Nick McDonell returns from his stint embedded with the 1st Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army bearing a stunning account of the war in Iraq from the ground level. The novelist and Time correspondent offers an unforgettable look at the way things stand now-at the translators stranded in a country that doesn't look kindly on their cooperation, at the infantrymen struggling to make something out of the soft counterinsurgency missions they call chai-ops, at the commanders inured to American journalists and Iraqi officials both-and what the so-called "end of major combat operations" means for where they're going. Commenting on a war now unfolding under its second commander-in-chief, McDonell highlights the paradoxes that the military forces and Iraqi civilians encounter daily.
 
 
Nick McDonnell Nick McDonell is the author of three novels, most recently An Expensive Education. He has reported from Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere for Harper's, Libération, and other publications.