Features the best new writing about our troops in the field.

The Marine / by Mike Sager -- The Green Berets up close / by Donatella Lorch -- The legend of Heavy D and the boys / by Robert Young Pelton -- The U.S. bomb that nearly killed Karzai / by John Hendren and Richard T. Cooper -- Anaconda / by John Sack -- The make-believe war ; Not much war, but plenty of hell / by Evan Wright -- From McCoy's Marines : darkside toward Baghdad / by John Koopman -- All kinds of metal was flying through the air / by Phillip Robertson -- With the invaders / by James Meek -- Beyond Baghdad / by Paul William Roberts -- My two wars / by James Harris -- Survivor : Iraq / by Lawrence F. Kaplan -- Memories don't die so easily / by Geoffrey Mohan -- Where the enemy is everywhere and nowhere / by Daniel Bergner -- Stretched thin, lied to & mistreated / by Christian Parenti -- Night raid in Baghdad / by Jen Banbury -- Making enemies / by Nir Rosen -- Dispatch from Iraq / by John Hendren -- War wounds / by Yaroslav Trofimov -- A soldier's life / by Nancy Gibbs with Mark Thompson.