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James McGreevy's first tour of duty in Iraq left him feeling so angry that the University of Utah surgeon and Air Force reservist contemplated how he might go about renouncing his citizenship.
But by the time McGreevy returned from his second trip to Iraq, last month, something had changed.
Sure, things seemed to be going better at the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, where the number of casualties had significantly decreased since McGreevy's first visit in 2006 - but that wasn't what shifted his perspective.
It was a book.
By far, those fighting America's ongoing wars are the most literate generation of G.I.s in the nation's history. They also have unprecedented access to news and literature about the conflicts in which they are involved. And that is changing the way war is considered by those of whom Alfred, Lord Tennyson, once wrote: "Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die."
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Changing perspectives: Steven Coll's Ghost Wars might seem an unlikely tale to have lifted McGreevy's confidence in the justness of the war in Iraq. The incisive narrative tells the story of the CIA's Cold War involvement in Afghanistan and details how those covert efforts stoked the flames of the Islamic fundamentalist militants that the United States is now fighting around the world.
But McGreevy, commander of the 419th Medical Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, said he had finally found a "rational explanation" for the carnage he had witnessed during his first tour in Iraq.
"I am relieved to find an explanation for this Iraq war in international terms instead of seeing it as an action on the part of greedy oil men," he said. "So I am less angry and less upset over things beyond my control."
Coll's book, he noted, showed generations of U.S. failures and scores of factors that played into the rise of men like Osama bin Laden.
But regardless of how those men came to power, McGreevy said he finally concluded that their threat to the United States is real - and must be confronted. "We need to address this threat somewhere," he said. "I am still not sure that Iraq is the correct place, but maybe it is the most convenient place."
Struggling to understand: Every day, Dana Tucker struggles to better understand the factors that led his country into war with Iraq and the challenges that remain now that he and thousands of other troops are fighting there.
Currently stationed in Numaniya, about 70 miles south of Baghdad, where he helps train Iraqi police officers, Tucker's extensive reading list includes many books that challenge the notion that U.S. leaders had a good idea of what they were getting into when they chose to invade Iraq.
Among the books that have most affected the Provo resident's thinking on the conflict in which he is currently involved is Thomas Rick's extremely critical Fiasco, which Tucker called "the most informative" of any work he has read on the subject.
But Tucker isn't a malcontent. Rather, the Army major - who holds a Ph.D. in psychology - said works that identify the military's failures are of vital importance for service members to study. And he said increased literacy among military members has important implications to fighting a war that changes so rapidly. Now, he said, "when leadership says 'we're trying a new way, get your counterinsurgency manual out and put it to work' I think we've been able to do that. The higher rate of literacy means not only do we write the manual, but we read it, and when circumstances permit, we've been putting it into action."
Coming home: Jordan Gillis went to Iraq with an ambitious literary plan: He wanted to read all of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner's novels. For the Atlanta resident, who spent a year in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi with a Utah-based National Guard artillery battalion, reading was an important distraction from the rigors and dangers of war.
Back home, facing the difficulties of readjusting to civilian life, Gillis found another benefit to literature - not to escape the effects of war, but to help put those effects into perspective.
It was famed historian Steven Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers that helped the most, Gillis said. The book, a chronicle of the experiences of ordinary soldiers in World War II, "was a nice reminder that practically a whole generation had been through this - coming home, readjusting, etc. - before and turned out to be all right," Gillis said.
Reading into the war: Most of the works distributed through the Armed Services Editions program - in which hundreds of thousands of free, pocket-sized books have been distributed to service members stationed overseas - have some value as military texts.
The program's titles include Allen Mikaelian's Medal of Honor, Shakespeare's Henry V, Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Andrew Carroll's War Letters.
But Carroll, a writer, editor and reading advocate whose efforts are credited with reviving the book giveaway, which began during World War II, said the books he most often sees on the shelves of service members when he travels to U.S. military bases across the globe are science fiction novels, thrillers and mysteries.
"In some ways, I think, that's to escape the subject of war," Carroll said. "And that's understandable."
But Carroll, who is most well known for his passionate devotion to the collection of war correspondence from all eras of conflict, said there's no way to miss the fact that today's service members are the most well informed about the conflicts in which they are engaged.
Not only do they have unprecedented access to books about war, he said, but they also have a wider choice of other media - including online news sources, satellite television, weblogs and movies.
All of those things challenge their thinking - not only about war, he said, but about life.
"One thing troops don't get enough credit for is how philosophical they are," Carroll said. "They think about larger issues.
They reflect on these things in their letters home and there is an enormous amount of wisdom and insight on issues of grief, resilience, hope and empathy."
And they're coming home to write about those very issues, Carroll said.
He noted that hundreds of service member-authored books already have come out of the current conflicts - yet another collection of literature to challenge the minds and comfort the souls of future generations of service members.
James McGreevy, commander of the 419th Medical Squadron at Hill Air Force Base, said a book he had read helped him find a "rational explanation" for the carnage he had witnessed in Iraq. The soldiers' access to war literature is a valuable source of information and analyses.
From the memoirs of infantry soldiers to the musings of combat journalists to the analyses of academics, there is no lack of published insights into Iraq and Afghanistan. Want to better understand the intricacies of the current wars? Here are a few good places to start.
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell
John Crawford
A gritty, disturbing, lyrical story from the first year of the American-led occupation of Iraq.
Ronin
Mike Tucker
A Marine sniper platoon fights insurgents and military bureaucrats - and is left wondering which is deadlier.
The Sandbox
Gary Trudeau
The funny, tragic, angry and philosophical blog entries of a number of service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, compiled by the author of Doonesbury.
The Long Road Home
Martha Radditz
A compelling narrative about the battles fought at war
- and those fought on the homefront.
Fiasco
Thomas E. Ricks
You can't possibly fit everything that went wrong in Iraq, after the U.S.-led invasion, into one book, but
Ricks does a pretty good job of hitting the high points.
Ghost Wars
Steve Coll
A sigh-
inducing account of how the CIA's actions in Afghanistan helped bring about the rise of the very terrorists the U.S. is now fighting around the world.
The Occupation of Iraq
Ali A. Allawi
An Iraqi political insider knocks the U.S. government for its failures in securing the peace after
deposing of Saddam.
A History of Iraq
From Sultan Abdulhamid II to Saddam Hussein, a primer on Iraq through the U.S. invasion.