On the eastern outskirts of an Iraqi town called Nawduman lay a concrete foundation that had been poured into a shallow depression in the unforgiving ground. Ten inches thick, fifty feet by fifty feet, the pad hardened in the late-morning sun, the orange paint templating the location of vents and pipes and walls turning paler by the hour.

Second Lieutenant Tommy Brook scraped the sole of his boot down the edge of the concrete. The edge held its shape. He stepped onto the pad and surveyed the craggy desert that extended in every direction, undulating dunes scarred by veins of rocks and pebbles that time hadn’t yet ground into sand. The mountains to the north were too far away to see, as were the cities of Jalawa, Khanaqin, and As Sadiyah. There was no sign of the greenery that emanated from the Sirwan and Alwand rivers just a couple of grid squares away, only the gnarled, thirsty branches of haphazard desert shrubs.

The only visible terrain feature of any significance was the road that bisected Nawduman—two paved lanes, running northeast and southwest, that were crucial to the mission of the 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. Even on its own, Main Supply Route Albany was enough to make the tiny town matter.

In six months, this would be the site of a horrible tragedy, the second most significant event of Brook’s young life. For now, it looked like opportunity. He lifted his kevlar helmet to let some of the sweat in his hair evaporate, then set it back on his skull and used his thumbs to create some space between his body armor and the uniform underneath, also soaked with sweat. The weather during the battalion’s first two months in country had been mild, but May signaled the start of four months of sweltering heat. The temperature was already north of 80 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing.

A dog appeared from a narrow alley and ambled toward Brook, its nose low to the ground, sniffing. Its ribs showed through its short brown fur. Dogs didn’t do well here, and Brook wished he had a bit of food to offer. Even if he had, though, it might not have been a good idea. Training feral dogs to come running whenever the platoon moved through the area would cause more problems than it solved. The dog looked up. Brook stood still. The dog turned and began sniffing its way back toward the village.

Private First Class Greg Heeley, the platoon radio operator, stepped onto the concrete foundation, grunting under the weight of the bulky machine in his rucksack. He was a bony Appalachian kid, all elbows and shoulder blades, but he could walk forever and ever. Nobody in the platoon could out-march him.

He let a stream of brown dip-spit fall into the sand next to the foundation. “Doesn’t look like much, sir.”

“It’s not, in the grand scheme.” Brook pointed at a squat gray building with the end of his rifle. “It’ll be a tiny plant. This town only has a population of about five hundred.”

“Then why here?”

Brook admonished him with a look. The relevance of the terrain should have been obvious, even to a private. “Come on, man.”

“Fine, sir, but what I mean is does higher really think a water-treatment plant is gonna be the thing that secures this whole corridor?”

“It’s not just one thing, Heeley. And it’s not just about this corridor. A people are capable of a lot when they don’t have to worry about clean drinking water.”

“Could be there are bad guys living in this town, though.”

“Could be. But I’m certain there are good guys too.” Brook checked his watch—10:13 hours. The contractor was late. “Radio the 4 truck and tell Sergeant Gomez to send Oscar out.”

Two of 2nd Platoon’s Stryker vehicles—green, eight-wheeled personnel carriers shaped like boats, each one with a .50 Cal machine gun on top—were stationed down the road in either direction. Another, Brook’s own vehicle, had taken a position next to a crumbling cinder-block wall on the north side of town, just out of Brook’s eyeline. The fourth sat in the open dirt to the south. Dismounted soldiers were spread out around the concrete pad and posted near buildings close to the road.

Heeley keyed the handset clipped to his helmet strap and relayed the order. After a few moments, the heavy rear hatch of the platoon sergeant’s Stryker groaned open, thudding dully into the sand. Sergeant Delpit walked down the ramp, followed by the platoon’s interpreter, Oscar, his black mustache visible even at a distance. They crossed the barren terrain, chatting, until Delpit stopped short and doubled over as if Oscar had said something hilarious. After a moment he straightened up, and they came the rest of the way.

“Sir.” Delpit remained on the ground, while Oscar stepped up to join Brook on the pad. “Would you please tell Oscar he’s a cot-damn idiot?”

