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DATE January 22, 2003 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A⨠TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A⨠NETWORK NPR⨠PROGRAM Fresh Airâ¨â¨Interview: Christian Bauman discusses his experiences in the USâ¨Army, as reflected in his book "The Ice Beneath You"â¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨My guest, Christian Bauman, has written a novel about what it's like to be aâ¨soldier called "The Ice Beneath You." It's based on his experiences enlistingâ¨after the Gulf War, then serving on US Army boats with tours of duty inâ¨Somalia and Haiti. He describes the humiliations of basic training, what it'sâ¨like to learn to carry a gun and to make split-second decisions about whetherâ¨to pull the trigger, the difficulty of distinguishing between the peopleâ¨you're protecting and the ones you're fighting, and he writes aboutâ¨relationships in the military--friendships and romances. The action shiftsâ¨between the main character's service in the military and his return toâ¨civilian life, when he has trouble finding a place for himself and is hauntedâ¨by an incident in Somalia he was responsible for.â¨â¨Since leaving the Army, Christian Bauman has worked as a cook, painter, clerkâ¨and editor. He's also toured the country playing folk music. "The Iceâ¨Beneath You" is his first book. Let's start with a short reading.â¨â¨(Soundbite of reading from "The Ice Beneath You")â¨â¨Mr. CHRISTIAN BAUMAN (Author, "The Ice Beneath You"): I quit my job the dayâ¨the 100-hour war started. I remember sitting in the Holiday Inn's break room,â¨in cook whites and Timberlands, nursing my coffee, transfixed by what wasâ¨happening on the TV screen in front of me. The head chef walked in, walkedâ¨out, then walked back in. He looked at me, twisting the ends of hisâ¨moustache. He said, `Jones, if you're not back at the salad station in oneâ¨minute, you can kiss your employment goodbye.' Then he walked back out again.â¨â¨I remember sitting there, still watching CNN. When a commercial finally comeâ¨on, I stood, lit a cigarette, dug my keys from my pocket and went home. Iâ¨spent the next three days on the couch, not moving, just watching the liveâ¨feeds from the Persian Gulf, watching it all unfold in front of me. Iâ¨enlisted three months later, about the time they started sending the troopsâ¨home. The recruiter said my scores were high, and I could pretty much haveâ¨any job I wanted. When the options came across the computer screen, he tappedâ¨his finger on the third one down. `Boats,' he said. `Army's got boats. Iâ¨seen 'em, down in Virginia. Take that one. Slack life.' I did, and he saidâ¨I wouldn't regret it. He also said I wouldn't ship out until October orâ¨November. I said that was unfortunate, but fine. I borrowed his pen, andâ¨without looking up, signed the contract for US Army, E-1, 88-LIMA 10â¨Waterborne, Private Benjamin F. Jones. I sat back, waiting to feelâ¨different, waiting to feel something. Nothing came. That was fine, too. Iâ¨shook the recruiter's sweaty hand and walked home.â¨â¨I didn't see the need to get another job to fill the intervening months. Myâ¨three memories of that summer are the unchanging look of disgust on my wife'sâ¨face, the unchanging scenes of smoke and destruction broadcast from Iraq, andâ¨the unchanging nagging feeling I was missing out on something, somethingâ¨important, something necessary. I turned 21; I got two cards in the mail, oneâ¨from my mother, instructing me to trust in Jesus, and one from my recruiter,â¨instructing me to start doing push-ups.â¨â¨GROSS: That's Christian Bauman, reading from his new novel, "The Ice Beneathâ¨You."â¨â¨Christian, why did you enlist in the Army?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Oh, that's such a complicated question. The easy answer is thatâ¨I was young and poor with a family to support, and there were not a lot ofâ¨jobs in the greater Philadelphia-New Jersey area for uneducated poor youngâ¨guys at the time, and the few jobs there were, I had pretty much worked my wayâ¨through all of them. Also, my daughter, who was two at the time, I think, twoâ¨or three, needing an operation, and the recruiter, who I'd been sort ofâ¨flirting with for a number of months, said, `Oh, you know, we'll pay forâ¨that,' and that was really the deal-clincher for me.â¨â¨The real truth is, is it was something I had been looking at I think a lotâ¨longer than anyone knew, maybe even myself. When I joined it seemed to be aâ¨very large surprise to people who knew me and to my family, like, you know,â¨Bauman was the last guy who would join the Army, and the funny thing was,â¨never really saw it that way.â¨â¨GROSS: Did you see the Army as a way out, which your character seems to?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I had a number--I definitely wanted a way out. I mean, I was inâ¨a marriage that was not working out. I was in a place where I did not want toâ¨be, but at the same time, it was very, very important to me--I came from--youâ¨know, I was the product of a broken marriage, you know, and it was very, veryâ¨important to me that I support my child and what needed to happen in thatâ¨regard with her. So there was a little bit of escape, there was a little bitâ¨of it needed to happen. There was also this thing of, you know, I need toâ¨take care of family, and by being in the Army, this will force me to get outâ¨of bed in the morning and go to work, because I won't have any choice in theâ¨matter.â¨â¨GROSS: In your novel, the recruiting sergeant suggests `try boats.' Were youâ¨on a boat?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I was on a boat, and it kind of happened in the way I describedâ¨it. I didn't plan on that. It wasn't something I found out about till theâ¨last minute. The Army boat field is so small that recruiters never evenâ¨mention it as an option. I mean, there's only--at the time that I was in,â¨there was only 2,000 guys, active duty, who do this. It's such a small field.â¨So what happens is, you kind of pick the things you think you want to do, andâ¨then you go in on your actual day of enlistment to what they call the MEPâ¨station, and you sit down and there's a computer, and on the computer screenâ¨come the jobs that are available that day. `This is what we've got,' youâ¨know, and hopefully you've done your research and you can go, `Oh, I want toâ¨do that,' and they say, `OK,' and then that's your job.â¨â¨And the jobs were coming down the screen, and I saw a couple that I thought Iâ¨wanted to do, and as what happens in the book, my recruiter said, `Take thatâ¨one, right there. I wouldn't steer you wrong. That's the one you want.' Andâ¨I trusted him, even though I hadn't heard of it before.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Now your character isn't very fit when he joins the Army andâ¨he's pretty confident that he'll fail to be able to perform the minimum numberâ¨of push-ups required for basic training. He's got skinny arms. Did you haveâ¨problems like that?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I had fears, you know. It's a very scary thing, going to basicâ¨training. I can't remember ever being so afraid of something. I was not soâ¨afraid going to Somalia, I was not so afraid going to Haiti later. I wasâ¨terrified to go to basic training, which makes sense. I mean, you know, I wasâ¨20, born in 1970, and I saw "Full Metal Jacket" and I know what basic trainingâ¨is like, and I was scared. And so I had fears that I was not going to be ableâ¨to cut it, and that's actually what propelled me through it, what forced me toâ¨get through it.â¨â¨GROSS: Did your drill sergeant toy with your self-esteem, and what was theâ¨impact of that?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, they do, and sometimes as obvious as you would imagine fromâ¨watching the movies, and sometimes not. I was OK with that. I was a littleâ¨bit older than your average recruit. I was 21, which sounds like nothing, butâ¨when you're in the Army, it's a big difference. There's a big differenceâ¨between 19 and 21. And my recruiter had prepared me fairly well. He had kindâ¨of told me what it was, and basically what he told me was, `You know, it isâ¨just a mind game. They're going to be right in your face and they're going toâ¨be yelling at you. Just ignore it. Don't worry about it and, you know, it'llâ¨all go away.' And so that's what I did.