Joshua Howe

Chapters are divided betweeen Alex, a Marine sniper in the Iraq War, and Josh, a professor researching environmental exposures during wars. Each group of chapters will deal with a different type of exposure, starting with lead which is a component of shell casings that easily leaves a toxic dust. As they dig deeper into Alex's journals and memories, we see how every exposure aggravates the consequences of other exposures, such as traumatic brain injury, smoke from burn pits, contaminated show more drinking water, and guerilla-made explosive devices.
It's gonna be kind of heavy reading, but if you've ever known anyone who fought in one of the recent wars you will feel compelled to work through it to get some answers. Also, Josh explains a lot of the technical stuff in terms that can be understood, or by using analogies.
For example: "An injured brain knows how to fix itself under the right conditions. But the repair shop only operates in our sleep when epinephrine levels, the fight of flight hormone, turn off or down. If you're sleeping deeply, the brain is squeezed like a sponge, shrinking by twenty percent, and brain waves flush proteins and other waste through the brain's lymph system and out of your skull."
If you've ever thought about joining the military as a path to a future work skill or out of patriotic fervor, you might want to think twice about whether you will have any life quality afterwards.
The preface tells us that both authors have different writing styles, but at first they seemed pretty similar in how analytical they were. At the end, we learn that Alex's analytical style was the best he could manage with his state of illness. As he learned how to find his own path to healing, his health is also reflected in his more fluid writing style and his interactions. show less