Brook laughed. Delpit was an invaluable soldier, an obvious lifer who had managed to keep his sense of humor, though it tended to disappear in guys who took war seriously. When he inevitably got promoted to Staff Sergeant and had to move on to a senior scout position, it would be a tough loss for the platoon.

“Not without good reason.”

“He says Iraqi women are the best-looking chicks in the world.”

“No,” said Oscar, waving both hands in front of his chest. “I said Kurdish women! Kurdish women.”

“Don’t matter,” said Delpit. “Until you’ve been to Georgia, I don’t want to hear shit about it.”

“But same as me, you haven’t seen.”

“I don’t need to. I know what I know. Plus I got the internet.”

Both men looked at Brook, wanting his judgment. Brook liked that they trusted him already. He’d only just met them, really, officially assigned to the platoon the day before they’d left the staging area in Kuwait to helicopter into Iraq. His was the story the instructors always tried to hammer into every cadet at West Point, and then into all the cherry lieutenants at the Armor Basic Officer Leader Course: be prepared the minute you leave, because you might fall ass-backward into a platoon-leader spot on deployment. When that was exactly what happened to Brook, he kept quiet, listened and learned, and slowly took the reins from Sergeant First Class Gomez. Now he was beginning to feel that this was, in fact, his platoon.

“You guys can fight that one out between you.”

“You don’t want to make a case for girls in New York, sir?” asked Delpit.

Brook smirked. “Wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

A tall bus appeared in the distance, approaching on the road from the north. Radiant heat from the pavement caused the air in front of it to shimmer. These buses were common on the road. The squadron’s area of operations included a section of the Iranian border, and MSR Albany was part of the route between Iran and important Islamic historical sites in Baghdad. The buses were full of religious tourists—pilgrims.

The bus slowed as it approached the first Stryker position. Brook sympathized with the driver. What would it be like to have foreign soldiers pointing weapons at you when you were just going about your day, doing your job? Fear was constant, even as the war was, allegedly, winding down. He wished, for the sake of the good people, which was most of them, that it wasn’t necessary to show force all the time. But it was. Not keeping your guns up was the best way to become a target.

When it became clear that Brook’s soldiers weren’t going to stop him, the driver accelerated, flying through the town and past the second Stryker vehicle.

Brook checked his watch again—10:20 hours. “We told the guy ten o’clock, right?”

“Yes,” says Oscar, “but time here, you know, it’s not the same.”

“Call him.”

Oscar took a black flip-phone out of the shoulder pocket of his uniform and dialed. Brook listened as he barked in Arabic at the man on the other end. Brook understood none of it, but he liked the sound of Arabic, and Kurdish too. Oscar spoke both. The languages crackled, like sparking electrical wires.

So far, Oscar had been an excellent interpreter, hardworking and loyal, and Brook was happy that he got to wear the same uniform as the rest of the platoon’s soldiers. When he wasn’t on duty, staying on base, he lived nearby in Khanaqin. In some ways, he was risking even more than they were.

Oscar hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. “Ten minutes.”

Twenty minutes later, the contractor’s silver Peugeot pulled off the road and parked in the dirt next to the foundation, kicking up a cloud of tan dust.

As he watched the balding man approach in sandaled feet, smoking a cigarette, Brook worried that he’d made a mistake in awarding Hassan the contract. But he reassured himself by recalling the enthusiasm Hassan had showed when they went over the project’s scope of work. He’d wanted to talk details at length, everything from the PSI of intake pipes to the composition of the awning cover—and, yes, of course there had to be an awning cover; Hassan was sure its absence in the plan must have been an oversight on the part of the American Army. Brook had listened as Oscar translated, without absorbing any of the specifics, but he’d allowed himself to be taken by the man’s passion. Afterward, Hassan had argued over the cost of his services, as was the custom, but his heart hadn’t seemed to be in it, as if the money were just an afterthought. He went through the motions, they settled on a number, and, when he left, Brook had been convinced that this was their guy.

“As-salamu-alaikum,” said Brook now.