â¨â¨GROSS: You character writes, `I was brought up in the New Jersey suburbs.â¨I'd never fired a gun in my life. Our first day at the range with an M16â¨rifle was a lesson in sheer humiliation.' What was hard about learning toâ¨fire an M16?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Well, you don't think much about shooting to someone who's neverâ¨done it before. You read books, and they pull out a gun and they shoot, orâ¨you watch a movie or you watch TV, they pull out a gun and they shoot, and Iâ¨never really gave it much thought, and so they gave me my M16 and I lay downâ¨and I shot, and it didn't go anywhere near where it was supposed to go, andâ¨that didn't make any sense to me, and a lot of the guys, it went exactly whereâ¨they wanted it to go, and I said, `Oh, jeez, there's something wrong with me.'â¨And there wasn't; I'd just never shot before I got there.â¨â¨GROSS: How long did it take before you felt comfortable with a gun?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I felt very comfortable, if it's possible to feel veryâ¨comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. There were times when I knewâ¨exactly what I was doing with this thing, but I didn't want to have to be theâ¨one who might have to do it, if you know what I mean. I got comfortable withâ¨my ability to shoot it, and I never got comfortable with the thought that Iâ¨would have to shoot it.â¨â¨GROSS: And did you have to shoot it?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No. No.â¨â¨GROSS: That's amazing. You went through Somalia and Haiti without everâ¨having to shoot your gun.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah, I think it's--I'm very fortunate.â¨â¨GROSS: Ever come close?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes. Yes.â¨â¨GROSS: Tell me one of those stories.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, there was a time we took two Army Mike boats--Mike boatsâ¨are LCMs, they're the landing craft, basically, is what they are. But weâ¨filled their well decks with grain and we had a nurse, medicine and a platoonâ¨of Belgian infantry. And we were going to a village to make a delivery, Iâ¨guess, for the UN. And we were supposed to go in and come back out. And weâ¨ended up having to spend the night kind of anchored off of this village. Andâ¨it was tense at the time. It was at a time in Somalia--this was almost a yearâ¨before the incident described in "Black Hawk Down," almost a year before theâ¨battle of Mogadishu. It was not necessarily--there was open conflict going onâ¨but not necessarily directed at Americans. But it was getting very tense. Weâ¨were getting very tense and we were a little unsure of the intentions of theâ¨Somalis, and especially in this part of the country. We weren't particularlyâ¨familiar with it.â¨â¨So we anchored off a couple hundred yards off the beach one night with theâ¨instructions for the local villagers to keep their vessels on the beach allâ¨night, nothing in the water. And overnight on watch was myself and my squadâ¨leader, who was a sergeant. And we were in the wheelhouse of the boat and weâ¨were up all night and, you know, got to talking and this and that. But weâ¨didn't expect any trouble. And all of a sudden out of the window was the mastâ¨of this boat and they approached the vessel and we didn't hear them. And allâ¨of a sudden there they were and they were right next to us. And we thoughtâ¨that they were coming at us, and both of us had our rifles up and pressure onâ¨the trigger and seconds away from committing this horrible act which wouldâ¨have been shooting a very misguided but very innocent person. And it was aâ¨horrible, horrible experience realizing how close we had come to killing thisâ¨man, who really was not threatening us in any way. He just was coming out to,â¨you know, say hi.â¨â¨GROSS: Was this the kind of thing that haunted you when you were in theâ¨military, the fact that you came that close or in the future you couldâ¨accidentally kill somebody who was innocent?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah, because I hadn't given it much thought before, before thatâ¨incident. I really hadn't, you know? And then all of a sudden, you know, itâ¨was a thing, it was like, `Oh, my God, I almost killed somebody,' you know?â¨And...â¨â¨GROSS: How come you didn't? I mean, what prevented you from pulling theâ¨trigger?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: That's a very interesting thing. I don't know. I mean, we wereâ¨almost within rights to do it, not quite but almost.â¨â¨GROSS: Because the person in the boat was violating an order.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Because the order had been given to the villagers to, you know,â¨etc. It was really just chance. I mean, we were both there. I mean, I can'tâ¨speak for John, the guy who was with me, but I know that there was a certainâ¨amount of pounds of pressure on the trigger. And this is one of the thingsâ¨that so haunted me and led me to the writing of this book. And this is such aâ¨common thing and, I think, becoming more and more common with modernâ¨deployments. I mean, I think it's always the case with war, and civiliansâ¨don't see that. You see the good guys shoot the bad guys and the bad guysâ¨die. Sometimes the bad guys shoot the good guys and that's sad and then theyâ¨die. But what you don't see when you're watching the movie is all the otherâ¨people on the sidelines who are also getting shot, you know, by accident or onâ¨purpose. And as we're getting more and more of these urban conflicts andâ¨these other things, it's a much larger thing.â¨â¨GROSS: So after this incident in which you nearly but didn't shoot someoneâ¨who was actually innocent and who wasn't threatening you, did you feel like,â¨`I don't have the stomach to do this anymore'? I mean, what...â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No, it wasn't that. I mean, I stayed in. I mean, you know, Iâ¨was in Somalia and I went on to go to Haiti, and I almost re-enlisted. So itâ¨wasn't so much the stomach as it was I am very aware now that these things canâ¨happen to me and I need to be on my guard. When we went into Haiti, we wentâ¨in the first wave. And at the time, we thought we were invading the country.â¨We fully expected combat when we went into Port-au-Prince that morning. Andâ¨as we know, it turned out differently. But the going in was very tense, andâ¨that's what I had in my head was remembering that night. And it wasn't that Iâ¨lost my stomach for it. I really wanted to go to Haiti. It was, `Bauman,â¨watch what you're doing. Stay on your toes,' you know?â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Christian Bauman. His new novel is called "The Iceâ¨Beneath You." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christian Bauman, and he's justâ¨completed his first novel. It's called "The Ice Beneath You." It's based onâ¨his experiences serving in the military in Somalia in the early '90s.â¨â¨What was it like for you the night before you went to Haiti when you wereâ¨expecting conflict?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: It was very scary. That was a very scary situation. It wasâ¨funny, it was so the reverse of Somalia. We went into Somalia, the first waveâ¨of troops went into Somalia, we went in thinking there was going to be noâ¨conflict and then it ended up--that whole thing just ended up goingâ¨completely, you know, out of control. Haiti was the exact opposite. Youâ¨know, Haiti ended up being this fairly non-violent deployment, but theâ¨beginning was very, very tense. And it wasn't until the very last second thatâ¨Cedras agreed to stand down and let the troops come in. And even then, fromâ¨the ground soldiers' point of view, we didn't trust that. I mean, we knew, Iâ¨think, a couple of hours before we got to the port that Carter had done whatâ¨he needed to do. I always say Jimmy Carter saved my life. Thank you, Jimmy.â¨â¨And so we knew that had happened, that Cedras was going to back away, but weâ¨didn't trust that and we didn't trust that everybody knew that, so it wasâ¨still very tense. It was very scary. And we were going right into theâ¨middle, the port. And Port-au-Prince is right in the middle of town. Whenâ¨you talk about, you know, urban warfare, I mean, that's what that would haveâ¨been right there.