Carmen Gentile: “Blindsided by the Taliban A Journalist’s Story of War, Trauma, Love, and Loss”

I turn to see a rocket-propelled grenade screaming toward me. The ordnance strikes me in the side of the head, instantly blinding me in one eye and crushing the right side of my face.
On September 9, 2010, while embedded with an Army unit and talking with locals in a small village in eastern Afghanistan, journalist Carmen Gentile was struck in the face by a rocket-propelled grenade. Inexplicably, the grenade did not explode and Gentile survived, albeit with the right side of his face shattered and blinded in one eye. Making matters worse, his engagement was on the ropes and his fiancée absent from his bedside.
 
Blindsided by the Taliban chronicles the author’s numerous missteps and shortcomings while coming to terms with injury and a lost love. Inventive and unprecedented surgeries would ultimately save Gentile’s face and eyesight, but the depression and trauma that followed his physical and emotional injuries proved a much harder recovery. Ultimately, Gentile would find that returning to the front lines and continuing the work he loved was the only way to become whole again.
Gentile recounts the physical and mental recovery which included a month of staring only at the ground on doctors’ orders, a battle with opiate-induced constipation and a history of drug addiction, night terrors born of post-traumatic stress, the Jedi-like powers of General David Petraeus, and finding normalcy under falling mortars in an Afghan valley. The result is an unapologetic, self-deprecating, occasionally cringeworthy, and always candid account of loss and redemption.

Blindsided by the Taliban also features the author’s photos from the field that depict the realities of life in Afghanistan for soldiers and civilians alike.#KissedbytheTaliban

“At turns hilarious and harrowing, surreal and sobering, Blindsided by the Taliban offers an unvarnished account of Carmen Gentile’s horrific combat-zone injury and anguished recovery—one as much psychological as physical—that takes us deep into the dark heart of war and the byzantine maze of love as he searches for purpose and staggers toward redemption. Admirably bereft of self-pity, and resisting any impulse to airbrush his worst behavior, Gentile etches a bracing, incisive self-portrait of a war reporter who realizes the only way he can heal is to return to the front lines, where he will confront the enemy he fears most: himself.”—Martin Kuz, reporter for theSan Antonio Express-News











When: Mon., Apr. 30, 2018 at 7:00 pm
Where: The Half King
505 W. 23rd St.

Price: Free
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I turn to see a rocket-propelled grenade screaming toward me. The ordnance strikes me in the side of the head, instantly blinding me in one eye and crushing the right side of my face.
On September 9, 2010, while embedded with an Army unit and talking with locals in a small village in eastern Afghanistan, journalist Carmen Gentile was struck in the face by a rocket-propelled grenade. Inexplicably, the grenade did not explode and Gentile survived, albeit with the right side of his face shattered and blinded in one eye. Making matters worse, his engagement was on the ropes and his fiancée absent from his bedside.
 
Blindsided by the Taliban chronicles the author’s numerous missteps and shortcomings while coming to terms with injury and a lost love. Inventive and unprecedented surgeries would ultimately save Gentile’s face and eyesight, but the depression and trauma that followed his physical and emotional injuries proved a much harder recovery. Ultimately, Gentile would find that returning to the front lines and continuing the work he loved was the only way to become whole again.
Gentile recounts the physical and mental recovery which included a month of staring only at the ground on doctors’ orders, a battle with opiate-induced constipation and a history of drug addiction, night terrors born of post-traumatic stress, the Jedi-like powers of General David Petraeus, and finding normalcy under falling mortars in an Afghan valley. The result is an unapologetic, self-deprecating, occasionally cringeworthy, and always candid account of loss and redemption.

Blindsided by the Taliban also features the author’s photos from the field that depict the realities of life in Afghanistan for soldiers and civilians alike.#KissedbytheTaliban

“At turns hilarious and harrowing, surreal and sobering, Blindsided by the Taliban offers an unvarnished account of Carmen Gentile’s horrific combat-zone injury and anguished recovery—one as much psychological as physical—that takes us deep into the dark heart of war and the byzantine maze of love as he searches for purpose and staggers toward redemption. Admirably bereft of self-pity, and resisting any impulse to airbrush his worst behavior, Gentile etches a bracing, incisive self-portrait of a war reporter who realizes the only way he can heal is to return to the front lines, where he will confront the enemy he fears most: himself.”—Martin Kuz, reporter for theSan Antonio Express-News

Buy tickets/get more info now