"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss.
In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city.
In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger.
Bound together since basic training when their tough as nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality blurs into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.