â¨â¨GROSS: There's a sentence in your novel that I think describes the feelingsâ¨that you're expressing that happened to you that day that that boat came intoâ¨sight and you weren't sure whether you should fire or not. Your characterâ¨says, `I am an American fighting man and I have no idea what the hell I'mâ¨shooting at.'â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, or why. Yeah. Yeah, that's--Somalia was a case study inâ¨that, you know? I mean, here we were. I think it was a different thing. Byâ¨the time when you were leading up to the battle of Mogadishu, it was aâ¨different scenario. You had the Rangers and Task Force Ranger. And theseâ¨guys were sent in to fight; you know, they were sent in for a mission. Byâ¨that point there was a combat mission. When we were there, it was not that.â¨And what it was, was this slow build of, `Oh, someone's shooting at us,' and,â¨`Oh, I'm not sure why. And now we're shooting back, but I'm not exactly--whatâ¨we're shooting at or why they're shooting at us,' and just this very largeâ¨confusion about what the larger mission was, who these people were, whether itâ¨was the Somali people as a whole or different factions who felt differentâ¨ways. It was very, very confusing from the private's point of view.â¨â¨GROSS: Did you know any, like, Somalia history? Did you have a sense of whatâ¨had gone on recently in the country?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No, I didn't. And as privates go, I considered myself kind ofâ¨worldly. I mean, I had lived in India for a year as a kid and, I mean, I knewâ¨my way around a map. And Somalia was a blank page even to me. So, no, it wasâ¨very--you know, I knew a little bit. We knew that there had been a war withâ¨Ethiopia before and that was about it. Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, what does the Army do in an attempt to prepare you for theâ¨culture that you're going to see and for the conflict you're going to be aâ¨part of?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: In that case, nothing. Nothing.â¨â¨GROSS: Mistake, do you think? I mean, would it be better to know that or isâ¨it irrelevant once you're assigned to your duties?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I don't think it's irrelevant. I don't see how it could beâ¨irrelevant. I mean, I think that there is a certain amount of truth in youâ¨only need to know so much. And knowing too much could actually impede yourâ¨job as a soldier. But I think you have to know a certain amount. You have toâ¨know who these people are. Again, you're in these situations, especially withâ¨this face-to-face, no-front-line kind of situation we keep running into, whereâ¨you're looking not at necessarily always a people in uniform. You're lookingâ¨at people in civilian clothing and having to make a decision of whether or notâ¨you're going to shoot them. So you ought to have a good idea of who theseâ¨people are. And I don't feel that the Army always does a good job of lettingâ¨you know that.â¨â¨GROSS: A lot of people who have been in the military say that, you know, someâ¨of the time you're under fire and it's terrifying, the adrenalin's pumping.â¨There's a lot of periods of boredom.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: And your character--you know, in the novel your character talks aboutâ¨these long, like three-day shifts and he's always reminded that his drillâ¨sergeant used to say, `He who sleeps dies.' What did you do to try to keepâ¨awake and alert during long, uneventful shifts?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: You know, it's interesting; I never really had a problem withâ¨it. There was this part of me--even when things were weird, I wanted to beâ¨there. I really did. And it might just be my personality, but I wanted toâ¨see what was going on. So I just felt like I was always awake, and I didn'tâ¨particularly have a problem with that. And I had a drink that I concocted toâ¨help me out of this; actually, everyone in my squad had this drink. Everyâ¨morning we would--if we had slept, we would wake up. We had our bottledâ¨water, and we would throw in three packs of Taster's Choice into this coldâ¨water, two aspirin and three vitamin, shake, mix and drink. And that prettyâ¨much fueled us through the day.â¨â¨Yeah, I would get tired--in my point of view, it was like I'm on the deck ofâ¨this Mike boat in a foreign country and I'm not sure what's going on, I had noâ¨trouble staying awake. I was either nervous or I was curious. And both ofâ¨those things are better than caffeine.â¨â¨GROSS: Christian Bauman is the author of the new novel "The Ice Beneath You."â¨He'll be back in the second half of the show. Bauman is also a songwriter andâ¨singer. Here's an original song called "Blues for Willie Parker," about oneâ¨of his roommates in the barracks.â¨â¨I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "Blues for Willie Parker")â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: (Singing) You've got this shotgun shaking hands with my back.â¨I've got a cold beer in my hot Cadillac. You've got a warrant, give me someâ¨reason to move. I've got a headache, I've got a bad attitude. How's that forâ¨an answer, chief of mine? Talking too fast, doing the first (unintelligible)â¨in my life. Well, it won't be the last. And I know, and I know, and I knowâ¨but I've never been taught how to blast ...(Unintelligible) I'mâ¨(unintelligible) stepping out or stepping in, saying `Fire' to the men again.â¨â¨My name is Willie, that's Mr. Parker to you...â¨â¨(Announcements)â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: It seems like every network has its own reality show. Coming up, TVâ¨critic David Bianculli considers why. Ken Tucker reviews Cody Chestnutt's newâ¨CD, "The Headphone Masterpiece." And we continue our conversation withâ¨Christian Bauman, author of "The Ice Beneath You," his autobiographical novelâ¨about a young soldier.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.â¨â¨My guest, Christian Bauman, has written a novel about what it's like to be aâ¨soldier called "The Ice Beneath You." It's based on his experiences enlistingâ¨after the Gulf War, then serving on US Army boats with tours of duty inâ¨Somalia and Haiti. He describes the humiliations of basic training, what it'sâ¨like to learn to carry a gun and to make split-second decisions about whetherâ¨to pull the trigger, the difficulty of distinguishing between the peopleâ¨you're protecting and the ones you're fighting, and he writes aboutâ¨relationships in the military--friendships and romances. The action shiftsâ¨between the main character's service in the military and his return toâ¨civilian life, when he has trouble finding a place for himself and is hauntedâ¨by an incident in Somalia he was responsible for.â¨â¨Since leaving the Army, Christian Bauman has worked as a cook, painter, clerkâ¨and editor. He's also toured the country playing folk music. "The Iceâ¨Beneath You" is his first book. Let's start with a short reading.â¨â¨(Soundbite of reading from "The Ice Beneath You")â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I quit my job the day the 100-hour war started. I rememberâ¨sitting in the Holiday Inn's break room, in cook whites and Timberlands,â¨nursing my coffee, transfixed by what was happening on the TV screen in frontâ¨of me. The head chef walked in, walked out, then walked back in. He lookedâ¨at me, twisting the ends of his moustache. He said, `Jones, if you're notâ¨back at the salad station in one minute, you can kiss your employmentâ¨goodbye.' Then he walked back out again.â¨â¨I remember sitting there, still watching CNN. When a commercial finally comeâ¨on, I stood, lit a cigarette, dug my keys from my pocket and went home. Iâ¨spent the next three days on the couch, not moving, just watching the liveâ¨feeds from the Persian Gulf, watching it all unfold in front of me. Iâ¨enlisted three months later, about the time they started sending the troopsâ¨home. The recruiter said my scores were high, and I could pretty much haveâ¨any job I wanted. When the options came across the computer screen, he tappedâ¨his finger on the third one down. `Boats,' he said. `Army's got boats. Iâ¨seen 'em, down in Virginia. Take that one. Slack life.' I did, and he saidâ¨I wouldn't regret it. He also said I wouldn't ship out until October orâ¨November. I said that was unfortunate, but fine. I borrowed his pen, andâ¨without looking up, signed the contract for US Army, E-1, 88-LIMA 10â¨Waterborne, Private Benjamin F. Jones. I sat back, waiting to feelâ¨different, waiting to feel something. Nothing came. That was fine, too. Iâ¨shook the recruiter's sweaty hand and walked home.