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The War Horse
My Army Service Required Embracing the Suck—and Squeezing in a Few Good Laughs
Serving in the military is a lot of things. Absurd and funny are definitely part of the story.When people think about service, they think about combat or embracing the suck, and they are not wrong. However, my experience in the Army…
Shooting the War: A Marine Combat Photographer Remembers Fallujah
Photos by CPL. TREVOR GIFTOne Christmas morning, Trevor Gift’s parents gave him a 35 mm film camera. He started shooting photos for the high school paper, and when he saw Full Metal Jacket, in which the main character became a combat…
Leg Irons, Memories of Service, and What Might Have Been Echo From Behind Bars
Editor’s Note: This story was published in partnership with San Quentin News and was written during a writing seminar for incarcerated veterans in April hosted by The War Horse at California’s San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Tens of…
Q&A: Twenty Years after Fallujah – ‘I Hope They See It As a Cautionary Tale’ The War Horse…
The War Horse’s coverage this month of the 20th anniversary of the Second Battle of Fallujah is deeply personal.Our founder, Thomas Brennan, deployed to Iraq two decades ago as a young Marine barely out of boot camp. Within months, his…
Twenty Years of Fallujah A Timeline of the Battles and Beyond
Coalition forces conduct a 12-hour air bombardment focusing on the city’s south and southeast to mislead the insurgents about the direction of the attack. After the airstrike, U.S. troops follow with artillery or mortars. Next,…
My Platoon’s Fight To Survive—and Heal From—The Bloodiest Battle in Iraq A Marine Platoon’s…
November 10, 2004Crossing Fran
Javelin missiles shriek through the sky. Machine gunners fire from the rooftops. Artillery thumps in the distance moments before a thunderstorm of steel rain pours around us.
Phase Line Fran was a…
“No One’s Gonna Make It Out of Here” Watch My Platoon Recall Fallujah, the Iraq War’s Bloodiest…
In November 2004, I was a 19-year-old lance corporal assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. We were at al-Asad, an air base in Iraq, when we were told to pack only what we could carry. We strapped our packs to the sides of…
Silence Was My Father’s Fortress. I Shared It for a Time Until Poetry Set Me Free.
I grew up on Air Force bases overseas, bouncing from one country to another. While most mothers were marking heights on kitchen door frames, mine was packing cupboards and taping boxes for yet another move. My father was a pilot, his plane…
Q&A: How, When and Can the U.S. Military Be Deployed in American Cities around the Election?
In this highly polarizing and deeply consequential election season, law enforcement and intelligence groups have been warning that violence or unrest poses a threat to Tuesday’s election—and what could come next.We’re already seeing it:…
At 24, I Tried Not to Make Waves. Ten Years Later, I Wish Had a Do-Over.
Ten years ago, I wandered into my first military spouse hiring fair. My resume read Honors College, summa cum laude and included a section at the bottom that read recently passed a secret-level background check, but my lack of work…
Play Hard. Get Dirty. Use Good Saop.