In this provocative, impassioned memoir, Jerad W. Alexander reveals what it was like to be raised on war, vividly recreating the masculine fantasies of American heroism and patriotism that animated his childhood—and at the same time brilliantly dismantling those myths. As soon as he was able, young Jerad joined the US Marines. Only then, on the ground in Iraq, part of the same war his parents had fought before him—a war we are still embroiled in today, years later—did he begin to question all that he had taken on faith. With courage and raw power, Alexander brings to the fore vital questions: Is America in fact exceptional? Are the “bad guys” actually easy to identify? And most important, are our causes always just?