My Life as a Foreign Country A Memoir Author:Brian Turner A war memoir of unusual literary beauty and power from the acclaimed poet who wrote the poem ?The Hurt Locker.? In 2003, Sergeant Brian Turner crossed the line of departure with a convoy of soldiers headed into the Iraqi desert. Now, each night beside his sleeping wife, he imagines himself as a drone aircraft, hovering over the terrains of Bosni... more »a and Vietnam, Iraq and Northern Ireland, the killing fields of Cambodia and the death camps of Europe?a landscape of ongoing violence, revealing all that man has done to man. In this breathtaking memoir, Turner retraces his war experience? pre-deployment to combat zone, homecoming to aftermath. Free of self-indulgence or self-glorification, his account combines recollection with the imagination?s efforts to make reality comprehensible. Across time, he seeks parallels in the histories of others who have gone to war, especially his taciturn grandfather (World War II), father (Cold War), and uncle (Vietnam). Through it all, Turner paints a devastating portrait of what it means to be a soldier and a human being.« less