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The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq
In 2003, after serving five and a half years as a carpenter in a North Dakota National Guard engineer unit, Bronson Lemer was ready to leave the military behind. But six months short of completing his commitment to the army, Lemer was deployed on a yearlong tour of duty to Iraq. Leaving college life behind in the Midwest, he yearns for a lost love and quietly dreams of a future as an openly gay man outside the military. He discovers that his father’s lifelong example of silent strength has taught him much about being a man, and these lessons help him survive in a war zone and to conceal his sexuality, as he is required to do by the U.S. military.
The Last Deployment is a moving, provocative chronicle of one soldier’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance. Lemer captures the absurd nuances of a soldier’s daily growing a mustache to disguise his fear, wearing pantyhose to battle sand fleas, and exchanging barbs with Iraqis while driving through Baghdad. But most strikingly, he describes the poignant reality faced by gay servicemen and servicewomen, who must mask their identities while serving a country that disowns them. Often funny, sometimes anguished, The Last Deployment paints a deeply personal portrait of war in the twenty-first century.
InSight Out Book Club selection
Bronson Lemer named one of Instinct magazine’s Leading Men 2011
QPB Book Club selection
Finalist, Minnesota Book Awards
Finalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library Association
Amazon Top Ten 10 Gay & Lesbian Books of 2011
The Last Deployment is a moving, provocative chronicle of one soldier’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance. Lemer captures the absurd nuances of a soldier’s daily growing a mustache to disguise his fear, wearing pantyhose to battle sand fleas, and exchanging barbs with Iraqis while driving through Baghdad. But most strikingly, he describes the poignant reality faced by gay servicemen and servicewomen, who must mask their identities while serving a country that disowns them. Often funny, sometimes anguished, The Last Deployment paints a deeply personal portrait of war in the twenty-first century.
InSight Out Book Club selection
Bronson Lemer named one of Instinct magazine’s Leading Men 2011
QPB Book Club selection
Finalist, Minnesota Book Awards
Finalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library Association
Amazon Top Ten 10 Gay & Lesbian Books of 2011
223 pages, Paperback
First published June 8, 2011
3 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 27, 2025
I’ve been meaning to read this one since I first saw it. We were friends in early college before deployments for both of us made it hard to stay in contact. He also never came out to me but the entire don’t ask don’t tell thing made that difficult. It was an awful policy that made life way more difficult than it should be for gay military members. The book bounced around a lot but it was interesting to see what the military was like for someone else.
November 28, 2021
So many times while reading this book I thought, "I know exactly how he feels." Growing up in middle America, wanting to make your parents proud, wanting to be a part of something, and having to hide your real self. A very fine book.
August 6, 2021
There's nothing to this book and at the end I couldn't figure out why it was published. It certainly has nothing to do with being gay, despite the subtitle and its publication as part of a university gay autobiography series. It's just the boring life of a guy was deployed for a year in Iraq. Nothing much happens, and there are no unusual stories, which means there really isn't a book here.
It's unclear why this is supposed to be a "gay" book--there are only a couple of paragraphs that mention his being gay as he bemoans "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Okay, big deal. He doesn't suffer from any military mistreatment, isn't harassed, and doesn't reveal his homosexuality to those who serve with him. Why should he? What does a man's bedroom habits have to do with being in the military? If he was trying to make a political point with this book he failed.
The book is even incomplete. Though published 7 years after his military service he skips over the last few months in Iraq and wraps things up so quickly you can't figure out what happened in the end. And he started the book with a story about after leaving Iraq meeting a former boyfriend, but that is never resolved as well.
I laughed when I saw it was a "finalist" in the "Minnesota Book Awards." What a low threshold whoever they are must have, since he only mentions being in Minnesota a couple times (he's from North Dakota).
I'm just unsure why this was ever published or why a university press wouldn't do a better job coaching and editing the writer, who believe it or not now teaches English at a community college! It's certainly not worth reading.
It's unclear why this is supposed to be a "gay" book--there are only a couple of paragraphs that mention his being gay as he bemoans "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Okay, big deal. He doesn't suffer from any military mistreatment, isn't harassed, and doesn't reveal his homosexuality to those who serve with him. Why should he? What does a man's bedroom habits have to do with being in the military? If he was trying to make a political point with this book he failed.
