[From Max] I’ve just been talking to a childhood friend. We were in Boy Scouts together from the time we were little. I’ve known him almost all my life. I lost touch with him a few years ago, after he went to Iraq. My mother mentioned him from time to time.  I was peripherally...

[From Max]   “Incoming!!!” I wasn’t even awake.   I came out of a dead sleep screaming the word.  I was clothed and in my boots in less than a minute.  Out the door.  Rifle in hand.  The kid in the bunk next to me shuddered awake.  He was pulling a boot on as I flung the door...

[From Max] It gets worse here every day.  ”Fighting Season” hasn’t quite arrived, but nobody ever told the Taliban. The only difference is they’re stepping up their game.  They’re upping their numbers.  Every week I see more complex tactics, techniques and...

[From Max] I lay in bed for hours with my earphones in, unable to sleep.  The daytime world hammers on outside the tent.  Saws and hammers.  Rotary wing. I can separate Chinooks, Apaches and Kiowas by sound. I roll in my bag, lingering in that drowsy state between exhaustion and sleep.  My...

[From Max] I lose track of the days here.  I have to look at my watch to tell Monday from Wednesday from Sunday.  I’m convinced that they come in random order: Tuesday, Friday, Yesterday, Today . . . The weather gets warmer and the days keep coming.  The bad guys come too. Even if I could...

[From Max] Fourth of July weekend arrived, and the Georgia heat was in full press.  I was in the middle of Airborne School, and I was eager for a break.  Temperatures pushed into the triple digits and the humidity was unbearable.  After a week on the Swing Landing trainer, I looked forward...

[From Max] I woke in a daze, curled up meekly beneath my motel sheets.  It took a moment for the outside world to register, and I fumbled for my phone. No messages. I reached for the TV remote and thumbed my way to the news without crawling out from under the covers.  I needed food and...

[From Max] I slept through the afternoon.  Ten hours straight.  The sleeping pills keep me down despite the helos that whip overhead all day, every day.  I took my first shot of caffeine as soon as I woke.  I rolled into the Operations Center, groggy and squinting, and fumbled with the...

[From Max] I spent a week in limbo.  The transient tent was a windowless time warp cluttered with metal bunks and duffle bags.  The other occupants were a motley group; there was a line squad, a couple of interpreters, and a team of Guardsmen from rural Alabama. The night I arrived we were...

[From Max]  I kicked rocks around the FOB for a few days.  I had no job.  No hard times to meet.  I was an Army of One.  I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I decided to do nothing. I went to chow.  I went to the gym.  It was a makeshift little building stuffed with ropes...

[From Max]  It was freezing when I stepped off the back of the chopper.  There was no snow, but mountains loomed in every direction.  If it was cold when we left, an few thousand more feet weren’t helping. It took two trips to move my gear through an ancient looking gate in a...

[From Max] The Chinooks staged on the hammerhead in a staggered pair.  My guys piled their gear to one side as we waited to manifest.  People scurried in every direction.  Air crew.  Ground crew.  Soldiers. I checked my kit one last time and counted off my guys by touching each of them on...