"Anything but Ordinary" is not a "war story". It started as nothing more than a jumbled collection of random notes by retired Marine Colonel Plauche "Joe" St. Romain about the people he met, things he saw, and his war-time and peace-time experiences in the Marine Corps across the globe over a 29-year period. He wrote it, as he tells it, for no other reason than to have something to read when and if his memory failed him. It would have remained nothing more than a jumbled collection of notes until a fellow Iraqi war vet read it and told him he should turn it into a book.
It is a story millions of American veterans could tell, and a story millions of Americans should hear, because it is the story of the everyday service by the men and women in uniform, in this case, a Marine officer. There are undoubtedly similar stories which could be told by Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Coasties and other Marines. The author encourages you to ask veterans about what they did; you never know what you might hear.