From GoodReads:

Phil Klay’s Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos.

From Phil Klay’s blog:

Phil Klay is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in Iraq’s Anbar Province from January 2007 to February 2008 as a Public Affairs Officer. After being discharged he went to Hunter College and received an MFA. His story “Redeployment” was originally published in Granta and is included in Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, the New York Daily News, Tin House, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012.

When I started reading “Redeployment” I was horrified at the language and writing style which reminded me of a C-student in a slow track in high school. But the story itself is tragically interesting. After reading more chapters I realized that each chapter is written in the voice of some particular character. Here are some examples of some chapters:

• REDEPLOYMENT: Told by an uneducated young man who volunteered.
• FRAGO: Description of a house raid.
• AFTER ACTION REPORT: Timhead’s first kill is a young boy and he suffers a lot of anguish.
• BODIES: Lonely Marine at home visits his former girlfriend.
• OIF: An unreadable satire featuring the military alphabet soup of acronyms.
• MONEY AS A WEAPONS SYSTEM: American bureaucrat in Iraq eventually learns the impossibility of getting anything done.
• IN VIETNAME THEY HAD WHORES: Frank discussion of the sexual practices of military personnel.
• PRAYER IN THE FURNACE: Military chaplain gives his side of the picture.

So far the above chapters cover about half the book and the list goes on.

“Redeployment” may be worth your time for the content rather than the several styles.

But the summary remains the usual: War is hell and destroys soldiers, especially the ones who physically survive.