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    From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava
    From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava
    From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava
    Audiobook3 hours

    From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

    Written by Jay Kopelman

    Narrated by Christopher Lane

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    About this audiobook

    Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman won the hearts of readers with his moving story of adopting an abandoned puppy named Lava in a hellish corner of Iraq. For this Marine and his comrades, the puppy served as an important emotional touchstone in a grim and seemingly endless war.

    Kopelman now writes about what it's like to be home. He credits his canine best friend with finding his wife-in the park, Lava began playing with her dog and the two owners met-and for keeping him sane as he readjusted. With the same intelligence and insight he showed in From Baghdad, With Love, Kopelman sets forth more than a dozen lessons, including: Life can change in an instant, but you'll be able to handle it; passion for something can help you tap into your most powerful reserve of energy; have a standard operating procedure for everything; and never forget who you are or how you got here. Active and retired troops, soldiers' friends and families, and everyone who has ever loved a dog will embrace this book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateOct 13, 2008
    ISBN9781400178759

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    • 4/5
      Jay Kopelman's FROM BAGHDAD TO AMERICA is a slight book, but it packs a powerful punch. In his first book, the bestselling FROM BAGHDAD WITH LOVE, the focus was on Lava, the dog Kopelman rescued in Iraq, and the network of animal lovers who helped him have the dog shipped back to his home in California. There was, in other words, the "warm fuzzy" feeling associated with most "dog books." That first book had a co-author, Melinda Roth, who, I suspect, had a slightly civilizing influence on the "Marine side" of Kopelman.The new book, about what happened once Kopelman got Lava - and himself - back home from the war, is not nearly so warm and fuzzy. It is all about the difficulties of readjustment to peacetime America, where the other 98% of Americans just kept on shopping, largely oblivious to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the heavy physical, mental, and emotional price being paid by our all-volunteer military. Turns out both the dog and the man have serious problems with control and anger managment. One of the book's early readers, Andrew Carroll (author of WAR LETTERS), called the book "damn funny." And there is humor here, but it is of a very hard-edged sort, laced with anger - perhaps even a barely suppressed rage. The best thing Kopelman does here is to finally admit that perhaps he does indeed have some problems, that he may be a victim himself of PTSD. The chapter "Opening the Snivel Book" is perhaps the most telling - and the most important - part of the whole book. I salute LTC Kopelman for his honesty and his courage in writing "the rest of the story," for this could well be a much more important book than his first.