“Wa-alaikum-salaam,” replied Hassan, touching a hand to his heart.

They shook hands, and Hassan offered Brook and Oscar a cigarette. They both accepted and lit up. The three of them stood smoking on the concrete, the sun beating down. Brook and Hassan spoke, while Oscar translated.

“The foundation looks good,” said Brook.

“Excellent,” said Hassan. “It’s the most important thing. Now the plant can proceed.”

“We’re doing a good thing for this town.”

“And for the villages nearby. They will benefit from not needing to go to Jalawa or Khanaqin for water. The bottles, they get expensive. And there are days like today: I tried to buy water, but there were no bottles, not in any store. That is why you must forgive my lateness.”

Brook turned to Heeley. “Radio the truck and have someone bring a case of water.” He looked back at Hassan and said, “Since the foundation is good, you’ll start this week.”

“Inshallah.”

God willing. Brook’s jaw tightened. Hassan said it less than most Iraqis he’d met, but the phrase was still one of his least favorite, a ubiquitous and impenetrable excuse.

“Inshallah,” he echoed.

Traffic on the road had begun to pick up, an intermittent flow of cars and trucks moving in both directions.

Corporal Conser appeared with a case of two-liter water bottles balanced on his shoulder. When he was sure Hassan had seen them, Brook told Conser to put them on the hood of the Peugeot. Hassan bowed to Brook and thanked him.

The dog had wandered into view again, cautiously exploring the town’s outskirts that had been changed so dramatically by the presence of 2nd Platoon’s soldiers. One of the guys bent and extended a gloved hand. The dog sniffed at it, then shied away.

“We need to speak about the completion date,” said Brook.

Hassan’s smile melted. He took out another cigarette. “We have signed a contract. The first of September was agreed.”

“That won’t work. You know that won’t work.”

After he’d translated this, Oscar shot Brook a sidelong look.

Hassan started talking, waving his hands, curls of cigarette smoke disintegrating in his fervor.

Brook touched his arm. “Ramadan begins on August eleventh. For a month, the work will slow down. To rush is to fail. So I want you to take more time—aim to finish on October first. One extra month will make it perfect.” Brook took his hand off Hassan’s shoulder and put it over his own heart. “Inshallah.”

Hassan’s eyes widened. He took a drag of his cigarette, nodding as he blew smoke out of his nose. “Yes, yes. This is for the best. It is wise. Inshallah, this is the best way.”

“We won’t fall short,” said Brook, “and you won’t be late.”

For the next few minutes, they wandered around the site, discussing how the project would proceed. Hassan became animated by enthusiasm again, and Brook relaxed. They scheduled another meeting in two weeks, and Brook promised he would bring his Troop commander, Captain Rogers, to check on the progress. “Soon after that,” he added, “we’ll be able to invite the squadron commander to see what you’ve accomplished.” Hassan’s chest swelled visibly at the thought of hosting a lieutenant colonel.

When they shook good-bye, he clasped Brook’s hand in both of his. Then the Peugeot departed in a cloud of dust.

“That was good, sir,” said Oscar, nodding. “You made it clever.”

Brook didn’t look at him. He knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from grinning.

When the Peugeot was out of sight, Brook had Sergeant Delpit escort Oscar back to the 4 truck, while he and Heeley headed toward the 1 truck on the north side of the village. The dog followed them, lagging a few meters behind until they hit the pavement. Then it sat on its hind legs and used one to scratch behind its ear. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth.

Brook looked away and took a drink from his camelback. The water was warm and tasted like rubber. It was nearly noon, and the temperature kept climbing.

“All right, sir, I’ve gotta ask,” said Heeley. “Did the CO tell you to give that guy more time?”

“No.”

“He’s not gonna chew you out?”

“Maybe. But I only realized the problem this morning, once it started to get really hot. Imagine working construction when it’s a hundred and ten degrees and you’ve been fasting all day. We’re not going to make a lasting impact here by ignoring the customs of the people we’re trying to help. We’ve got to think long-term. Captain Rogers will get that.” Brook chuckled. “Or he’ll chew my ass out. Either way, I stand by it.”

