The most eloquent and personal story of a young man at war since Geoffrey Wellum''s FIRST LIGHT
Until a winter evening in 1998 Nathaniel was just another history student on a comfortable career trajectory of high school to college to white collar job. Then he went to a lecture by a Wall Street Journal reporter who had just published a book on the US Marines. It brought forth a latent desire to break free of the ''seat belt and safety goggle, safety-first'' culture: to be a warrior. He passed the gruelling selection course and joined the Marine Corps on graduation. Posted to a Marine Regiment in the wake of 9/11, he took part in the invasion of Afghanistan, then led a platoon of their elite Recon Battalion during the invasion of Iraq.
This is not a book about the Iraq invasion as such: it is an articulate and deeply thoughtful young man''s account of what it means to fight in the frontline, to risk not just death or injury, but psychological harm. He reveals some
