More than 2.7 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001, and C.J. Chivers reported on both wars from their beginnings; for his New Yorker article on a veteran, he won the Pulitzer Prize. Expanding on that profile, here Chivers vividly conveys the physical and emotional experience of war as lived by six combatants: a fighter pilot, a corpsman, a scout helicopter pilot, a grunt, an infantry officer, and a Special Forces sergeant. Capturing their courage, frustration, and suffering, Chivers explores how America's invasions gave way to counterinsurgency duties for which our forces were often not prepared.