So, here are things that I knew about Chelsea Manning before reading this book:

• She is a transwoman who was in the US military during Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
• She leaked some documents
• She went to prison for leaking some documents

But, I knew there was more to the story than those things so when her memoir came up in my recommendations, I thought it would be a good idea to check it out. Manning narrates the audiobook, and hearing her story in her own voice made it feel very personal. She discusses growing up in Oklahoma, realizing she was trans, and the problems that caused for her at school and at home (although she didn’t come out as trans for a long time.) She talks about being interested in computers and finding a community. She talks about coming out. She talks about being homeless. She talks about struggling with being trans and how the army, with its enforced masculinity, was part of an effort to change something about herself. She also discusses at length her ideals, what brought her to join the military, and what eventually brought her to share classified documents with Wikileaks. The memoir then discusses her time in prison and the military trial that initially gave her a 35-year prison sentence. This was later commuted by President Obama before he left office in 2017.

I liked how Manning’s humanity is always front and center in this memoir. I mean, as a memoir, how else would it be? But still, as someone who doesn’t have a lot of interaction with military personnel, this reminder that they are individuals with their own problems, concerns, and ideas. I also learned a little bit about how intelligence gathering works, which was at times interesting and appalling. Thinking about what kind of information the government can and does track about people, for various reasons is something that I’m going to be considering for a long while.

I think transparency and a knowledgeable public are important for our democracy, and looking around the world today, with the US in the middle of a Presidential election and ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine (And Sudan and Congo and many other places where my attention hasn’t already been drawn), thinking about what America’s role is on the world stage and how information and the public back home is managed is important. I am glad that I read this, even if it was at times a very difficult read. Her time in prison and the descriptions of solitary confinement were brutal.

So, if you are interested in contemporary American history and would like to hear about it from someone who was involved, this is worth the read. But, go into it knowing that there are descriptions of solitary confinement, homelessness, war crimes, and mentions of suicide.