Even before I returned home from serving as an infantryman in the U.S. Army, which included two combat tours in Iraq between 2006 and 2009, I was searching for ways to contextualize my experience. My questions weren’t ponderous or existential; they were pointed and, I believed, answerable. One was why units like mine were assuming responsibilities far beyond their traditional roles of eliminating the enemy in close-quarters combat. We assisted in the investigation of crimes. We helped rebuild infrastructure. We handed out water and gasoline and worked to reconstruct civil society in a country we knew little about. …read more
Source: The Atlantic
