Peter van Agtmael's Journey Through War

Stateside
After a night of drinking at a memorial to a brother-in-arms felled in action in Afghanistan, a comrade collapses onto a bed at a Holiday Inn in Wiscasset, Maine, where members of the platoon had gathered for his burial. "At first they were happy and sociable," van Agtmael writes, "but soon they were weeping. At closing time, two of the most intoxicated soldiers got into a fight, and one tried to rip the other's ear off with his teeth. By morning, one of them was still too drunk to attend the service and he was left alone to sleep in the chartered bus."

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