The book is even incomplete. Though published 7 years after his military service he skips over the last few months in Iraq and wraps things up so quickly you can't figure out what happened in the end. And he started the book with a story about after leaving Iraq meeting a former boyfriend, but that is never resolved as well.
I laughed when I saw it was a "finalist" in the "Minnesota Book Awards." What a low threshold whoever they are must have, since he only mentions being in Minnesota a couple times (he's from North Dakota).
I'm just unsure why this was ever published or why a university press wouldn't do a better job coaching and editing the writer, who believe it or not now teaches English at a community college! It's certainly not worth reading.
April 16, 2025
This book is chaotic--but in a good way. I feel the chaos of the scenes and the back and forth of the timeline really help to highlight the content of what the author is trying to convey. That is, the author is describing his experiences while being deployed in Iraq in the early 2000s. He juxtaposes this with his childhood of growing up in North Dakota. The timeline in the narrative is fluid, oftentimes making me pause and try to figure out where we were (childhood, adulthood before deployment, in Colorado, or actually in Iraq and then at what point in Iraq). It can be a little difficult to follow, but that is why I think it is chaotic in a good way. I think this narrative style demonstrates what the author must have felt during his deployment. Through the story, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty and chaos. By telling the story in this fashion, the author has conveyed these feelings onto the reader as well.
I do wish the author provided more narrative on his experience being gay, though I understand that it was taboo to speak about at the time. The author provides introspection on how he felt during the war and how different situations made him feel but there was little introspection on the feelings he carried as a gay man--not the feelings of having to hide but what, exactly, he was hiding and fighting not to show. It would have elevated the story quite a bit if we had been given more details about this. Overall, I would recommend this as a good autobiography to read as there are some good perspectives that are shared here.
I do wish the author provided more narrative on his experience being gay, though I understand that it was taboo to speak about at the time. The author provides introspection on how he felt during the war and how different situations made him feel but there was little introspection on the feelings he carried as a gay man--not the feelings of having to hide but what, exactly, he was hiding and fighting not to show. It would have elevated the story quite a bit if we had been given more details about this. Overall, I would recommend this as a good autobiography to read as there are some good perspectives that are shared here.
May 13, 2022
Lemer's writing is honest and straightforward. Lets us into the mind of a young, gay soldier serving in Iraq. One of my favorite memoirs!
August 11, 2011
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press (June 2011)
Pages: 221
How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq
Bronson Lemer joined the National Guard during his senior year of high school as a way to help pay for his upcoming college expenses, but he also had a secret reason for joining. For years he had lived in the shadow of his more athletic brothers, and because Bronson was gay, he felt the need to do something dramatic to prove to his parents that he was his own man. He wanted to make the family proud of him. He chose the National Guard because he assumed he could do his one weekend a month and never be sent to war. He was wrong.
In 2003, after being trained as a carpenter and serving five and a half years in the North Dakota National Guard’s engineering unit, Bronson was deployed in Iraq for a year. He left behind college, his family, and a lost love. He found himself in a war zone that he and his fellow soldiers called ‘The Sand Box’ – living in tents, sand everywhere you looked, 120 degree temperatures, and constant apprehension about the impending dangers.
Bronson spent a year in and around Bagdad using his carpentry skills to help rebuild the city. He had a deep conviction to aid the Iraqi people, but the longer his deployment stretched out, the more he felt the US military was doing more harm than good. On a more personal level, he struggled because of a lack of support structure. He didn’t have the close family ties, a wife or long-time girlfriend that most other soldiers had. He felt a need to reveal his sexuality to his buddies, so that they would understand him. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. His only release was in the form of letters to his lost love.
The Last Deployment is a well-written, often provocative memoir of the author’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance.
If you are looking for gun battles and roadside bombs ripping limbs from bodies, then you should keep looking. The author never came under fire. This is a tale of internal struggle and the absurd nuances of a soldier’s life in the ‘Sand Box’. It is more about loneliness, fear and fitting in than guns and battles.
