Babylon by Bus

Babylon by Bus is a book about two Red Sox fans who quit selling "yankees suck" t-shirts and went to Baghdad to help nation build and to find meaning. This book is nothing like the Bob Marley album with the same name, except for that it's good and is worth reading. (Obviously you'd have to listen to the album, but I recommend doing that too.)
My friend turned me on to this book, as he is a friend of the authors Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann. It is both interesting and relevant and reads like a guide of what not to do when living in a combat zone. That might be a little exaggerated, but these guys do what most people would like to do, but don't have the guts, stupidity, or smarts. I'm not sure what these the guys are, but one thing is for sure and that is they are rich in experience and have a hella story to tell.

The book is about Jeff and Ray who decided that going to Baghdad to help out with nation building seemed like a good idea, so they went. Once there, they started working for the U.S. government “fielding complaints and requests for aid from a city of more than five million people.” This proved to be a great job for meeting good people in a bad location. People who are willing to put their lives on the line to help others, which some in fact did. Their story plays out in Baghdad and gives the reader a good insight of what it was like there in early 2004, before the kidnappings and what is now called the civil war. It foreshadows what was about to come, but at the same time it gives the reader hope. I recommend reading it.