A Marine's Reaction to a Children's Book Prompts an Apology From the Publisher

Bell’s reaction was unsparing, reflecting his uneasy relationship with his own service in the Afghan war and his surprise upon seeing his children, after a visit to the local library’s children’s section, puzzle over the same bloody deployment that had defined a period of his life. It was not that he was opposed to discussions with his children about the war; he is preparing for the day when he will have these discussions firsthand. It was that the book seemed too light, and presented fictional scenarios where real facts would do.

“The choose-your-adventure format,” he wrote, “felt breezy and cavalier, recklessly presenting a bloody contest between the Taliban and the Marines in a manner largely devoid of consequences. I know what the book did not say. My friends and I killed in Marjah, and Marines in my rifle company lost limbs and lives. No notional exercise in choice will erase the fact that both my battalion and the battalion to our north killed many civilians in the opening days of Operation Moshtarak, when American high-explosive rockets struck occupied Afghan homes. Then, in the end, American plans for the area failed. Today Marjah is again under of the control of the Taliban and warlords.”

This initial surprise — of having as his daughters encounter his war in their own home — was only the start. A week after the essay ran, an email from Patricia Stockland, Capstone’s publisher, landed in Bell’s inbox.

Stockland was direct. “I want to personally apologize for the line we crossed with our War in Afghanistan You Choose book,” she wrote, “and for the disrespect and, as you rightly described it, breeziness of its approach and tone. Your recent piece in The New York Times was humbling, articulate and very much a wake-up call for us.”