Author F. Scott Service releases two memoirs, Playing Soldier and Lines in the Sand, each tied to his deeply personal experiences before, during, and after the Iraq War

January 22 18:12 2021

Playing Soldier and Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier’s Personal Journey in Iraq by F. Scott Service have now been released worldwide. Both books, arresting with their honesty and unique writing style, are deeply personal excursions into the author’s life, exploring his search for meaning, his resilience in the face of strife and turmoil, and his steadfast determination for the reclamation of identity before, during, and after his tour of duty.

Wide-ranging in scope, Playing Soldier boldly dives into his troubled childhood, military service, and the rock bottom moments in adulthood that forever changed his life. Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier’s Personal Journey in Iraq, originally published in 2015 and now released in its second edition, is a transcription of the handwritten journals kept during the author’s tour of duty and a raw lens focused on the damaging effects of war. 

Playing Soldier (ISBN: 9781735818634) and Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier’s Personal Journey in Iraq (ISBN: 9781735588063) may be purchased through retailers worldwide, including barnesandnoble.com and Amazon. The paperbacks retail for $16.99 and $16.50, respectively. Wholesale orders are available through Ingram. 

From the back cover of ‘Playing Soldier’: 

As an only child isolated within a troubled family, F. Scott Service found solace in fantasy and imagination, until a fateful day led to the discovery of his father’s Korean War field jacket hidden in a closet. What began as innocent emulation and approval, eventually spiraled into the calamitous loss of everything he had built as an adult. Faced with a grievous divorce, post-traumatic stress, homelessness, substance abuse, and the failure of everything he had willed himself to believe was truth, one night communing with a loaded pistol became the mechanism for self-clarity. From that darkest time, only elemental deconstruction and reconstruction of identity would allow him to forge a reclamation with his true, original self.

Visceral, with breathtaking candor, Playing Soldier powerfully captures the unlearning of expectation, the celebration of individuality, and the nourishing of self-acceptance once buried by cultural stamps of approval and societal convention. Braided with humor, courage, fear, despair, and hope, his unflinching, evocative story of passage into adulthood, the Iraq War, and beyond, speaks to anyone who has confronted adversity from without and grappled for their dreams from within. 

From the back cover of ‘Lines in the Sand: An American Soldier’s Personal Journey in Iraq’:

For F. Scott Service, a five-minute phone call on a peaceful morning was all it took. Faced with the terrible dichotomy of his moral opposition to war and an innate sense of duty, little did he realize that when he was called for deployment in Iraq that this would be a tour of duty destined to change him forever. 

Witnessing the violence of a country ravaged by chaos and facing the disintegration of his life back home, his sojourn in Iraq forced him to fight a new battle within himself. What had once been a noble intention became a desperate struggle to salvage what was left of his humanity, an excursion into the darkest recesses of the human mind that ultimately led him to question everything he had come to believe. Pushed to the edge, only then would he discover what lay within. 

About the author:

A former sergeant with the Army National Guard, Scott is a full-time author and lives in New England. In his spare time, he tends his garden, cooks, backpacks, travels, and rides his mountain bike. You may connect with him at his website: www.fscottservice.com

About MindStir Media:

MindStir Media LLC is an award-winning book publisher. To learn more about publishing a book with MindStir Media, visit http://mindstirmedia.com or call 800-767-0531.

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