This is one of the worst books that I have ever read. If I could give it a half a star I would. I would not recommend this to anyone. The whole time I was reading this book I was thinking that there had to be some point to it besides the writer attempting to show that war is pointless, that America is a failure and that life sucks, but thats essentially the point of the whole book as far as I can tell.

The writer paints such a grim and hopeless picture that I felt like I was either going to cry or shoot myself by the end of the first chapter. He glosses over the good things that happened, the moments spent bonding one human being to another and instead focuses on acts of intolerance, racism, violence, and needless death.

He takes every horrible moment suffered by about 800 soldiers in a 15 month span and covers it in detail, and manages to mention maybe two things that wouldn't be the worst day of someones life in the entire book. I have been to Iraq as part of a combat unit in the Army and this is garbage. Read One Bullet Away or something else instead.

He managed to write a book that at the same time portrayed American's as worthless, greedy, weak, selfish, racists, and Iraqi's as stone age, Neanderthal, violent, wastes of flesh. The fact that this won a Pulitzer Prize makes me think less of that as an award, either that or it makes me think less of the quality of American writers.

If I ever meet him I think that I'll spit on him. No joke. I can't think of anything else that would make me feel better besides maybe breaking both of his kneecaps. I honestly can't think of what is wrong with this man. Thankfully, this was for some reason I can't fathom a book given to me and that I was required to read, so I didn't waste money on it, only time.