Brook took two more strides before he realized that Heeley had stopped following. He turned and saw a flurry of movement—soldiers moving onto the road in front of the 2 truck, to the east. Heeley’s fingers were wrapped around his radio handset.

“What’s going on?” asked Brook.

Heeley listened a moment longer and then said, “There’s a truck approaching that matches something on the BOLO list. Sergeant Gomez wants us to search it.”

“Roger that.”

Brook felt the thrill of potential dance in his wrists. The BOLO list comprised photos of suspected terrorists, vehicle descriptions—any intelligence that might give U.S. forces an upper hand in the fight against an enemy who usually remained hidden until it was too late. There was a rumor going around the squadron, though, that at this stage in Operation Iraqi Freedom, enemy activity had dwindled so much that higher was filling the list with imaginary data. Fake names, random vehicle makes and models, as if there weren’t enough intel to go around. By now, a lot of soldiers thought the BOLO list was just another Army exercise in wasting their time.

Part of Brook’s job, he knew, was to make sure his platoon didn’t succumb to that way of thinking. “Let’s see what we got,” he said.

The 2 truck, commanded by the platoon’s senior scout, Staff Sergeant Davis, pulled part-way onto the road, blocking the southbound lane. Two teams of dismounted soldiers took up positions on the pavement, one for security, one for search. Brook felt another twinge of pride—they were moving just as they’d rehearsed.

The approaching truck was red. As it got closer, Brook could see that its paint had been scorched to a gritty matte coating, eaten fully away by rust at the wheel wells. The windshield was covered in grime from the road, smashed-up bugs and dirt and exhaust. Tough to see inside.

Brook moved forward to get a better look.

“Sergeant Gomez says to keep your distance, sir,” said Heeley. “The guys have got this.”

Brook didn’t respond or retreat.

The red truck stopped, its engine rumbling and clanging. One of the soldiers in the security team waved it forward. After a long moment the truck rolled closer, then stopped again by the dismount teams. Corporal Wendt, all six-foot-four of him, approached the driver’s window and rapped on it with the plastic knuckles of his shooting gloves. He held up the laminated card on which Oscar had written “Get out of the vehicle” in Arabic and Kurdish. Another long moment passed. Wendt yelled at the driver to get out, took a step back, and raised his rifle at the window.

Brook’s stomach turned over. Wendt had a temper and a not-so-secret desire to drop bodies in support of the cause. Where was Oscar? Brook turned to Heeley, about to tell him to radio the 4 truck and send the interpreter over.

Then he stopped himself. What if Brook had been in a key leader meeting and there was a security issue outside? Oscar couldn’t be everywhere at once. And these guys had practice in dealing with the locals on their own. Brook’s grip tightened around the pistol grip of his rifle.

The truck door opened slowly, and a man climbed out. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and trousers, and kept his hands raised and open. But his face was a mask of rage—trembling, unblinking. How painful it must have been not to blink against the blazing sun and the dry wind. How hot did his anger burn, that he would keep his eyes open just to make it known?

Wendt jerked his rifle toward the side of the road. The man obeyed. While Wendt and another soldier frisked him and checked his ID, two soldiers from the vehicle team conducted their search of the truck. They moved the extendable mirror back and forth underneath it and opened the cabin doors to check for loose panels. Then they made their way to the rear of the truck, and stopped.

Brook’s hand began to hurt. He forced himself to loosen his grip on the rifle.

“Got something in the bed,” Private Yates called out.

Brook jogged around to get a better look. A thick canvas tarp covered a rectangular mass, mostly uniform but with some small irregularities. A stack of crates, maybe. The soldiers raised their rifles at the cargo. If not for the current of nerves electrifying his skin, Brook might have laughed at them. What did they think bullets were going to do against a bomb?

“Let’s go,” said Brook, nodding at Yates. To Heeley he said, “Get ready to make a call to the CP in case we need EOD out here.”

Heeley nodded.

