Redeployment by Phil Klay

Looking for gritty, heart-wrenching, punch-in-the-gut stories with great writing? Look no further.

The common thread in this collection is the absurdity of what men face in Iraq (the author doesn't take up women in the war zone). It's not anti-war per se. The stories are personal, in the tradition of Tim O'Brian's The Things They Carried. The stories range from a Catch 22-like satire about a misguided donation of baseball gear in a war-torn area to a re-integration story that includes a soldier's first trip to the mall after a tour to a clergyman's helplessness in the face of all the fear and death on the front lines.

I read this book as research for a new series I'm writing, but it's good enough to recommend to anyone who wants to start to understand what's going on in Iraq. Well worth the read.