Soldiers of God: An Excerpt

by Kelly Clancy

The story behind my first graphic novel, Soldiers of God, is one not usually highlighted by common accounts of the war on terror. I had been teaching English in a small village in Turkmenistan for over a year when one of my brightest students disappeared out of the blue. I was shocked by the rumors that he had left the country to join an extremist group. Smart, successful people don’t become suicide bombers, do they? Not long after, I learned that one of my best friends from high school had lost both legs and an arm to an IED while working as a medic in Afghanistan, and our small town was devastated. I myself had never seen a battlefield, or interviewed a terrorist, or ever been asked to give up anything much for my country at all. But I wanted to write a war story from a different perspective, to give voices to the families and communities these soldiers had left behind — the people and places that these soldiers were fighting for.

Soldiers of God is available at Amazon, and all proceeds are divided between two charities that serve the communities this book touches on: The Turkmenistan Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to providing college scholarships to exceptional Central Asian youths, and which is pushing a major fundraising effort this month to provide tuition for their newest scholar, Natasha; and the Disabled Veterans Charitable Service Trust, which provides services to disabled veterans and their families.

Kelly Clancy studies neuroscience at UC Berkeley.