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On April 5th, Ryan appeared on Michael Ray Dresser's show, "Dresser After Dark". To Dresser, Ryan told about joining the Army due to the events of 9/11 and how in his junior year in high school, he made the decision that he would definitely join up. At that time the U.S. was only in Afghanistan, so that was where Ryan expected to go. Instead Ryan did two tours in Iraq and never traveled to Afghanistan.
The host was interested in what Ryan's Army training was like. Ryan said it was mainly a method of breaking down the recruits and then building them up into something else, a soldier. The training was intended to push you to your limit and then beyond, and to depend on your fellow soldiers to help you do it.
About going to Iraq, the host asked how it felt to go to a different country. Ryan said he didn't have training on what the culture was like or even on how to speak Arabic. It became quite a culture shock for him.
Dresser wanted to know what Ryan saw in Iraq, and what did he see as a benefit to Iraq from American soldiers being there. Ryan said that the Iraq policy was something made high above him and someone in his position just carried out the policy. Still, from where he was he see the result of the policy.
About getting support from people back home, Ryan said that people who instinctively treat soldiers badly are just ignorant. He thinks it is a carryover from the Vietnam War, which some people adopt without understanding why. Ryan himself hardly ever runs into that attitude, and in fact has the opposite experience, where people literally embrace him for what he has done. Still, he sees himself as just doing his job.
Dresser wanted to know what the book would give the reader. Ryan said that about the year he spend in Iraq, he wrote as if he were telling it to a single person, a person who doesn't necessarily know anything about the war or the military. He included everything about his experience that he could, like coming to terms with his situation, when he was scared and why, and how sometimes he acted stupidly. He let his walls down to tell the tale and sometimes did it vulgarly, because that's how soldiers really talk. He also included the stories of the people around him, because they were important to him, and to each other, for being able to survive there.
Dresser's last question was about the future of Iraq. He wanted to know if the U.S. left right now, would Iraq be in trouble. Ryan said, no, Iraq security forces are ready to secure their own country. He wouldn't trust them to be able to patrol America, but they are ready to handle Iraq.
On April 6th, Ryan Conklin appeared on the "Rude Awakening Show", which is broadcast from Ocean City, Maryland. Ryan mentioned on the show that the book is about his year in Iraq, which included the time that he spent guarding the trial of Saddam Hussein and later, the patrolling of Tikrit. He told the story of how the foundation for the book was not a personal journal, but rather the emails that he had sent his father at the time. After Ryan had returned home, he found that he was have trouble integrating back to civilian life. His mother gave him the stack of emails along the suggestion that he could focus on using them to do some writing, and so to do something constructive with the thoughts in his head. Since he wasn't spending time with his friends, he turned to the writing and in the end created the book.
The show host asked Ryan if he thought that people Ryan's age understood what was going on with Iraq and Afghanistan. Ryan replied that he believes that people his age are disconnected from the war. However, he sees that not as a sign of disrespect but rather as a sign that they have just gotten used to it as this constant thing happening over there.
On the question of how he feels about how the situation will end in Iraq, Ryan said that after his first deployment he really didn't know. However, during his second deployment, he could see that things have gotten better there. He believes that progress has been made and that the Iraqis are ready to take care of themselves. The Iraqi Army and authorities are motivated to show they can do it on their own. They are taking the primary roles right now in policing their country, while the U.S. forces are there to assist in a secondary role.
Ryan was asked, who is the most famous soldier from the 101st Airbone? Ryan said he would answer Major Dick Winters from WWII, but guessed that the host was probably referring to Jimi Hendrix, who happened to have been in the same regiment that Ryan had been in, before Hendrix was booted out.
About his book, Ryan told the audience that he wrote about his experiences being at the low level, on the ground, and that's what it can teach people about. He said that he intended it to be easy to read and understand.