The author spent very little time talking about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I recall only one place where he summed up his views about it as: The policy creates an environment where it is OK to ridicule someone because of their sexuality because gay men and women cannot stick up for themselves or others without fear of being ostracized and outcast, and that is the last thing a soldier wants during a deployment. The policy reinforces ignorance and stupidity by forcing the people who are gay—the ones who would speak up and support gay men and women when others were ridiculing them—to keep their mouths shut. It also stifles a community that cannot grow, trust, or support each other because some of the members aren’t allowed to speak up or express who they are.
Being a gay man who spend four years in the navy, I was also surprised that Lemer didn’t talk about falling in love/lust with any of his fellow soldiers. That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with while in the military: feeling love for my buddies but being unable to divulge it in any way. What Lemer does express repeatedly was a feeling of not fitting in, mainly because he had to hide so much of himself. Now that was something I related to perfectly.
Lemer's chronicles of a soldier’s daily life in the ‘Sand Box’ make for an interesting and poignant read. It is also a strong argument why the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy harms morale, rather than doing any good. Regardless of how you feel about the war, this memoir is well worth reading. I can highly recommend it to all readers.
Pages: 221
How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq
Bronson Lemer joined the National Guard during his senior year of high school as a way to help pay for his upcoming college expenses, but he also had a secret reason for joining. For years he had lived in the shadow of his more athletic brothers, and because Bronson was gay, he felt the need to do something dramatic to prove to his parents that he was his own man. He wanted to make the family proud of him. He chose the National Guard because he assumed he could do his one weekend a month and never be sent to war. He was wrong.
In 2003, after being trained as a carpenter and serving five and a half years in the North Dakota National Guard’s engineering unit, Bronson was deployed in Iraq for a year. He left behind college, his family, and a lost love. He found himself in a war zone that he and his fellow soldiers called ‘The Sand Box’ – living in tents, sand everywhere you looked, 120 degree temperatures, and constant apprehension about the impending dangers.
Bronson spent a year in and around Bagdad using his carpentry skills to help rebuild the city. He had a deep conviction to aid the Iraqi people, but the longer his deployment stretched out, the more he felt the US military was doing more harm than good. On a more personal level, he struggled because of a lack of support structure. He didn’t have the close family ties, a wife or long-time girlfriend that most other soldiers had. He felt a need to reveal his sexuality to his buddies, so that they would understand him. But, of course, he couldn’t do that. His only release was in the form of letters to his lost love.
The Last Deployment is a well-written, often provocative memoir of the author’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance.
If you are looking for gun battles and roadside bombs ripping limbs from bodies, then you should keep looking. The author never came under fire. This is a tale of internal struggle and the absurd nuances of a soldier’s life in the ‘Sand Box’. It is more about loneliness, fear and fitting in than guns and battles.
The author spent very little time talking about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. I recall only one place where he summed up his views about it as: The policy creates an environment where it is OK to ridicule someone because of their sexuality because gay men and women cannot stick up for themselves or others without fear of being ostracized and outcast, and that is the last thing a soldier wants during a deployment. The policy reinforces ignorance and stupidity by forcing the people who are gay—the ones who would speak up and support gay men and women when others were ridiculing them—to keep their mouths shut. It also stifles a community that cannot grow, trust, or support each other because some of the members aren’t allowed to speak up or express who they are.
Being a gay man who spend four years in the navy, I was also surprised that Lemer didn’t talk about falling in love/lust with any of his fellow soldiers. That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with while in the military: feeling love for my buddies but being unable to divulge it in any way. What Lemer does express repeatedly was a feeling of not fitting in, mainly because he had to hide so much of himself. Now that was something I related to perfectly.
Lemer's chronicles of a soldier’s daily life in the ‘Sand Box’ make for an interesting and poignant read. It is also a strong argument why the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy harms morale, rather than doing any good. Regardless of how you feel about the war, this memoir is well worth reading. I can highly recommend it to all readers.
