A prizewinning "New York Times" correspondent chronicles a remarkable chain of events that begins with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continues with the attacks of 9/11, and moves on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"A novel about two American lieutenants stationed in Iraq--both a love story and an account of a mission gone terribly wrong--written in reverse"--

Mike and Kate Blaise fell in love during high school in small-town Missouri. Sharing a deep sense of patriotism, they both entered the U.S. Army--she as a commissioned officer and he as an enlisted infantry soldier who later became a helicopter pilot with the Air Cavalry. Forced to accept the realities of a military marriage yet determined to stay with her husband, Kate passed up her dream assignment in the United States to be with Mike, who was deployed...

When a young girl disappears near a community in the Adirondacks, the people of the town of Carthage must face the fact that an Iraq War veteran is the prime suspect.

As bombs and missiles fall on Baghdad in 2003, a young boy uses the art of calligraphy to distance himself from the horror of war.

Recounts Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejia's experiences as the first publicly known conscientious objector to the Iraq war, exploring how he became a symbol of the antiwar movement in 2004 and choose to go to jail rather than fight in a war he did not believe in.