Read about the other entries on the list.Michael Pitre
Michael Pitre, a New Orleans writer and Iraq War veteran earned a glowing review in the New York Times for his fiction debut, "Fives and Twenty-Fives". Reviewer Michiko Kakutani described Pitre's book as "an unblinking, razor-edged portrait of the war."
In 2002, Pitre joined the Marines, deploying twice to Iraq and attaining the rank of captain before leaving the service in 2010.
Pitre described his motivation for writing the book in an Aug. 19 profile published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
"When you come away from military service you want to be able to reenter the civilian world and just be part of it," Pitre said. "You want to come home. But you can't come home when no one knows what you did. And it becomes a secret. And when it is a secret, it's a burden."
--Marshal Zeringue