Matt Young is an Iraq war veteran. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 18, after driving drunk into a fire hydrant. That jolt convinced him that he needed to find direction in his life and, in his own words, "man up." What follows is a brutal, self-aware story about being a victim and perpetrator of abuse, feeling pressure to tell lies he thought civilians wanted to hear, and absurdist snapshots of war that most other accounts gloss over.

Contributor: Matt Young. His debut novel is "Eat The Apple."

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