In honor of Armed Forces Day, the Capital City Arts Initiative invites you to attend a reading by Iraq veteran and writer Caleb Cage at the BRIC, 108 E Proctor Street, Carson City.
The reading will take place Saturday, May 17 at 5pm. The free event is part of CCAI’s Books & Writers series co-sponsored with the Carson City Library. CCAI and the Library enthusiastically invite everyone to attend the reading.
Caleb Cage said that he and his colleague, Gregory Tomlin, wrote The Gods of Diyala: Transfer of Command in Iraq because “We believed at the time that our soldiers had done an extraordinary job transitioning from an artillery unit into a riflemen’s platoon for a wartime mission …” — a fact he says they still believe today.
He said, “It was an incredibly dangerous and complex task, and they, mostly young men in their teens and twenties, stepped up. We wanted to capture that story for ourselves, and for them.” The book was written at first in journal entries and emails by the co-authors. When they returned from the deployment in 2005, they began the lengthy editing process.
Caleb Cage was born and raised in Reno, Nevada. He attended the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, where he studied American History, followed by service in the U.S. Army from 2002 until 2007. Upon graduation in 2002, he was commissioned as a Field Artillery officer and was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division in Bamberg, Germany, for a three-year tour. During this period, he served as a company executive officer and later as a motorized rifle platoon leader in the city of Baqubah, Iraq. Less than a year after returning to Germany, he received orders to return to Iraq, serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom IV as an Information Operations officer for Multinational Corps-Iraq.
He has been working on several books since publishing The Gods of Diyala. He is currently writing a book about the narratives that inform the national understanding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how we need to challenge that awareness.
Cage has served as the Director of the Nevada Office of Veterans Services, a Senior Policy Advisor for rural and veterans’ issues for the Lieutenant Governor. He currently directs veterans and military policy in the Office of the Governor. Mr. Cage lives in Reno with his family.
The Capital City Arts Initiative is an artist-centered organization committed to the encouragement and support of artists and the arts and culture of Carson City and the surrounding region. The Initiative is committed to community building for the area's diverse adult and youth populations through art projects and exhibitions, live events, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online projects.
CCAI is funded in part by the John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, City of Carson City, Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, U.S. Bank Foundation, the Comstock Foundation for History and Culture, and the John and Grace Nauman Foundation.