â¨â¨I didn't see the need to get another job to fill the intervening months. Myâ¨three memories of that summer are the unchanging look of disgust on my wife'sâ¨face, the unchanging scenes of smoke and destruction broadcast from Iraq, andâ¨the unchanging nagging feeling I was missing out on something, somethingâ¨important, something necessary. I turned 21; I got two cards in the mail, oneâ¨from my mother, instructing me to trust in Jesus, and one from my recruiter,â¨instructing me to start doing push-ups.â¨â¨GROSS: That's Christian Bauman, reading from his new novel, "The Ice Beneathâ¨You."â¨â¨Christian, why did you enlist in the Army?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Oh, that's such a complicated question. The easy answer is thatâ¨I was young and poor with a family to support, and there were not a lot ofâ¨jobs in the greater Philadelphia-New Jersey area for uneducated poor youngâ¨guys at the time, and the few jobs there were, I had pretty much worked my wayâ¨through all of them. Also, my daughter, who was two at the time, I think, twoâ¨or three, needing an operation, and the recruiter, who I'd been sort ofâ¨flirting with for a number of months, said, `Oh, you know, we'll pay forâ¨that,' and that was really the deal-clincher for me.â¨â¨The real truth is, is it was something I had been looking at I think a lotâ¨longer than anyone knew, maybe even myself. When I joined it seemed to be aâ¨very large surprise to people who knew me and to my family, like, you know,â¨Bauman was the last guy who would join the Army, and the funny thing was,â¨never really saw it that way.â¨â¨GROSS: Did you see the Army as a way out, which your character seems to?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I had a number--I definitely wanted a way out. I mean, I was inâ¨a marriage that was not working out. I was in a place where I did not want toâ¨be, but at the same time, it was very, very important to me--I came from--youâ¨know, I was the product of a broken marriage, you know, and it was very, veryâ¨important to me that I support my child and what needed to happen in thatâ¨regard with her. So there was a little bit of escape, there was a little bitâ¨of it needed to happen. There was also this thing of, you know, I need toâ¨take care of family, and by being in the Army, this will force me to get outâ¨of bed in the morning and go to work, because I won't have any choice in theâ¨matter.â¨â¨GROSS: In your novel, the recruiting sergeant suggests `try boats.' Were youâ¨on a boat?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I was on a boat, and it kind of happened in the way I describedâ¨it. I didn't plan on that. It wasn't something I found out about till theâ¨last minute. The Army boat field is so small that recruiters never evenâ¨mention it as an option. I mean, there's only--at the time that I was in,â¨there was only 2,000 guys, active duty, who do this. It's such a small field.â¨So what happens is, you kind of pick the things you think you want to do, andâ¨then you go in on your actual day of enlistment to what they call the MEPâ¨station, and you sit down and there's a computer, and on the computer screenâ¨come the jobs that are available that day. `This is what we've got,' youâ¨know, and hopefully you've done your research and you can go, `Oh, I want toâ¨do that,' and they say, `OK,' and then that's your job.â¨â¨And the jobs were coming down the screen, and I saw a couple that I thought Iâ¨wanted to do, and as what happens in the book, my recruiter said, `Take thatâ¨one, right there. I wouldn't steer you wrong. That's the one you want.' Andâ¨I trusted him, even though I hadn't heard of it before.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Now your character isn't very fit when he joins the Army andâ¨he's pretty confident that he'll fail to be able to perform the minimum numberâ¨of push-ups required for basic training. He's got skinny arms. Did you haveâ¨problems like that?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I had fears, you know. It's a very scary thing, going to basicâ¨training. I can't remember ever being so afraid of something. I was not soâ¨afraid going to Somalia, I was not so afraid going to Haiti later. I wasâ¨terrified to go to basic training, which makes sense. I mean, you know, I wasâ¨20, born in 1970, and I saw "Full Metal Jacket" and I know what basic trainingâ¨is like, and I was scared. And so I had fears that I was not going to be ableâ¨to cut it, and that's actually what propelled me through it, what forced me toâ¨get through it.â¨â¨GROSS: Did your drill sergeant toy with your self-esteem, and what was theâ¨impact of that?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, they do, and sometimes as obvious as you would imagine fromâ¨watching the movies, and sometimes not. I was OK with that. I was a littleâ¨bit older than your average recruit. I was 21, which sounds like nothing, butâ¨when you're in the Army, it's a big difference. There's a big differenceâ¨between 19 and 21. And my recruiter had prepared me fairly well. He had kindâ¨of told me what it was, and basically what he told me was, `You know, it isâ¨just a mind game. They're going to be right in your face and they're going toâ¨be yelling at you. Just ignore it. Don't worry about it and, you know, it'llâ¨all go away.' And so that's what I did.â¨â¨GROSS: You character writes, `I was brought up in the New Jersey suburbs.â¨I'd never fired a gun in my life. Our first day at the range with an M16â¨rifle was a lesson in sheer humiliation.' What was hard about learning toâ¨fire an M16?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Well, you don't think much about shooting to someone who's neverâ¨done it before. You read books, and they pull out a gun and they shoot, orâ¨you watch a movie or you watch TV, they pull out a gun and they shoot, and Iâ¨never really gave it much thought, and so they gave me my M16 and I lay downâ¨and I shot, and it didn't go anywhere near where it was supposed to go, andâ¨that didn't make any sense to me, and a lot of the guys, it went exactly whereâ¨they wanted it to go, and I said, `Oh, jeez, there's something wrong with me.'â¨And there wasn't; I'd just never shot before I got there.â¨â¨GROSS: How long did it take before you felt comfortable with a gun?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I felt very comfortable, if it's possible to feel veryâ¨comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. There were times when I knewâ¨exactly what I was doing with this thing, but I didn't want to have to be theâ¨one who might have to do it, if you know what I mean. I got comfortable withâ¨my ability to shoot it, and I never got comfortable with the thought that Iâ¨would have to shoot it.â¨â¨GROSS: And did you have to shoot it?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No. No.â¨â¨GROSS: That's amazing. You went through Somalia and Haiti without everâ¨having to shoot your gun.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah, I think it's--I'm very fortunate.â¨â¨GROSS: Ever come close?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes. Yes.â¨â¨GROSS: Tell me one of those stories.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, there was a time we took two Army Mike boats--Mike boatsâ¨are LCMs, they're the landing craft, basically, is what they are. But weâ¨filled their well decks with grain and we had a nurse, medicine and a platoonâ¨of Belgian infantry. And we were going to a village to make a delivery, Iâ¨guess, for the UN. And we were supposed to go in and come back out. And weâ¨ended up having to spend the night kind of anchored off of this village. Andâ¨it was tense at the time. It was at a time in Somalia--this was almost a yearâ¨before the incident described in "Black Hawk Down," almost a year before theâ¨battle of Mogadishu. It was not necessarily--there was open conflict going onâ¨but not necessarily directed at Americans. But it was getting very tense. Weâ¨were getting very tense and we were a little unsure of the intentions of theâ¨Somalis, and especially in this part of the country. We weren't particularlyâ¨familiar with it.