'Listen,' he said, 'you can do this only so long through ignorance. Reality comes to everybody if they stay long enough. So now maybe you have seen it, don't waste your time dwelling on it. Learn that every day will be different; some days you can be "brave", and some days you cannot. Don't punish yourself with it, it's OK. It's normal. Cut down on you emotional output. You can carry on indefinitely if you stop thinking so much. There is so much shit talked here. DOn't argue about anything unnecessarily. Don't get worked up, angry, sad, don't even talk about anything that doesn't matter. Conserve your energy. Whatever you know, you know shit. Each of us has the reaction. It is about different chemistry on different days. Each day is different for each person. You must understand that.'

Man, the guy sure came a long way to end up as a Kit-e-Kat

Difficult to rate books like this... A disturbing, and unrelentingly ugly look at the author's time in the Bosnian War. While the book got off to a promising start and delivered some lyrical and reflective prose, ultimately what seems a promising memoir descends into nothing more than a wallowing in ugliness. War is hell, sure, but people fight for reasons, however muddled or flawed or confused that war-logic may be, and the almost self-righteous cynicism dripping from every page of this book begins to wear on the reader. The author reveals himself as an incredibly unlikable ass, a drug addict, and a war addict--all because his father didn't love him or he had some ancestors who were soldiers or pick some reason.

The book is still worth reading, but the author missed the opportunity to make some broader statements about the war and its implications, and maybe even its lessons. Especially at the end, when you expect some summation of the experience, some explorations of what it meant later as that century came to an end, you are left only with more wallowing in self-pity.

Anthony Lloyd has a great ability to transport you into the scene, giving great detail to all the horror he sees. He also has great psychological vision as well, being able to capture how people react to the pressures of war. Sometimes he might use a cliche metaphor or two to describe the essence of certain situations, but in an ironic manner which is meant and can justify their usage. Definitely a must-read for anyone interested in a primary source on the Balkan wars without the usual clutter western journalists brought and spawned in their coverage of the conflict.

"I wanted to throw myself into a war, hoping for either a metamorphosis or an exit. I wanted to reach a human extreme in order to cleanse myself of my sense of fear, and saw war as the ultimate experience.
Hindsight gives you a strange wisdom. In some ways we all get what we want. I have so few regrets, even now."

If an asshole acknowledges that he's an asshole, does that make him less of an asshole? (No, the self-aware asshole is the worst asshole of all)

The book begins by showing you what an ass Anthony Loyd is - he presents himself quite honestly as a war tourist - flying out to Sarajevo to see some action! Gradually, Loyd begins to realize that it's not just Manly Times and becomes a bit preachy about it (eheu eheu his friends back home can't understand how REAL the issues in Bosnia are as they are 'consumerist children of the sixties with an appetite for quick kicks without complications' - they don't underSTAND how Lloyd has discovered that the war was about Things That Mattered and not just a machofest with hot chicks (the number of times he talks about the beautiful modelesque women he sees is eyerollworthy)) at which point we get reflective chapters that are intended to make you understand where he's coming from and I suppose, stop hating him. But really, I can't bring myself to feel sorry for this Eton-educated kid (eheu eheu, his parents were divorced and he hated his fancy prep school, how terrible for him) who joined the army to kill some people and was so disappointed that he didn't get to kill anyone that he had a mini-breakdown on getting back from his assignment. After which he promptly sets off to Bosnia. We're clearly supposed to grow to like him and gosh, he develops an addiction to heroin! Poor dude, right? He just wanted to kill some people and see some people being killed and now look at him - 'pulled in by the undertow' - but you know, that's the price of living 4real and he wouldn't change a thing. Tch.

How someone could admit to thinking like this post WWI, nevermind post WWII is beyond me. This ~conflicted morality~ angle he's clearly going for is repulsive. I kept reading because I thought he would eventually be yelled at by someone but nope.

Oh, he also talks to a war criminal, who knows that he's a journalist yet tells him where he's going into hiding and good old Loyd tells us that though he knows people are looking for this war criminal, he's not going to give him up because "he had always looked after me on the line and that carried more weight in my judgment than his barbarous killings of people I had not seen."

An involved and gruesome primer to the war(s) between the former Yugoslavia states. The war took place when I was in elementary school so I read this book with basically no knowledge of what happened and the book was informative of the horrific acts of war but still a little confusing about the complicated and changing lines of battle and allyship. I was very thankful that the book did not include Loyd's photos (as he originally went to Bosnia as a "photo journalist") but the words were more than sufficient to describe the horrors.

My War Gone By, I Miss It So, is one of the great titles I've come across (on the short list with Nick Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City). It is also one of the best and most gruesome travelogues I've read. Most people would classify it as war journalism, as the book covers the conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya during the 90s. But war books are full of reportage, and though they ask why, it is usually a practical why: why did this conflict begin, what happened, and what does it mean? Loyd's why is more existential. As in a travelogue, he considers the question Kerouac wrote in his journals before flinging himself on the journey that became On the Road: "The night before travel is like the night before death. Why must I always travel from here to there, as it mattered where one is?"

Indeed, many of Loyd's nights feel like the night before death, and the answer is complicated; his military heritage, his strained relationship with his father, and his addiction to heroin all play a part. In taking this more personal and existential tack, Loyd not only provides a compelling narrative about the horrors that unfolded in these wars, but examines why it is that people seek out darkness and brutality, and what can be learned from plumbing the depths.