September 4, 2011
Until about two or three years ago I rarely, if ever, read nonfiction. However, as time passes I find myself more and more interested in it. This read I picked up through the Insightout Book Club. It was actually part of an automatic shipment that I forgot to decline, and I figured I would keep it when I discovered the other book in the shipment was one I wanted anyway. I’m very pleased that I decided to keep it, because I ended up reading this book first.
Bronson Lemer is a former soldier with the National Guard who just six months shy of completing his commitment to the Guard, he is sent to serve in Iraq for a year. As a gay man under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, he has to keep his sexuality a secret or face ostracism and possible discharge from the military.
I thought the book was brilliantly written. Lemer does not focus solely on being a gay man in the military. In fact, there are times when I forget that he IS gay, because he discusses the life any solider faces when they are serving in a foreign country. He is often not a gay man, but a young man who with each passing day finds he does not want to be in the military, a young man who questions his country’s motives for sending him to Iraq, and a young man who just wants to be at home with friends and family. He wonders what he could possibly do to help the country when he can’t even help a woman get help for her injured son.
When Lemer does discuss being a gay man in the military, I found it very insightful. He discusses how he at first tries to live two separate lives: one as a gay man, and one as a solider, but finds it increasingly difficult to separate the two. It is no wonder any man or woman coming back from service finds it difficult to connect to someone. They are so far removed from situations like that, that it must be foreign to them.
There are many flashbacks to Lemer’s childhood and other times while he talks about his experiences in Iraq. Things that remind him of other events lead to little anecdotes about something else. This style of writing makes it more conversational, and therefore more readable. A few times throught the book, he also adds short letters he either wrote or drafted in his head to his ex-boyfriend, a man he is talking to at the beginning of the book who he was convinced he still loved. These personal touches let me see even more into the man that the author is.
The book is alternately hilarious and depressing. When he is talking about the men he lives with and how their tent comes to be known as The Gas Chamber, I was laughing hysterically. Then a few short chapters later I quickly sobered when I read the end of the “Vets” chapter.
By the end of the book, I want to know more about Lemer. I want to know more about his time in Iraq, what he’s doing now, and if he’s found someone to love. I wonder if any of the men in his platoon ever figured out he was gay, or if he would tell them if he saw them again. I also wonder what happened to the men he served with. Through his story, I not only go to know him, but the other men, and their stories affected me just as much.
This is an excellent read, and one everyone should read. It reveals the difficulties of a gay man serving under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the trials of an American solider in Iraq at the start of the war, and how quickly men become brothers in a difficult situation.
Bronson Lemer is a former soldier with the National Guard who just six months shy of completing his commitment to the Guard, he is sent to serve in Iraq for a year. As a gay man under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, he has to keep his sexuality a secret or face ostracism and possible discharge from the military.
I thought the book was brilliantly written. Lemer does not focus solely on being a gay man in the military. In fact, there are times when I forget that he IS gay, because he discusses the life any solider faces when they are serving in a foreign country. He is often not a gay man, but a young man who with each passing day finds he does not want to be in the military, a young man who questions his country’s motives for sending him to Iraq, and a young man who just wants to be at home with friends and family. He wonders what he could possibly do to help the country when he can’t even help a woman get help for her injured son.
When Lemer does discuss being a gay man in the military, I found it very insightful. He discusses how he at first tries to live two separate lives: one as a gay man, and one as a solider, but finds it increasingly difficult to separate the two. It is no wonder any man or woman coming back from service finds it difficult to connect to someone. They are so far removed from situations like that, that it must be foreign to them.
There are many flashbacks to Lemer’s childhood and other times while he talks about his experiences in Iraq. Things that remind him of other events lead to little anecdotes about something else. This style of writing makes it more conversational, and therefore more readable. A few times throught the book, he also adds short letters he either wrote or drafted in his head to his ex-boyfriend, a man he is talking to at the beginning of the book who he was convinced he still loved. These personal touches let me see even more into the man that the author is.
The book is alternately hilarious and depressing. When he is talking about the men he lives with and how their tent comes to be known as The Gas Chamber, I was laughing hysterically. Then a few short chapters later I quickly sobered when I read the end of the “Vets” chapter.
