The Immaculate Invasion
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Widely celebrated upon its original publication in 1999, National Book Award–winning writer Bob Shacochis’s The Immaculate Invasion is a gritty, poetic, and revelatory look at the American intervention in Haiti in 1994.In 1994, the United States embarked on Operation Uphold Democracy, a response to the overthrow of the democratically elected Haitian government by a brutal military coup. Bob Shacochis traveled to Haiti for Harper’s and was embedded—long before the idea became popular in Iraq—with a team of Special Forces commandos for eighteen months and came away with tremendous insight into Haiti, the character of American fighters, and what can happen when an intervention turns into a misadventure. With the eye for detail and narrative skills of a critically acclaimed, award-winning novelist, Shacochis captures the exploits and frustrations, the inner lives, and the heroic deeds of young Americans as they struggle to bring democracy to a country ravaged by tyranny. The Immaculate Invasion is required reading, essential for anyone who wants to understand what has happened in Haiti in the past and what will happen in the future. Amy Wilentz ...Shacochis proves that he is a writer of rare grace and intuition....[H]is goal is not to be objective. His goal is to tell the truthas best he can....The issue the book raises most successfully is...what role can the United States Army play in the post-Vietnam war...era if its greatest concern in any operation is the safety of its own personnel? —The New York Times Book Review
Glossary ixPreface xvMap of Haiti xviiiPart 1 The Day You See Me Fall Is Not the Day I DieVodou Rhythms 3Repression Works 12Cowboy Heaven 25Talking Heads: Swing 34Crackdown 36Part 2 Our Work Is as Old as Our CountryThe Great Voodoo War 51Prelude to an Ass Whipping 53The Way In 60The Price Is Right 67Talking Heads: Schrager 73The Way In-Act Two 75The Way In-Parallel Universe 82Infil 89Part 3 LiberationInside the Manifestation 97Flamingo 108Immaculate Invasion 114Field Notes 124Here's My Ass (Come Beat It If You Can) 125Talking Heads: Miller 131Inside the Manifestation-Act Two 132Talking Heads: Miller 140Through the Wire 143Talking Heads: Jones 149Whose Side When 152Talking Heads: Schrager 156Part 4 Operations Other Than WarThe Imaginary Colonel 161Field Notes 168The Limbé Muddle 169In Vitro Democratization 178Field Notes 186Unstable and Insecure 187Preparations for the Second Coming 193Field Notes 199Le Borgne 200Guerrillas in the Myths 206Field Notes 213Life with Commandos: You're Lucky I Don't Shoot You 214The Chicken Takes Back the Egg 220Part 5 Baby-sitting Ogoun FerailleField Notes 235Soldiers (New and Used) 236Field Notes 242Crimes of the Century 243Volunteers and Granola Munchers 251Field Notes 257Bitchfest 258Santa Claus Absolved 264Field Notes 268How to Cook a Captain 269Portaprens 279Mission Sag 283Field Notes 292Ansanm, Ansanm, Nou Se Lavalas (Together, Together, We Are the Flood) 294Fictions 302Ogoun Feraille, the God of War 309Exfilration 321Part 6 Beyond the MountainTalking Heads: Master Sergeant Frank Norbury and Captain Garth Estadt, ODA 344 331Hope 333311 Redux-Wildebeests 335The Poet of Savanette 343Tet Caylé 347The Legendary Whatever 352Limbé, Finé 356Madonna and Child in Hell 360Happy Anniversary 364It Always Ends This Way 369EpilogueTalking Heads: General Dick Potter 377Sandy's Slide 379Big Eaters 387Afterword 395Acknowledgments 417Index 419