â¨â¨So we anchored off a couple hundred yards off the beach one night with theâ¨instructions for the local villagers to keep their vessels on the beach allâ¨night, nothing in the water. And overnight on watch was myself and my squadâ¨leader, who was a sergeant. And we were in the wheelhouse of the boat and weâ¨were up all night and, you know, got to talking and this and that. But weâ¨didn't expect any trouble. And all of a sudden out of the window was the mastâ¨of this boat and they approached the vessel and we didn't hear them. And allâ¨of a sudden there they were and they were right next to us. And we thoughtâ¨that they were coming at us, and both of us had our rifles up and pressure onâ¨the trigger and seconds away from committing this horrible act which wouldâ¨have been shooting a very misguided but very innocent person. And it was aâ¨horrible, horrible experience realizing how close we had come to killing thisâ¨man, who really was not threatening us in any way. He just was coming out to,â¨you know, say hi.â¨â¨GROSS: Was this the kind of thing that haunted you when you were in theâ¨military, the fact that you came that close or in the future you couldâ¨accidentally kill somebody who was innocent?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah, because I hadn't given it much thought before, before thatâ¨incident. I really hadn't, you know? And then all of a sudden, you know, itâ¨was a thing, it was like, `Oh, my God, I almost killed somebody,' you know?â¨And...â¨â¨GROSS: How come you didn't? I mean, what prevented you from pulling theâ¨trigger?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: That's a very interesting thing. I don't know. I mean, we wereâ¨almost within rights to do it, not quite but almost.â¨â¨GROSS: Because the person in the boat was violating an order.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Because the order had been given to the villagers to, you know,â¨etc. It was really just chance. I mean, we were both there. I mean, I can'tâ¨speak for John, the guy who was with me, but I know that there was a certainâ¨amount of pounds of pressure on the trigger. And this is one of the thingsâ¨that so haunted me and led me to the writing of this book. And this is such aâ¨common thing and, I think, becoming more and more common with modernâ¨deployments. I mean, I think it's always the case with war, and civiliansâ¨don't see that. You see the good guys shoot the bad guys and the bad guysâ¨die. Sometimes the bad guys shoot the good guys and that's sad and then theyâ¨die. But what you don't see when you're watching the movie is all the otherâ¨people on the sidelines who are also getting shot, you know, by accident or onâ¨purpose. And as we're getting more and more of these urban conflicts andâ¨these other things, it's a much larger thing.â¨â¨GROSS: So after this incident in which you nearly but didn't shoot someoneâ¨who was actually innocent and who wasn't threatening you, did you feel like,â¨`I don't have the stomach to do this anymore'? I mean, what...â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No, it wasn't that. I mean, I stayed in. I mean, you know, Iâ¨was in Somalia and I went on to go to Haiti, and I almost re-enlisted. So itâ¨wasn't so much the stomach as it was I am very aware now that these things canâ¨happen to me and I need to be on my guard. When we went into Haiti, we wentâ¨in the first wave. And at the time, we thought we were invading the country.â¨We fully expected combat when we went into Port-au-Prince that morning. Andâ¨as we know, it turned out differently. But the going in was very tense, andâ¨that's what I had in my head was remembering that night. And it wasn't that Iâ¨lost my stomach for it. I really wanted to go to Haiti. It was, `Bauman,â¨watch what you're doing. Stay on your toes,' you know?â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Christian Bauman. His new novel is called "The Iceâ¨Beneath You." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Christian Bauman, and he's justâ¨completed his first novel. It's called "The Ice Beneath You." It's based onâ¨his experiences serving in the military in Somalia in the early '90s.â¨â¨What was it like for you the night before you went to Haiti when you wereâ¨expecting conflict?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: It was very scary. That was a very scary situation. It wasâ¨funny, it was so the reverse of Somalia. We went into Somalia, the first waveâ¨of troops went into Somalia, we went in thinking there was going to be noâ¨conflict and then it ended up--that whole thing just ended up goingâ¨completely, you know, out of control. Haiti was the exact opposite. Youâ¨know, Haiti ended up being this fairly non-violent deployment, but theâ¨beginning was very, very tense. And it wasn't until the very last second thatâ¨Cedras agreed to stand down and let the troops come in. And even then, fromâ¨the ground soldiers' point of view, we didn't trust that. I mean, we knew, Iâ¨think, a couple of hours before we got to the port that Carter had done whatâ¨he needed to do. I always say Jimmy Carter saved my life. Thank you, Jimmy.â¨â¨And so we knew that had happened, that Cedras was going to back away, but weâ¨didn't trust that and we didn't trust that everybody knew that, so it wasâ¨still very tense. It was very scary. And we were going right into theâ¨middle, the port. And Port-au-Prince is right in the middle of town. Whenâ¨you talk about, you know, urban warfare, I mean, that's what that would haveâ¨been right there.â¨â¨GROSS: There's a sentence in your novel that I think describes the feelingsâ¨that you're expressing that happened to you that day that that boat came intoâ¨sight and you weren't sure whether you should fire or not. Your characterâ¨says, `I am an American fighting man and I have no idea what the hell I'mâ¨shooting at.'â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yes, or why. Yeah. Yeah, that's--Somalia was a case study inâ¨that, you know? I mean, here we were. I think it was a different thing. Byâ¨the time when you were leading up to the battle of Mogadishu, it was aâ¨different scenario. You had the Rangers and Task Force Ranger. And theseâ¨guys were sent in to fight; you know, they were sent in for a mission. Byâ¨that point there was a combat mission. When we were there, it was not that.â¨And what it was, was this slow build of, `Oh, someone's shooting at us,' and,â¨`Oh, I'm not sure why. And now we're shooting back, but I'm not exactly--whatâ¨we're shooting at or why they're shooting at us,' and just this very largeâ¨confusion about what the larger mission was, who these people were, whether itâ¨was the Somali people as a whole or different factions who felt differentâ¨ways. It was very, very confusing from the private's point of view.â¨â¨GROSS: Did you know any, like, Somalia history? Did you have a sense of whatâ¨had gone on recently in the country?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No, I didn't. And as privates go, I considered myself kind ofâ¨worldly. I mean, I had lived in India for a year as a kid and, I mean, I knewâ¨my way around a map. And Somalia was a blank page even to me. So, no, it wasâ¨very--you know, I knew a little bit. We knew that there had been a war withâ¨Ethiopia before and that was about it. Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: Well, what does the Army do in an attempt to prepare you for theâ¨culture that you're going to see and for the conflict you're going to be aâ¨part of?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: In that case, nothing. Nothing.â¨â¨GROSS: Mistake, do you think? I mean, would it be better to know that or isâ¨it irrelevant once you're assigned to your duties?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I don't think it's irrelevant. I don't see how it could beâ¨irrelevant. I mean, I think that there is a certain amount of truth in youâ¨only need to know so much. And knowing too much could actually impede yourâ¨job as a soldier. But I think you have to know a certain amount. You have toâ¨know who these people are. Again, you're in these situations, especially withâ¨this face-to-face, no-front-line kind of situation we keep running into, whereâ¨you're looking not at necessarily always a people in uniform. You're lookingâ¨at people in civilian clothing and having to make a decision of whether or notâ¨you're going to shoot them. So you ought to have a good idea of who theseâ¨people are. And I don't feel that the Army always does a good job of lettingâ¨you know that.