Gravel Soldiers

Terry Iwanski’s memoir, Gravel Soldiers is a candid account of the author’s life that will have readers engaged within the first few pages. The book starts with the author explaining what gravel soldiers are—the little pieces of gravel grinding under his sneakers that “sounded as if a thousand little soldiers” were marching with him. The author refers to his “gravel soldiers” several times throughout the book.

With an abusive father and a mother who allowed the abuse, Terry finds that he has anger issues growing up as well. He develops both alcohol and drug addictions to cope with his internal issues. Terry is also somewhat of a sex fiend and for a large portion of the book is having sex with woman after woman even after he is married with children.

The book is written at a good, solid pace—not too fast and not too slow—and gives the right amount of details in the right places (well, mostly). I could have done without him describing women by how many handfuls their breasts were. Terry’s family background is what sets the pace for this book and reading about his struggles which started at an early age was very heartbreaking. As a delinquent and known troublemaker in school, Terry is looked down upon by teachers and other kids. It’s not until he reaches his late teens and drops out of school that he starts to get smart about life. One of the things that Terry should be respected for is that he was always working or going to school to try and better himself. In many parts of his life, I felt like he was a puppy trying to doggy paddle his way upstream. Life was tough and Terry made it harder on himself via the situations he got himself into even though that wasn’t necessarily his intention.

The best part of the book was the part where he meets his wife Cici. As I continued to read Terry’s story, I kept saying to myself, please don’t mess this relationship up, please don’t. Cici seemed like a wonderful, caring person, and a great match for Terry.

Overall, Gravel Soldiers is a well-written memoir that flows well off each page. Terry’s story of his seventy-one years of life is one of much action, adventure, dysfunctional relationships, a loving relationship, and well, a whole lot of sex and cars (and of course, Clyde, his Harley). I would recommend this book to any adult male who wants to read about Terry’s adventurous life.