And if you’ve already read “House to House”, pick up “We Were One” by Patrick O’Donnell (not a soldier, but a reporter embedded with the Marines during the Battle of Fallujah at the same time as [Army] Sgt Bellavia).

I strongly recommend inverting the suggested reading order to:

1) We Were One
2) House to House

Reading We Were One after House to House is like eating an arugula and cherry tomato salad after you just finished a 12-once rib eye. O’Donnell’s non-linear prose just can’t engage a reader as thoroughly as Bellavia and John Bruning’s incredibly crisp storytelling in House to House.

I’ve read Bellavia’s book cover to cover and loved it–so much so that I downloaded Celtx scriptwriting software and began adapting it into a screenplay. Bellavia’s memoir is so powerful that I believe that every American male from age 12+ should know the story of House to House… so yeah, obviously I deleted all of the numerous f-bombs from the dialogue–but that doesn’t change the overall impact of story at all.

I’ll issue a challenge right now on this Memorial Day: Help me raise $1 million and I will coordinate the production of a feature length movie adaption of House To House shot on digital HD video in Texas with professional (non-union) actors and crew with the intention of selling the finished product to an independent distributor such as Newmarket Films.

That’s only going to cover the production costs and not the book rights and marketing, but take a million bucks to west Texas with a Dallas-based movie crew and you’ll have a movie that will look just as good as any Hollywood AAA production.

And hey, if it doesn’t work out, then the investors can always use the movie as a tax write-off. It’s a win/win.

When was that interview done, Ed? Recently?

VolMagic on May 26, 2008 at 12:59 PM

The interview was at CPAC this year, around the first of February. The speech was March 14th, I believe.

I met David at the VFF rally in DC, what cool guy, he signed my book and chit chatted for a few minutes even though he was quite busy.

Other great books from VFF members:

“Lone Survivor” by Marcus Luttrell

“Hard Corps” by Marco Martinez

And if you’ve already read “House to House”, pick up “We Were One” by Patrick O’Donnell (not a soldier, but a reporter embedded with the Marines during the Battle of Fallujah at the same time as [Army] Sgt Bellavia).

Also, read “One Bullet Away” by Nat Fick and “Jawbreaker” by Gary Bernsten.

(I read all of these books to live vicariously through the actions of others because I didn’t get to do anything like this during my service).

When was that interview done, Ed? Recently?