â¨â¨GROSS: A lot of people who have been in the military say that, you know, someâ¨of the time you're under fire and it's terrifying, the adrenalin's pumping.â¨There's a lot of periods of boredom.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Yeah.â¨â¨GROSS: And your character--you know, in the novel your character talks aboutâ¨these long, like three-day shifts and he's always reminded that his drillâ¨sergeant used to say, `He who sleeps dies.' What did you do to try to keepâ¨awake and alert during long, uneventful shifts?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: You know, it's interesting; I never really had a problem withâ¨it. There was this part of me--even when things were weird, I wanted to beâ¨there. I really did. And it might just be my personality, but I wanted toâ¨see what was going on. So I just felt like I was always awake, and I didn'tâ¨particularly have a problem with that. And I had a drink that I concocted toâ¨help me out of this; actually, everyone in my squad had this drink. Everyâ¨morning we would--if we had slept, we would wake up. We had our bottledâ¨water, and we would throw in three packs of Taster's Choice into this coldâ¨water, two aspirin and three vitamin, shake, mix and drink. And that prettyâ¨much fueled us through the day.â¨â¨Yeah, I would get tired--in my point of view, it was like I'm on the deck ofâ¨this Mike boat in a foreign country and I'm not sure what's going on, I had noâ¨trouble staying awake. I was either nervous or I was curious. And both ofâ¨those things are better than caffeine.â¨â¨GROSS: Christian Bauman is the author of the new novel "The Ice Beneath You."â¨He'll be back in the second half of the show. Bauman is also a songwriter andâ¨singer. Here's an original song called "Blues for Willie Parker," about oneâ¨of his roommates in the barracks.â¨â¨I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of "Blues for Willie Parker")â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: (Singing) You've got this shotgun shaking hands with my back.â¨I've got a cold beer in my hot Cadillac. You've got a warrant, give me someâ¨reason to move. I've got a headache, I've got a bad attitude. How's that forâ¨an answer, chief of mine? Talking too fast, doing the first (unintelligible)â¨in my life. Well, it won't be the last. And I know, and I know, and I knowâ¨but I've never been taught how to blast ...(Unintelligible) I'mâ¨(unintelligible) stepping out or stepping in, saying `Fire' to the men again.â¨â¨My name is Willie, that's Mr. Parker to you...â¨â¨(Announcements)â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: It seems like every network has its own reality show. Coming up, TVâ¨critic David Bianculli considers why. Ken Tucker reviews Cody Chestnutt's newâ¨CD, "The Headphone Masterpiece." And we continue our conversation withâ¨Christian Bauman, author of "The Ice Beneath You," his autobiographical novelâ¨about a young soldier.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with Christian Bauman. Hisâ¨new novel, "The Ice Beneath You," is based on his experiences enlisting in theâ¨Army after the Gulf War, then doing tours of duty in Somalia and Haiti. "Theâ¨Ice Beneath You" is Bauman's first book. He's also worked as a cook, painter,â¨clerk, editor and performer.â¨â¨One of the things you did when you got out the Army was play folk music andâ¨tour, record a little bit. Were your songs influenced by your experiences inâ¨the Army?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: A lot of them were. Some of them were drawn exactly from it,â¨exactly from those experiences, and others were just influenced in one way orâ¨another. I had--before I was in the Army, I used to hang out in--I would takeâ¨the bus in once a week, the bus or drive or take the train into Greenwichâ¨Village from New Jersey and hang out with this group of songwriters. It was aâ¨weekly thing at the apartment of Jack Hardy, and that little meeting has kindâ¨of become legendary in its own right. That's--you know, John Gorka andâ¨Suzanne Vega and Christine Lavin and folks like that came out of thatâ¨songwriters group. And at the time that I was there, some of them were stillâ¨around. Richard Shindelle was going there a lot, Richard Julian, Wendyâ¨Beckerman, Linda Sharar, people of that age.â¨â¨And so that's when I started writing songs, and I was hanging out with theseâ¨people. The thing was was that when I was in Somalia, I started sendingâ¨lyrics back. So instead of writing letters to people, or whatever soldiersâ¨usually do, I was writing lyrics about what I was seeing in country and thenâ¨sending them home to New York to the Songwriters Exchange, which is what itâ¨was called, which is Jack's apartment. And some of them were bad and some ofâ¨them where whatever. Some of them were good. There's actually a fast-bookâ¨recording somewhere of Jack singing a song called "Kismayo" at The Bottomâ¨Line. I always found that be a funny juxtaposition of me, you know, thisâ¨young kid in Somalia and sending this stuff back to Greenwich Village, whereâ¨it gets kind of turned into a functioning folk song, you know, about what'sâ¨going on the world.â¨â¨GROSS: You know, it's funny, you are a folk singer and songwriter in additionâ¨to now being a novelist, and I think we associate folk singers with, like,â¨protest music, anti-war music. And--I mean, you enlisted and served and wereâ¨glad to be serving. I mean, that was the right thing for you at that time.â¨So you're kind of not from that, you know, more predictable...â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Well, that's not such an easy--you have to see where I come fromâ¨with folk and what my influences are.â¨â¨GROSS: Mm-hmm.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Big fan of the '60s folk, but that's not where folk started, andâ¨that's not where my heros are. My biggest hero is Woody Guthrie and, youâ¨know, Pete Seeger and people like that. And, you know, is there some protestâ¨there? You bet. But you know, Woody enlisted, you know. It's what's goingâ¨on at the time, you know, and what you need to do to get by in your life asâ¨well, you know. There's lots of contradictions out there.â¨â¨GROSS: What are some of the things you did to make a living after you got outâ¨of the military?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I did a lot. I did more before I was in the military. You know,â¨I've worked as a painter, as a contractor. I've worked as a cook. I'veâ¨worked as an editor. My problem has always been, both professionally and mostâ¨frustrating of all artistically, is that my education stopped when I was 17.â¨My...â¨â¨GROSS: Formal education.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: My formal education stopped when I was 17. It's very, veryâ¨difficult to get anybody to take you seriously when your education stopped atâ¨the age of 17, and it doesn't matter how smart or articulate you might beâ¨anyway. So it was always hard for me to find some good way to support myâ¨family, and it was certainly hard for me to ever be taken seriously as aâ¨writer. Most people who have novels published have an MFA and a niceâ¨bachelor's degree, and so it's very difficult to get anyone in New York to payâ¨any attention to you without a college degree.â¨â¨GROSS: Your new novel is based on your experiences in the Army while you wereâ¨in Somalia in the early '90s. Now we're facing war with Iraq. Is there aâ¨part of you that wishes you were in the military now and would be serving yourâ¨country in this war?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: That's one of those that's `yes and no.' I mean, the easy answerâ¨is no. I did what I did and I'm out and don't need to do that again. But Iâ¨think if you've been a soldier, there's that--yet, you know, there's noâ¨question when I see them going out, when I see them deploying, you get thatâ¨thing of, `Jeez, I ought to be there.' It's less now. It was very difficultâ¨right after I got out when guys I had served with were still in and wereâ¨deploying places. That was very, very difficult, because you really felt thatâ¨you really ought to be there, you know. I felt that way anyway, that, youâ¨know, `Oh, without me they're sunk,' you know. And, you know, it's just aâ¨very silly thing, but you feel that way, you know, `The guys are going andâ¨I've got to go, too.' I feel less that way now, but you do. I feel that.