ABSTRACT
In 2003, I was living in a small German city that happened to host a US army base, and friends I had made there were preparing for the invasion of Iraq. At the time, Secretary of State Powell and others were saying that no final decision to attack Iraq had been made, but the Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles being loaded onto German freight trains suggested otherwise. As Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld aptly put it on September 12, 2001, “I’m inclined to think if you’re going to cock it you throw it” (AP Staff 2001). I attended a few demonstrations against the war, and helped my best friend pack his bags for Kuwait. While the soldiers were gone, I stayed in touch with families who lived at an army family housing community, and after the invasion of Iraq got going, I followed the men I knew through the tangle of terror and bureaucracy that constitutes a soldier’s life.
