lives aren't as interesting as soldiers taking lives.”
“We're tired of the nagging and debating that adults do so well. We don't care anymore [..] the kids don't write to us about their political views. Call it ignorance. Call it naive. Call it unrealistic. We call it relief.”
“The way our efforts are shunned, at first we don't care. In a way it makes us proud. It's humility. And selfless service is truly selfless if you're never recognized.”
“But courage is also means being afraid, accepting a fear of the unknown. Anyone who claims to be unafraid as they sit in a barracks in-processing for war is either lying or crazy.”
“Soldiers seem so durable, resilient, and so heroic in war novels. On the television screen they're afraid of nothing. I wonder if I have that same courage. Basic training is supposed to teach us bravery and fortitude.”
“[...] But my denial doesn't matter, because duty comes first.”
“There's a certain romanticism that comes with being young. Young men and women just released from high school are ready to take on the world. They want to save it. They try to for a while, but then they often get to a certain age and they give up because the world is a big place. It's impossible to fix, I think.”
“For me, the future was a complete paradox. One one hand [..] teachers were pushing that 'know what you want to do for the rest of your life' attitude. Yet, on the other hand I wanted to stay a kid. Parents and teachers were so intimidating when they talked about the 'real world' and taxes and mortgages and bills and insurance. With freedom comes responsibility and I wasn't sure if I was ready for all that.”
“High school was so typical and predictable. Everyone here was so occupied with discovering the definition of cool. To some, cool was Abercrombie and popped collars. Some thought cool was playing sports. Some thought cool was drinking before the homecoming dance. And others swore that cool was not trying to be cool: nonconformists with black nail polish, leather boots, and oversized safety pins in their ears.Our free expression was in so many ways just a restriction of our identities. All of us trying to be something we weren't. Even the nonconformists were conforming. High school, I guessed, was just a chapter, something standing in the way of real freedom. High school didn't even seem real. It seemed so fake.”
“If I don't do something who will?”