â¨When you watch the news and see them going out, you think, you know, `I oughtâ¨to get into shape.' But really no, I don't ever need to do that again.â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Christian Bauman. His new novel is called "The Iceâ¨Beneath You." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.â¨â¨(Soundbite of music)â¨â¨GROSS: My guest is Christian Bauman. His new novel, "The Ice Beneath You,"â¨is based on his experiences enlisting in the Army after the Gulf War, thenâ¨doing tours of duty in Somalia and Haiti.â¨â¨Christian, you're a writer. You're very reflective. It seems to me you'reâ¨pretty introspective, also. I think a lot of people in the military aren'tâ¨necessarily that introspective, and introspection isn't necessarily a reallyâ¨good trait to have when you're in the military, because the more introspectiveâ¨you are the more doubts you're likely to have as you think something throughâ¨and think it through again; the more ambiguity you might see. And I don'tâ¨know that the military's a great place to be caught up in ambiguity and fear,â¨also. The more you think something through, the more you see theâ¨possibilities for getting hurt. You don't want to be thinking about that aâ¨lot, either. So I'm wondering if your introspection and your imagination everâ¨got in the way in the military?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I thought way too much. It isâ¨not--yeah, I think introspection is probably not a great trait for a soldier.â¨A certain amount of it, I think, is necessary, otherwise you're a robot, youâ¨know...â¨â¨GROSS: Right.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: ...and, you know, nobody wants a robot with a rifle in theirâ¨hand, you know. But you don't want to have to think about it too much. Youâ¨know, `This is the job, this is the mission, this is what I do,' and you don'tâ¨question it. And that's important. It's very important that you have that.â¨So if you're thinking too hard, you can lose that and you do startâ¨questioning. You know, you don't want to think about the bigger picture. Youâ¨don't want to think about your commander in chief and what you feel about him.â¨You know, those things are not important. So I think it can be difficult forâ¨a writer to be, you know, in the military, or if you have the personality of aâ¨writer, because you are looking and you are thinking, and maybe you're lookingâ¨too hard and thinking too hard. And I really felt that way about myself whenâ¨I was in.â¨â¨I mean, I didn't know what direction I was going with my writing when Iâ¨joined. I didn't know where I was going to go. I didn't know whether it wasâ¨as a lyricist or a novelist or whatever. I just knew that I wrote, and that'sâ¨what I wanted to do. And from the day I joined, I viewed myself as a writerâ¨in the Army and I watched things in that way. And I based very much on theâ¨model--though maybe unintentional with him of--I always felt this thing withâ¨like very specifically like Hemingway in Italy and being in this situationâ¨that's not a front-line combat job--he was an ambulance driver. I had a veryâ¨similar kind of job when I was in the Army. It was not this front-line,â¨combat, all-encompassing thing. Yet at the same time, by the nature of theâ¨job I did, you're not exactly in the rear echelon, either. You see the frontâ¨line. So it's this observer role, and just very much wanting to be theâ¨witness to the event. And I knew that going in. I knew that I wanted thereâ¨to be an event and that I wanted to be at the event and to be witness to theâ¨event. And I got it and I got it twice.â¨â¨But what you said is very interesting because it's very true. In the sameâ¨time, I had a job to do, and my job was not being a writer, my job was being aâ¨soldier. And if I thought too much, I was not going to be a very goodâ¨soldier.â¨â¨GROSS: So it sounds like there were times when you think that reflection didâ¨get in the way.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: There were times I think reflection could have gotten in the way.â¨I think I managed to get through.â¨â¨GROSS: Can you describe one of those times?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: I had difficulty in Haiti. Somalia was a little differentâ¨because by the nature of what we did, we were frequently very removed from theâ¨civilian population. We had some interaction. We would drive through theâ¨city. And--oh, and the boats, I certainly saw people--we would go to aâ¨village. But for the most part, we were very separate from the Somaliâ¨population; my group of guys was anyway.â¨â¨In Haiti, there were times where it was much more in your face. I rememberâ¨going to Jacmel, which is this southern town in Haiti, and we had a couple ofâ¨days there with not much to do. And there was no greater American militaryâ¨presence there at the time, so we kind of just wondered and really had someâ¨very real interaction with the people. And I remember having a difficult timeâ¨sometimes trying to grasp what it was we were doing there, why were were thereâ¨and how the mission was being executed. And I very distinctly rememberâ¨thinking, `You better stop thinking about this, or you're going to be inâ¨trouble.'â¨â¨GROSS: One of the things that imagination can lead to is imagining worstâ¨outcomes, imagining getting hurt, imagining getting killed, imagining theâ¨pain, and that's something you really shouldn't be thinking about a lot ifâ¨you're in the military. I'm wondering if that dark side of the imaginationâ¨ever kept you awake at night or got in your way of functioning in the way thatâ¨you need to function as a soldier.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: No, not in that way. I mean, I think I--and I do have a veryâ¨vivid imagination and a very vivid imagination about pain. I think that youâ¨have to make a decision; you're either going to just block that out or yourâ¨not, because otherwise, there's no way to function. I remember when I leftâ¨the Mike boats and went on the ship for my last year and a half in theâ¨Army--and I remember, for instance, sailing to Haiti, or sailing wherever weâ¨were sailing, I have in my imagination--I've got this thing where you stand onâ¨the rail and you wonder about jumping in and nobody would find me and I wouldâ¨drown and how would that feel? I mean, these are very morbid, sick--you know,â¨the whole people stand on a bridge and, you know, feel the urge to jump thing.â¨I used to get that, and I would think the thing through and stuff like that.â¨And that's no good.â¨â¨But you could have a thing where--yeah, I know you could think and imagine,â¨`What would it be like to step on a claymore mine?' You know, `What would itâ¨be like to get shot in this place or this place or this place? How would thatâ¨feel?' And you just have to cut that off, because I think if you--or at leastâ¨that's what I did. I mean, I just didn't go down that road. I didn't thinkâ¨about it, because I knew I had a very vivid imagination, and if I started downâ¨that road, I would be useless.â¨â¨GROSS: And has that part of your imagination opened up again because nowâ¨you're writing and you have to imagine that kind of thing?â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.â¨â¨GROSS: Christian Bauman, thank you so much for talking with us.â¨â¨Mr. BAUMAN: Oh, the pleasure was all mine, Terry. Thank you very much.â¨â¨GROSS: Christian Bauman is the author of the new novel "The Ice Beneath You."â¨â¨* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *â¨â¨Commentary: Why reality shows are so popular among televisionâ¨viewers and network programmersâ¨TERRY GROSS, host:â¨â¨If you watch a lot of TV, this week may leave you wondering, `Why are there soâ¨many reality shows on TV, and why are so many of them so popular?' TV criticâ¨David Bianculli says there are reasons why the genre began and continues toâ¨grow that generally are overlooked.â¨â¨DAVID BIANCULLI:â¨â¨Consider one particular block of prime time in the middle of this week. Onâ¨CBS, there's the last half-hour of the live, recently revived talent contestâ¨"Star Search." On Fox, there's the first half-hour of the recently returnedâ¨talent contest "American Idol." And on ABC, there's the first half-hour of anâ¨expanded edition of that voyeuristic dating contest, "The Bachelorette." Whyâ¨are there so many of these? And why are almost all of them attracting enoughâ¨viewers to succeed?