Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Acknowledgments xi
4. Belated Letter to My Grandmother 1
5. What Being in the Army Did 5
6. What’s It Like? 9
7. Call to Prayer 10
8. Aubade between Deployments 11
9. 1900 12
10. Pissing in Irbil 14
11. The War Makes Everyone Lonely 16
12. Sewing 17
13. Goat in the Cleared Village 19
14. Notice and Focus Exercise 21
15. The Coffee Aisle 23
16. After Sterilizing the Canteens 24
17. My Pittsburgh 25
18. Telling You I Will Deploy Again 26
19. Days of 2009 27
20. Post 9/11 Gas Training (I) 28
21. How to Stay Awake on a Training Exercise 29
22. Survival and Evasion 30
23. Somnambulant 31
24. Breach 33
25. How to Stop the Bleeding 34
26. First Life 36
27. Medics Don’t Earn Killstreaks 37
28. Pashtu Refresher 38
29. Certificates of Training 39
30. Informant 40
31. Deserving (I) 41
32. Post 9/11 Gas Training (II) 43
33. Range Detail 44
34. Indiana-stan 45
35. Tinder Pic 46
36. Cultivating Mass 48
37. Downed Pilot 50
38. On the Evening Before My Departure 52
39. Pre-Deployment Chaplain’s Brief 53
40. The Road to Pol-e- Khomri 54
41. Tourists 56
42. Augury 57
43. 0300 59
44. Blocking an Imagined War Movie 60
45. Medical Refresher 62
46. Failure Drills 63
47. A Fable 65
48. Shura 66
49. Days of Spring, 2016 68
50. Capabilities Brief 70
51. 0500 72
52. Deserving (II) 73
53. How to Transition a Province 75
54. Self-Portrait with Wedding, Vineyard, and Gunshot 76
55. Unpracticed 77
56. Everything in Sunlight I Can’t Stop Seeing 78
57. Notes 81