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Elliot Ackerman served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He currently splits his time between Washington, DC, and southern Turkey, where he writes on the Syrian Civil War. His novel Green on Blue is forthcoming from Scribner.
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What Did Our Generation Learn in Iraq and Afghanistan?
COMMON GROUNDThe link between national sacrifice and war-making has become increasingly foreign. It was once essential.
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Tim O’Brien on What We All Can Learn From ‘The Vietnam War’
The author of ‘The Things They Carried’ talks about the importance of the newest Ken Burns documentary, and how relevant the war is today.
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How Denis Johnson Chased the Epic American Novel
R.I.P.Never quite as famous as he deserved to be but always taking his readers on jarring and unexpected journeys, novelist Denis Johnson moved between the real and the surreal.
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Beast Fiction: Dark at the Crossing
THRESHOLDAn excerpt from Elliot Ackerman's latest novel, a love story set along the Turkish-Syrian border amidst the ongoing civil war.
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The Man Whose Words Shaped Our Wars
Leatherneck Tap DancesWhen asked what it was like to fight in Fallujah, I have yet to come up with an explanation that’s better than, “Exactly like the battle scenes in Full Metal Jacket.”
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Am I Safe in Turkey?
Anatolian AngstA former Marine in Istanbul fears that his family is now at risk in a NATO country—and pretty much everywhere else.
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How the Longest War Ate Its Children
BOOK EXCERPT<p>In <i>Green on Blue</i>, his debut novel, Elliot Ackerman looks at the war in Afghanistan from the Afghan point of view. Read a passage from this extraordinary fiction.</p>
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I Shot Bin Laden
GeronimoBEAST FICTION: I shot Bin Laden but first he shot me. Then I got the dinner at Applebee’s, bad dreams and a nervous Stomach.
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Watching ISIS Come to Power Again
War CrossingAt the Syrian-Turkish border, only a few miles from where Steven Sotloff was kidnapped, the first sign of ISIS was man whose fingers were chopped off.
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Airstrikes and the U.S. Strategy to Combat ISIS
Elliot Ackerman calls in to CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin to discuss why airstrikes are not a strategy for the U.S. in Iraq, and what the strategy for combating ISIS should be.
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