Review: Last Journey

Posted on | September 4, 2009 | No Comments

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Last Journey — A Father and Son in Wartime is a book unlike any other I’ve ever read. As I mentioned earlier this week, this book has been difficult for me to review. It is hard to separate personal, emotional reactions to a book like this from a review. I wanted to be able to give you all a clear look at the book. Darrell Griffin Jr. and Sr. had been planning to write a book together after the war. Before he could return from his second deployment to Iraq, Darrell Griffin, Jr. was killed. Darrell Griffin, Sr. wrote this book as a last gift to his son.

Last Journey begins with a photo of Darrell Griffin, Jr.’s (”Griff” from here on) headstone. Darrell Sr. describes the day he got the news of his son’s death, then rewinds back to his own childhood. He describes the arrival of his son, Griff, when he was still very young. He describes Griff’s youth and teen years in great detail. This man his son became took the road less traveled, no doubt, to such honorable careers in adulthood as an EMT and later, an US Infantry soldier.

Griff had been a troubled young man. War, in ways, made him a troubled man. He went from rebelling to the nth degree against his parents to studying philosophy and saving lives. His men and comrades in the Army looked up to him. Some admit rarely understanding what Griff was talking about when he began waxing philosophic in Iraq, but they all respected him.

Darrell, Sr. goes into great detail of both tours of duty that Griff served in Iraq. Between the book they’d been working on together, emails from his son, and later a trip to Iraq to meet his soldiers, Darrell Sr. built a compelling storyline of each of Griff’s tours. The first time he was deployed was for 12 months near the beginning of the war in Iraq. Reading a father’s perspective of the way his son processed war is an incredible and intimate experience. I found it intriguing the way that a father could pinpoint things within his son’s confusion that Griff maybe never realized.

Griff’s second tour was with the same unit that my husband was in. Reading about some of the major events for them during this tour was gut-wrenching at times, even if I’d heard it before. I had never heard a complete description of what happened the day that Griff was killed. Reading that tore my heart out. Darrell, Sr. goes into great detail about his son’s mood in the time leading up to his death, the events of the day, and the medical attempts at saving Griff’s life. I spent much of the time while reading, wondering how Darrell, Sr. was able to compile these details, lay them out in order, make sense of them, and not just implode. He describes later, and in more detail, the day that his family was notified that Griff had been killed in combat. The pace of the book slows into an almost surreal pace then. An amazing experience for a reader to feel like they hit a wall in time…also heartbreakingly real.

Darrell, Sr. made it his mission to get to Iraq and meet Griff’s unit before they re-deployed to Fort Lewis. After jumping through hoops, he managed to do so. He planned the trip with intent of gaining some closure and of collecting more information to complete their book. What he found there was not closure, but perhaps a level of understanding that most parents of soldiers never have the chance to gain.

The book also includes an appendix with a helpful list of military acronyms (though Darrell, Sr. did a great job at explaining most things that would need clarification) and copies of Griff’s incident reports. Some of those are rather difficult to read because they’re shrunken computer documents and the book itself is small, but they’re worth reading if you can.

This book is a great read and I highly recommend it. Whether you’ve served yourself or never met anyone who has, Last Journey will be a reading experience you never forget. To see both a father’s experience of having a son in war and losing that son, as well as a brilliant soldier’s insights about war, Iraq, and politics, is an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up. The world lost much in Griff’s death.