Sharing My Own War Story by Amy Madsen

I recently published Green Zone Diary: A Diplomat's War Story, a memoir of my time serving in Baghdad, Iraq with the U.S. State Department. Publishing a memoir is not easy. As a first-time author, I feel incredibly vulnerable—not only because I know my writing ability will be judged, but also because I am opening up my life and life decisions to strangers' judgement. I am giving up control of my own narrative and ability to decide who gets to learn what about me, when.

After much soul-searching and adhering to my own advice to my children (basically you can only control your own actions/reactions and not the actions/reactions of others, so make decisions based on your values) I went ahead with publication, despite my discomfort. Why? Two reasons really. First, I thought about writing my story for a long time just to provide another perspective of war, beyond the dominant "person with gun" story. However, this first reason was never enough for me to overcome my discomfort. It was reason two that really got me. 

Reason two is that while promoting Undivided and talking to women who have lived through war and conflict, I’ve found 100 percent support the concept of our organization. There’s a smaller percentage who are actually willing to share their stories. Some are understandably unable to relive their trauma. Others feel their voice is not important because they know women who “had it worse” or “suffered more.” This feeling, that their voices or stories are not important enough to share, is one I completely understand. For years, I thought my own story didn't matter. I could have had it worse, much worse. I could have been in the U.S. Military and been sent to the frontlines, instead of being protected in Baghdad’s Green Zone. I could have been a local woman, losing my family and friends, helplessly watching my country fall apart. But I wasn’t either of those things.

Listening to women tell me their voices didn’t matter finally made me realize I needed to do the very thing I was asking them to do. I had to share my own story—regardless of how I felt, regardless of how vulnerable it would make me, regardless of how I might be judged. 

And so, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I sat at my desk and completed my war story. Some days, I would walk away from my writing in frustration, unable to capture the nuance of my thoughts. Other days, I would pound away on my laptop, as if possessed, tears actively dripping down my cheeks.

Green Zone Diary: A Diplomat’s War Story is the result. Different from the military accounts depicted in films and read about in books and articles, it chronicles the perspective of one civilian, very junior, State Department official who served in Iraq, whose mundane bureaucratic tasks all too often were interrupted by the tragedy of war.

A portion of the sales of Green Zone Diary will go to Undivided to help us amplify the voices and stories of other women who have lived through war and conflict.