Santa Maria -- Kosovo -- Giessen -- Baghdad -- Abu Ghraib -- Ramadan -- Homecoming -- New Orleans -- Holding out -- The suicide king -- The wake -- Murder city -- Auburn, Columbus -- Ourselves alone -- Epilogue: Still here

NYC journalist Ethan Brown investigates the tragic end of Zackery Bowen, a young charismatic soldier from New Orleans, in this moving and mesmerizing account of the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and no-safety-net America. Among the newsworthy elements in the book is Brown's discovery that this tragedy--like so many others--could have been avoided if the military had simply not failed this soldier