â¨â¨The obvious answer is that all of these shows exist because of the hugeâ¨popularity of "Survivor," which in turn existed because of "Who Wants to be aâ¨Millionaire." Another big factor is that reality shows are a lot cheaper toâ¨produce than scripted comedies and dramas, and many more of them catch onâ¨quickly.â¨â¨But the real reason we have so much reality on TV now is because a few yearsâ¨ago, Hollywood was threatened with a writers' strike. It didn't happen, itâ¨was called off at the last minute, but by then, TV executives had geared upâ¨with their emergency plan B, which was to order a lot of series that didn'tâ¨require writers. They were unscripted shows, reality shows, and when theyâ¨showed up, viewers ate them up. So TV, as it always has done, went intoâ¨overdrive trying to copy that success.â¨â¨Now that "Joe Millionaire" is a big hit for Fox, that network will continue toâ¨use the Monday time slot for other reality shows once Joe is unmasked as aâ¨thousandaire. Coming up on Fox--and I'm not kidding here--is a show whereâ¨perfect strangers will agree to be married based on the votes from Foxâ¨viewers.â¨â¨Right now in prime time, we have the dating shows like "Joe Millionaire," "Theâ¨Bachelorette" and "Meet My Folks." We have "The Real World"-type enforcedâ¨cohabitation shows like "The Surreal Life" and "High School Reunion." We haveâ¨talent shows like "Star Search" and "American Idol." And we have ultra-tackyâ¨reality specials like "Man vs. Beast" and ultra-tacky competitions like "Fearâ¨Factor."â¨â¨One sociological explanation for the success of these shows is that they allâ¨do symbolically what "High School Reunion" does literally: they throw us backâ¨into those unforgettable Darwinistic days of high school. When those guysâ¨are standing there waiting to get a rose from the Bachelorette, or those womenâ¨are waiting to get a necklace from Joe Millionaire, they're standing thereâ¨just like, at one time or another, we all stood there in gym class while teamsâ¨were being chosen. Outside, they're saying nothing; inside, they're allâ¨screaming, `Pick me. Pick me.'â¨â¨The shows themselves are doing the same thing, and viewers are picking a lotâ¨of them. These aren't long-term romances, though. These are quick flings.â¨One of the reasons it's so easy to get involved in "The Bachelorette" or "Joeâ¨Millionaire" is because viewers know up front they're not risking anyâ¨long-term emotional commitment or time investment. From the time we firstâ¨meet Joe Millionaire until the time we watch the show's duplicitous payoff,â¨little more than a month will have passed. And when we listen along with theâ¨judges during the first open auditions for "American Idol," we know the winnerâ¨of that contest will be revealed in a mere four months. Meanwhile, we get toâ¨look for possible winners and hear some definite losersâ¨â¨(Soundbite of "American Idol")â¨â¨Mr. SIMON COWELL: How are you?â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Pretty good. I'm so happy to meet you, Simon. I'm psyched.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: What, just me?â¨â¨CYNTHIA: And Paula and Randy.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: But who would you rather meet?â¨â¨CYNTHIA: You.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: OK.â¨â¨Mr. RANDY JACKSON: Oh, God, you're in trouble.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: I was telling everybody, the whole reason I, like, got an audition,â¨I got a bracelet was so I could meet you and audition for you. So you've gotâ¨me to this point. You're--thinking about you.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: Oh, my God.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: What are you going to sing?â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Pink, "Don't Let Me Get Me."â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Are you a good singer?â¨â¨CYNTHIA : Yes, I'm great. I'm not dreadful. I'm not horrible. OK, ready?â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: All right. I'm ready.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: OK.â¨â¨(Singing) Never win first place. I don't support the team. I can't takeâ¨direction and my socks are never clean.â¨â¨Wait, I know the whole song. Don't--wait. Sorry.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: I'm going to stop you there, Cynthia...â¨â¨CYNTHIA: OK.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: ...because you're right, that wasn't dreadful and it wasâ¨horrible. It was absolutely ghastly.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: I know. I'm sorry.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: It was terrible.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Can I redo it?â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: There's no point. You can't sing.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Wait. One more time, please.â¨â¨Ms. PAULA ABDUL: Cynthia, when really deep down inside, when you askâ¨yourself, `Am I really a good singer?' would you really, in your soul, thinkâ¨that you are?â¨â¨CYNTHIA: I do. I think I have talent. But you really think I stunk becauseâ¨I forgot the words or anything? It's really because you don't think I canâ¨sing?â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: That was the only good part of your audition.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: You can't sing.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: I'm serious. Randy, yes or no to the next round?â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: Definitely, definitely not.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Paula?â¨â¨Ms. ABDUL: I'm sorry, Cynthia, no.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Cynthia, it's a no.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Oh, no!â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Yes.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: No, yeah.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Yeah.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: It was really that bad?â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Worse than you think.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Can I do it one more time?â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: No, no please.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Please!â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Cynthia, listen to me. There's only so much punishment a humanâ¨being can take.â¨â¨Ms. ABDUL: Oh, God.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: No, I can take a lot more.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: I can't. I can't.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: No, not you, us.â¨â¨Ms. ABDUL: Cynthia, you are funny.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: I can't take anymore.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Please, one more time.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: No.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Nice to meet you.â¨â¨Mr. JACKSON: Thank you.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Nice to meet you anyway, Simon.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Take care.â¨â¨CYNTHIA: Bye.â¨â¨Mr. COWELL: Likewise.â¨â¨BIANCULLI: Compared to a regular weekly series like "NYPD Blue," whichâ¨presents an ongoing story line stretching over more than 20 episodes in nineâ¨months, one month, even four months, is nothing. It's a summer beach book,â¨not "War and Peace." For the networks, short orders of such quick-hit ideasâ¨make perfect sense. If they tank, the networks have risked little. If theyâ¨hit fast--as "The Bachelor" did--well, there's always a follow-up to beâ¨generated. The market won't be oversaturated until viewers start rejectingâ¨these shows wholesale, and that's not happening yet. The ease of viewing andâ¨the lack of commitment required is no small part of it.â¨â¨Look at what HBO has managed to do Sunday nights at 9 with "The Sopranos,"â¨"Sex and the City," "Six Feet Under" and now "Oz" rotating in the same timeâ¨slot. That's less than an evening of prime time in total, and they're notâ¨even shown at the same time. Yet HBO has built the reputation, using this oneâ¨hour of Sunday viewing, as the best in the business. Part of that is thatâ¨viewers are seeing less and enjoying it more. Having only 13 episodes of "Theâ