I am not a fan of war memoirs, especially for wars I’ve been involved in. Reading about someone’s experiences in Afghanistan in 2011 when I was fighting that same war in 2004 leaves me more depressed about the state of American foreign policy than inspired. It seems every Navy SEAL or general officer who ever sniffed a burn pit churns out a book or two after their deployments, filled with fluffy language about the greatest men they ever served with; then there are the books politicians write about the lessons they learned passing around bits of paper in the Tactical Operations Center for a year.
Robert Bales, the former Army staff sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians, including seven children, will likely ask the president to commute his life sentence once he exhausts his legal appeals for one of the nation’s most notorious war crimes.
