War Stories

At one point during the service, a friend led Hawkeye, JT’s faithful chocolate Lab, to the military casket sat draped with its American flag.

As the steppe turns to mud and the skies to low cloud, Russia trades men for meters while Ukraine adapts, holds its hubs, and waits for the freeze.

In McGarvey’s, the jukebox glowed like a field altar, each slot a dog tag on a guitar string, and Marcus realized the living keep the dead in tune.

I didn’t teach Kamal to swim; I taught him to harness fear until it pulled him across ten feet of water like a tide he commanded.

When the line broke at Unsan, Father Emil Kapaun moved toward the fire, pulled the wounded to life, and showed men that leadership starts at the point of impact.

Visualizing what life will look and feel like after you do something is a powerful experience. I wanted that T-shirt.

I missed my family terribly, yet as we set the conditions for others to carry on, I felt bound to Iraq by hard-won trust and wondered if leaving would betray the mission and the family of man we had become.

We hire writers who drop the truth like a breaching charge , then stand in the smoke and own it.

Marcus Luttrell was the lone survivor of Operation Red Wings, an operation that went sideways, resulting in the loss of 19 servicemembers.

On Saint Michael’s Day in Ramadi, Mike Monsoor chose the blast so his brothers could breathe, proof that character is built in quiet reps long before history calls your name.

A day after the Mogadishu firefight, Delta’s A Squadron lifted in to bolster a bloodied Task Force Ranger—17 Americans killed, 106 wounded, and Gary Gordon and Randall Shughart earning the Medal of Honor.

After the winter rains, the Shia south unfurled like a green flag—desert lakes flashing in the morning sun, children in new clothes racing our convoys, vendors offering kabobs, and every smile saying the same thing: Saddam is gone.