In U.S. Militarism and the Terrain of Memory: Negotiating Dead Space (Taylor & Francis, 2024), John Bechtold examines how the US military understands information and the media as a contested terrain. Focusing on the assaults on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, Bechtold shows the efforts the US military went through to make sure it was able maintain control over the battles’ narrative. This effort is more than public affairs and trying to shape how others understand the operations. Just like the military will fight over physical terrain, Bechtold argues that the military understands the information space and the news media as places of contestation that it must work to control. Using examples ranging from official memorialization efforts by the military to Luis Sinco’s photograph of James Blake Miller (the “Marlboro Marine”) to Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, this book shows how the assaults on Fallujah are remembered in US military history. Moreover, Bechtold shows how the military set the conditions for the Battle for Fallujah to remembered.
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