Volunteers: Growing Up in the Forever War

U.S. Marine Corps veteran Alexander debuts with an immersive if uneven account of life in the modern military. Raised on bases in the U.S. and Japan—his mother, father, and stepfather all served in the Air Force—Alexander knew early on that “I would have my own little sliver of the American war story.” He describes firing blanks from a Humvee turret as a boy, dressing up in “hand-me-down fatigues” and throwing tin-foil grenades at playmates, and becoming fascinated with Vietnam War stories while ignoring their warnings about “battlefield horrors that might chew me up and spit me back out again.” Over his father’s objections, Alexander joined the Marines in the late 1990s and in 2005 was sent to Iraq, where his stepfather had fought in Operation Desert Storm. Blending criticism and reverence, Alexander describes the military as “a vehicle for self-respect” that “can be its own worst enemy, its rigid attitudes, spartan traditions, and demands for conformity getting in the way of reason.” Though the descriptions of his combat experience in Iraq tend to be overwrought, and his motivations remain somewhat obscure, even to himself, Alexander incisively captures his growing disillusionment with the military. The result is an earnest yet inconclusive examination of “how war has entrenched itself into the larger American landscape.” (Nov.)