Oh man ... An absolutely harrowing read about war, addiction, loss ... just so brutally honest.

I think it's the first time I can appreciate the need/necessity of wanting to go back into chaos rather than try to live with the demons in a civilian capacity.

An amazing personal account of the effects of war and how we, as civilians, can never appreciate the contradicting emotions of horror and elation experienced by these men.

Well worth reading. An amazing combination of someone's personal reflections regarding addiction, and an informative perspective of an outsider during a very interesting time in Balkan history. If you enjoyed the film "civil war" or if you have an interest in the Bosnian war, you will love this.
Highly recommend it.

A raw, cold, anguished memoir of a war correspondent who covered the killing fields in Bosnia in the 1990's. At times what he saw and heard are almost unspeakable, evil and mindless. How the Croats, Bosnians Muslims, and Serbs became the rabid animals of hell that they did is beyond comprehension. A collective madness Loyd covers with anguish, interspersing his own personal struggles with heroin addiction when on leave in London. This is not reading for the faint of heart but it is a brilliant insight into how war is truly hell - especially that one.

'Airports: they were like decompression chambers where I sought to balance my mind for a coming immersion, either into war or out to peace. I always seemed to float off into narcissistic death dreams somewhere between customs and the tarmac. Would I die? Did I want to die? Or, if outgoing, why was I alive? Did I want to live?
In Zagreb the March sunshine still bore a winter shade of grey, and as I waited in the departure lounge my thoughts were particularly focused. The war in central Bosnia had ended overnight.
The fighting between Croats and Muslims had ceased. A distant peace accord signed in Washington had ended the conflict in the last week of February 1994 after intensive American pressure on the authorities in Zagreb had pulled the rug of Croatian military support from under the nationalists in Hercegovina. I was stunned by the news. My goldfish-bowl war, the halcyon torment whereby the living and dying had pirouetted around me within the pocket's intimate confines, was over. It was not all finished, for the war with the Serbs still remained. But in Vitez the war had been on my doorstep, a presence that permeated my every day. That time was gone. It felt like the end of an affair, private sadness soothed by a wash of sensual blue nostalgia.'

Anthony Lloyd’s candid memoirs about his time as a foreign correspondent in Bosnia and Chechnya in the early to mid-90s are some of the most eye opening and refreshingly honest portrayals of life during these dirty wars.

Lloyd was a young man when he wrote this account which is self evident from the rather grandiose writing style and some of the larger than life metaphors: “ As the war shed it’s cloth like a cheap strip artist.” Which comes across as a needless and juvenile bid to hold the reader’s attention when the topic of war is already enough to keep your attention. However, despite Lloyd’s style being needlessly comic he is still able to write maturely about violence. Lloyd’s description of walking through the site of the Srebenicia massacre in its immediate aftermath is haunting and his description of the levelling of Grozny by Russia forces is harrowing. Lloyd can still write respectfully about the suffering of those which he witnessed in between the stripping metaphors.

Lloyd’s account balances his intimate descriptions of war with ‘Trainspotting’ style diary entries about his Heroin usage on the streets of London. Lloyd’s description of his drug use is rather pedestrian and doesn’t do much to raise his journalism. However, it is a fascinating look into the mind of a man who uses war as a drug to get off Heroin and suffers all the consequences that come with it.

Lloyd also offers some unique insights into the complex nature of the sectarian violence in Bosnia which are rarely mentioned when talking about the Yugoslav wars. The selling of arms by Serbs to Croats during the Bosnik-Croat War in Kieseljak under the rationale of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The presence of Muslims in Serb death squads which were actively seeking an ‘ethnic cleansing’ policy, arguing that ‘evil transcends revitalised religious identities’. To the ubiquitous Islamist groups such as the Mujahideen who fought to defend Muslims in Bosnia and were being armed by the US. These pieces of information don’t fit the typical narrative of the war and make his dispatches more revealing about the sorry nature of the conflict.

Lloyd greatest achievement is breaking from the convention of many conflict journalists who attempt to give themselves a veneer of objectivity or elitist morality. Lloyd is full and frank about his selfish motivations for wanting to go to war: “I was delighted with what war had offered me: chicks, kicks, cash and chaos.” Lloyd’s tawdry rationale for going to war merely to observe is starkly antithetical to many correspondents who attempt to carve out a misplaced idealism about being there to preserve history or promote intervention. This uniquely honest perspective makes Lloyd’s writing far more gripping and himself a more interesting character. Despite many of Lloyd’s statements about his rationale being selfish and bordering on the immoral you do begin to sympathise and admire Lloyd for being refreshingly candid about the true motivation behind his profession.

Lloyd will be remembered for wearing his selfishness and arrogance on his sleeve and not attempting to sideline these features of human nature to paint himself as a moral superior. Lloyd’s reporting is not of the calibre of the likes of Marie Colvin or James Brabazon but its honesty and candidness cannot be overstated, and elevate the memoirs to another level. Lloyd takes the war reporting of Martha Gelhorn and mixes it with the drug taking of Irvine Welsh which certainly makes for a gripping look into both sorry pursuits.

A searing first hand account of the war in Bosnia and Chechnya with a good measure of addict testimony thrown in. Anthony pulls few punches and lets it all hang out; leaving the reader to their own judgement. His highs, lows, his mistakes, his triumphs are all laid bare. Excellently done.