At twenty-one, Melissa Burch is an aspiring young filmmaker and war correspondent. It's 1982, and she takes an assignment to go into Afghanistan to film the mujahadeen fighting the invading Soviet troops. It's hard, dangerous trip, and she finds herself making the trip into the mountains as the only woman with a small troop of mujahadeen. That wasn't the plan; Maria, the more experienced woman who arranged this and was supposed to be traveling with them backs out at the last moment. She's decided that one more trip into the Afghan war zone is just pushing her luck too much.

Burch persists, and develops a real camaraderie with the troop. Yet when she winds up filming footage that gets edited to combine real combat with an essentially staged attack on an already-downed helicopter to make a CBS report that she believes doesn't represent the truth of the conflict, she feels frustrated and used.

Nevertheless, she learns a lot about her ability to face hardship and danger, and it's the start of a journey of personal growth. It's also not her last, longest, or hardest trip into Afghanistan.

Back at home in the US, we follow her professional struggles as well as her family troubles. Her parents are divorced, and her mother drinks while her father has remarried and become a Buddhist--which sometimes has the effect of making him seem a bit distant and detached. She tries to balance her own needs with the guilt she feels for having left her younger brother and sister to cope with their mother on their own. And hardly a year has gone by before she's on her way back into Afghanistan, this time with the hopeful intention of filming a truce between one major mujahadeen commander and the Soviets, showing it's possible and, she imagines, influencing global policy.

It's a frustrating, disillusioning, and yet enlightening journey. She has harrowing experiences and unexpected joys and successes. And when she is home again, there's both more enlightenment and more harrowing emotional experiences.

There were times I wanted to shake Burch and tell her both to be less of a patsy, and to stop using others. Yet a great deal of that is because she's trying hard to be painfully honest about her mistakes and failures as well as her successes, both personal and professional. In the end, she comes out the other side a stronger, better person.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Melissa Burch’s story is based on her experiences as a freelance journalist during the Afghan War. When she was only 21 years old, Burch, and her cameraman, was on her to become the first journalist to capture the mujahedeen rebellion against Soviet invaders on tape.

The book opens with Burch sleeping a dirt floor with seven heavily armed Afghan soldiers, ranging from 19 to 20 years old. The tales of journey through Afghanistan will cause the hair on your arms to stand on end. The relentless heat, hunger and fear never left her. The hiding from the Russian soldiers was perilous and terrifying. She must have covered the entire country either on horseback, motorbike or foot. I felt her pain as she described a march through the rocky, mountains with Afghan soldiers

There was on anecdote where she and he soldiers were hiding when the Soviets were passing by. They had no sooner left the safety of the deserted compound, than it was blown up.

One of the things that surprised me about Burch’s time is Afghanistan was that she was never raped. A lone woman traveling with many men had to be vulnerable. Not to say that she didn’t take up with one of the leaders, but it seemed more mutual consent.

My favorite parts of the book were after her return to the States. Maybe it was because I could relate more to that experience.

I approached Burch’s memoir with a bit of negativity. Earlier this year I had tried to read Malala Yousfzai’s I am Malala. I was prepared to be pulled into to that story, but I didn’t past page 50. I was a little afraid that I might experience the same issue with My Journey Through War and Peace: Explorations of a Young Filmmaker, Feminist, and Spiritual Seeker. But from the opening scene that I described earlier, I was hooked. Although places were a little choppy, but it is riveting.

I give My Journey Through War and Peace: Explorations of a Young Filmmaker, Feminist, and Spiritual Seeker 5 out of 5 stars. ( )

My Journey Through War and Peace by Melissa Burch is a memoir that is also meant to serve as an example of how one's life experiences can assist in one's spiritual journey. This book is less about preaching how to join the physical and the spiritual journeys, that is left to the perceptive reader to largely understand since we all have different ways of understanding.

While I found the memoir quite interesting I was probably less captivated by the spiritual implications. That isn't to say I didn't make some connections that helped me to understand my own journey but that this was primarily, for me, a memoir about a remarkable young woman's adventures while making her own distinctive path in life.

I have been on her email list and have found her outreach to others to be very positive and helpful. While this book shares many things with her spiritual endeavors, I still tended to separate the two.

I would recommend this to readers who like memoirs and particularly those interested in a woman's experiences in a combat environment. For those familiar with Burch the spiritual aspect will also be of strong interest.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

My Journey Through War and Peace is the true story of a young woman’s dramatic quest for adventure as a photojournalist in war-torn Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In 1982, at the age of twenty-one, Burch took a freelance assignment in Afghanistan to film the mujahedeen rebellion against Soviet invaders. It is within this framework that she reveals both her outward and inward journey for peace—both in the world during The Cold War and within herself.

With unbridled honesty and vivid imagery, she unveils her humanness with all its desires, fears and naivete as she doggedly pursues her dreams. Not only am I pulled into her story, but I am right there with her as she navigates the rugged terrain of a foreign country. Her characters are believable and multidimensional and the plot flows seamlessly as I follow her, sometimes cringing because I can relate to the well-intentioned but misguided choices of my own twenties.

Through a multi-layered narration, her Afghanistan adventures become a metaphor for discovering her personal spiritual journey where she seeks and unveils meaning and direction in her life. This memoir illuminates a significant phase in our history and immerses us in another culture. We get an insider’s view of the Afghan people during The Cold War. It helped me put the current unrest into a historical context. It also reinforced for me how stepping outside our comfort zone is often the way we find ourselves.

A moving and well-written memoir with a powerful message about the journey to find self. I highly recommend this engaging and satisfying read that will make you think about your own spiritual journey. ( )