Yates moved cautiously forward, almost in a crouch. The poor kid’s hand was shaking, his jaw was clenched. Only the dark lenses of his eye protection allowed him to look like he was holding it together. He undid one of the bungee cords near the rear of the truck bed and slid it to one side, to let the tension out. Then he took a corner of the tarp in his fingers and lifted it a few inches, not enough for Brook to see through the shadow.

Yates paused, looking back at Brook. The look on his face was confused, but the fear was gone. After a few seconds he stood up straight and tossed the tarp back.

Ice. Long rectangular bricks of it, glittering brilliantly in the late-morning sun. Brook saw the ice as it must have looked to someone who’d never seen the stuff before, realizing instantly that it was miraculous. How could a tarp keep this delicate substance safe from the sun beating down? Even as he had the thought, a trickle of water flowed to the edge of the truck bed and dribbled onto the ground.

“Cover it,” he said. His mouth had gone dry and chalky. “Cover it quickly before it melts.”

Yates scrambled to pull the tarp back.

Brook was so distracted by his sudden desire to preserve the ice that he forgot to feel relief at the absence of a bomb or a crate of AK-47s. “Corporal Wendt,” he said, “get that man back in his truck, now.”

A spasm of confusion, maybe even anger, flitted across Wendt’s face. Where he was standing, he wouldn’t have seen the ice. Would it have mattered if he had?

He brought the driver back across the road. Half a dozen cars had backed up behind the red truck. Brook didn’t care.

“Yallah,” said Brook to the driver, pointing down the road.

The driver didn’t get into the truck. Instead he pointed at the bed. Brook nodded. The driver moved to the rear of the vehicle while the soldiers backed away, watching as he adjusted the tarp, pulling at the edges, pressing until there was no space for the hot air to infiltrate. He did all this with a blank expression. His anger had dissolved into a kind of resignation. The puddle on the road was growing, but when he looked at it, his expression didn’t change.

Eventually the red truck drove away, leaving a dotted line of moisture on the pavement. A minute later, it was as if the water had never been there, and the soldiers of 2nd platoon were moving to their Strykers, loading up to head back to base.

Brook wondered how much farther the iceman had to travel. Shepherding frozen water across the desert seemed like a Sisyphean task, even without the platoon’s interference. The odds were against him.

I belong to an uncertain generation of veterans. We occupy a liminal space, old enough to remember 9/11 and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, to have been directly affected by them, but young enough to have missed the wars we signed up to fight. Our stories are just now coming into the collective awareness.

I deployed as a platoon leader near the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and spent the back half of my deployment in support of Operation New Dawn. I advised and assisted. Neither I nor any of my men fired weapons in anger. In THE HAMMER, protagonist Tommy Brook is not so fortunate.

As Brook navigates the strange journey of his first deployment, enemy activity in Iraq is at an all-time low, and the American Army’s time in the country is coming to an end. Talented in the traditional, martial aspects of war, yet hopeful that his service will have a lasting, positive impact, Brook is comfortable with his hybrid mission—seeking out a hidden enemy while ensuring the safety of the locals after the Army’s withdrawal. But Brook’s squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Conrad, is wary of complacency. To keep them sharp, he organizes boxing matches among his officers. Brook is a boxer but fears what it will mean to turn his fists on his peers and superiors. And when the enemy finally appears, will Conrad’s harsh style of leadership prove fruitful, or is it too onerous for a soldier to fight two wars at once? THE HAMMER examines who we ask soldiers to become in order to do their job.

Recently, I got drunk with an old company commander of mine, a man for whom I have a deep and abiding love. He is still in the Army. We talked for a long time about our respective flavors of disillusionment. After one pregnant pause he asked, “Do you think all of it was a lie?”

I thought about it. “The things we were told? Yeah. But not the things we learned.”

Like any war novel worth its purchase price, this story is against war and for the soldiers who fight them. I wrestle constantly with the meaning of my time in the Army, especially when I fall into the trap of comparison with more seasoned warriors. But I have no doubt that the time spent leading my platoon was the most rewarding period of growth I will ever know. Those soldiers taught me more about life, love, and leadership than I could have ever hoped. This book is for them, and for any soldiers who have questioned the importance of their service, and for any civilians who want a better understanding of war.