Tuesday, June 7, 2016
8pm (Reception, 6:30-7:30pm)
 
Sebastian Junger
and Maximilian Uriarte
 
discussing the writing life and their new books,
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging 
The White Donkey


Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School

Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404

PURCHASE TICKETS
Some tickets available at the door ($20 cash)
$20 General Admission
$40 Reserved Section Seating, copy of Tribe
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) Reserved Section seats, copy of Tribe

Sebastian Junger has spent decades of his life reporting from conflict zones worldwide. He is the New York Times bestselling author of War, The Perfect Storm and A Death in Belmont. Together with Tim Hetherington, he directed the documentary Restrepo based on his embed in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and an Academy Award nomination. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism.

Maximilian Uriarte enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 2006 at the age of nineteen and served for four years. During his first deployment to Iraq in 2007 he served as an MRAP turret gunner and dismount of India Company’s Jump Platoon in the Zaidon region southeast of Fallujah. He deployed to Iraq again in 2009 as a billeted Combat Photographer and Combat Artist. In 2010 Uriarte created the popular comic strip Terminal Lancewhile still on active duty. The strip is now published in theMarine Corps Times and has grown immensely in popularity, with over 490,000 Facebook followers and one million unique hits per month at terminallance.com. Uriarte has a bachelor’s degree from California College of the Arts.

Combining history, psychology and anthropology, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging  picks up where War left off—specifically with the problems Vets face when presented with the irony that there are elements of battle that they, counterintuitively, miss. These positive feelings come from the innate human preference to live in small groups defined by clear purpose. This connection has been lost in modern society, and regaining it may be the key to our psychological survival.

Tribe explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. Junger explains the irony that—for many veterans as well as civilians—war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. Tribe explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today’s divided world.

Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians-but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction are combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life. The loss of closeness that comes at the end of deployment may explain the high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by military veterans today.

Combining history, psychology, and anthropology, Tribe explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that-for many veterans as well as civilians-war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. Tribe explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today’s divided world.

A vivid and moving look at war and PTSD, The White Donkey follows young Marines as they experience the ugly, pedestrian, and often meaningless side of military service in rural Iraq. The White Donkey tells the story of Abe, who enlists in search of a greater purpose. He quickly realizes that his expectations don’t match reality. Abe gets more than he bargained for when his journey takes him to war-torn Iraq.
 
A visually striking and emotional story, The White Donkey will resonate with military and civilian readers alike—readers of nonfiction like Phil Klay’s Redeployment, fiction like Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds, and graphic novels illustrated in a compelling style and containing a powerful message. The book explores the war of active duty as well as the war veterans face upon returning home.