

It was the summer of 2007. A platoon of Army tankers rolled into Baghdad for The Surge, a last-ditch effort by U.S. forces to dislodge insurgents from Iraq's capital. The soldiers were forced to abandon conventional tactics in the face of a shadowy enemy who did not fight...

It had been a few weeks since the first time outside the wire. Soldiers got picked off by small-arms fire and IEDs, but they were from other platoons. Word of mouth transmitted the news. It was like a rude remark made at a kitchen table, out of nowhere, finding out somebody you...