“Warbody: A Marine Sniper and the Hidden Violence of Modern Warfare” by Joshua Howe and Alexander Lemons
c.2025 / W. W. Norton / $29.99 / 304 pages
One hundred eleven crunches in two minutes.
That’s gut-busting, but it’s a good score for a Marine. Your Uncle Sam will be happy; he wants you to be a physically fit specimen, a part of the machine that represents, serves and protects, and you won’t let him down. That’s a soldier from head to toe, mind, soul and, as in the new book “Warbody” by Joshua Howe and Alexander Lemons, broken body.
The friendship between Joshua Howe and Alexander Lemons was, at first, a little bit on-and-off. Howe was a professor at Reed College in Portland; Lemons took some of his classes in 2012, before abruptly disappearing. Six years later, while Howe was researching the role of toxic minerals in foreign policies, Lemons returned. Shortly afterward, Howe learned that Lemons, a veteran, had been diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning stemming from his tours in Iraq.
Howe proposed a collaboration.
The summer after the Twin Towers fell, Lemons — a boy raised by “three Mormon farmwomen” — enlisted in the Marines. He didn’t do it for 9/11, but because he learned that life was nothing but a trail of sacrifice. He had a college degree, but he didn’t go the “officer route” because he wanted to work his way up. In the end, he took leadership roles anyway.
And while he did, from boot camp to Iraq and back, Lemons was exposed to dozens of modern chemicals.
“In 2014 alone,” said Howe, “the United States used more than 85,000 metric tons of lead in military and civilian ammunition…” and Lemons absorbed some of it as lead dust, breathed in, swallowed, absorbed through his skin. He took in jet fuel fumes, molecules from burning garbage, pollutants carried by other soldiers, dust from Iraq’s soil, dead bodies, asbestos and “toxic molds from leaky buildings.”
Stress caused Lemons to become anorexic. He repeatedly got food poisoning, and he struggled to find clean water. And after this, after all the toxins he took in, said Howe, “it would take Alex another 15 years to begin to unravel its tangled knots.”
There are a dozen emotions to cycle through when you read “Warbody.” Anger is a big one. Fear, if you love a veteran. Curiosity. Pride. Trauma, if this book hits particularly close to home, so take that as a warning.
Authors Joshua Howe and Alexander Lemons take turns in telling this tale, Howe in the science side of it, Lemons in the war side. Each complements the other in making readers understand why we should know what they share, why it’s relevant today, why news reports may only tell half the story, and why things may be much worse than we know. There’s no holding back on either side of this book, and Lemons’ experiences are real and matter of fact; candy-coating isn’t a feature here, either, so a strong stomach can be a good idea.
Again, beware that this tale may be triggering for some, so use caution. Conversely, however, readers who devour modern battle accounts will find “Warbody” is a good score.
