Spotlight on Ohlone
Board President Yee writes first book
By Chen Lin, Staff writer.
Thursday, April 10, 2008 — Monitor.
Garrett Yee, author.
Though Ohlone Board of Trustees President Garrett Yee wrote his new memoir, “Greetings from Iraq!” while a lieutenant colonel in the current Iraq War, it is not written as a war memoir. The book is, instead, a collection of letters and journal entries that Yee wrote for his family.
In contrast to many soldiers’ memoirs, the work does not convey the grit of war, or its bloody excesses but is an original perspective from the point of view of the white collar soldier.
Yee’s duties in Iraq were largely non-combative. His stories describe a broad range of experience -- from meeting the Governor of Kirkuk, to exploring the landscape of Afghanistan, to missing his daughter’s birthday. The book also has dozens of pictures he took while in Iraq, which he sent home regularly. The photos, according to his family members, “don’t look the same as on TV,” but “Iraq is a big place,” commented Yee. Some are exotic, others are surreal, like one of Yee, decked out in seemingly the most advanced body armor civilization can afford, posing next to the ruins of Tal Afar.
Yee will host an author talk in the Fremont Main Library this Saturday, April 19 at 10 a.m.
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