By the end of the book, I want to know more about Lemer. I want to know more about his time in Iraq, what he’s doing now, and if he’s found someone to love. I wonder if any of the men in his platoon ever figured out he was gay, or if he would tell them if he saw them again. I also wonder what happened to the men he served with. Through his story, I not only go to know him, but the other men, and their stories affected me just as much.
This is an excellent read, and one everyone should read. It reveals the difficulties of a gay man serving under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the trials of an American solider in Iraq at the start of the war, and how quickly men become brothers in a difficult situation.
September 10, 2011
Better than I thought it would be--the memoirist culture around America's contemporary wars is a work in progress, and this represents roughly the middle of the road. No moto bullshit here, and the author's voice is really marked by how young he comes across in his reflections on his life and service in the National Guard. His was not a world of significant experience before he was deployed to Iraq, and it shows in how he struggles with his conflicted feeling about the military, about his place in the system, and being in the closet about himself in the company of his fellow enlisted.
Probably the best aspect of his book was a reflection on how he changed his behaviour to better fit in with the group, and how he liked it more than he wanted to; that's a piece of self-awareness that is often missing in military memoirs, and it was well portrayed here. But the pacing of this book was choppy, and Lemer could have used a stronger editing hand to help develop a more compelling internal narrative.
It's hard to critique a memoir--you're effectively critiquing someone's account of their own experience, and who are you to say it didn't occur in such a way?--but even so, "The Last Deployment" is middle of the road and won't whet anyone's appetite to get further into the genre.
Probably the best aspect of his book was a reflection on how he changed his behaviour to better fit in with the group, and how he liked it more than he wanted to; that's a piece of self-awareness that is often missing in military memoirs, and it was well portrayed here. But the pacing of this book was choppy, and Lemer could have used a stronger editing hand to help develop a more compelling internal narrative.
It's hard to critique a memoir--you're effectively critiquing someone's account of their own experience, and who are you to say it didn't occur in such a way?--but even so, "The Last Deployment" is middle of the road and won't whet anyone's appetite to get further into the genre.
August 8, 2011
Enough time has passed to give Iraq War veterans perspective on their experiences, and the continuing war gives books about Iraq satisfying relevancy to readers. Lemer's book offers sharp insights into life as a soldier in Iraq. The more we can hear about these stories, the more we can understand what's going on over there.
But this isn't simply a memoir of military service. Lemer's identification as a gay man in the National Guard contributes an added layer of depth to what is already an interesting story. Lemer is brave enough to put a face to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and describes how that affects not only him, but the military as a whole. The book ought to give every reader pause regarding the effects the policy has on our military men and women and their families.
The book is nicely written with strong use of metaphor that helps us "see" Lemer's life. He describes his family and childhood in North Dakota with emotion and clarity. It's clear the author has a strong writing background and he has come up with a well-crafted story.
But this isn't simply a memoir of military service. Lemer's identification as a gay man in the National Guard contributes an added layer of depth to what is already an interesting story. Lemer is brave enough to put a face to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy and describes how that affects not only him, but the military as a whole. The book ought to give every reader pause regarding the effects the policy has on our military men and women and their families.
The book is nicely written with strong use of metaphor that helps us "see" Lemer's life. He describes his family and childhood in North Dakota with emotion and clarity. It's clear the author has a strong writing background and he has come up with a well-crafted story.
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November 14, 2016From Beth F.: "In 2003, after serving five and a half years as a carpenter in a North Dakota National Guard engineer unit, Bronson Lemer was ready to leave the military behind. But six months short of completing his commitment to the army, Lemer was deployed on a yearlong tour of duty to Iraq. Leaving college life behind in the Midwest, he yearns for a lost love and quietly dreams of a future as an openly gay man outside the military. He discovers that his father’s lifelong example of silent strength has taught him much about being a man, and these lessons help him survive in a war zone and to conceal his sexuality, as he is required to do by the U.S. military."
February 1, 2013
Very good read showing how everyone becomes equal when donning a uniform while serving in our armed services. Narrative while in Iraq and back in the States are equally compelling. Very personal and real.
July 5, 2011
A moving story of one man's life in the military, hiding his innermost self from his comrades because he is gay.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews