Seven titles by veterans about serving in the U.S. military

John Milas enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age nineteen and subsequently deployed to the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in support of OEF 10.1. He was honorably discharged from active service in 2012.

After his discharge, he earned both his BA and MFA in creative writing.

His new book is The Militia House.

At Electric Lit Milas tagged seven books by "writers whose books break the standard of sanitized, routine portrayals of life and war in the US military. Their work faces the truth head on." One title on the list:

Love My Rifle More Than You by Kayla Williams

For a candid (read: brutally honest) experience of a young woman enlisted in the US Army, this is your book. Williams, a linguist who studied Arabic at Defense Language Institute, shares a range of stories about her time in the Army. Rather than summarizing from a zoomed-out perspective, she relays her experiences through intricate, intimate scenes.

Her own sergeants sometimes move beyond incompetent to being brazenly disrespectful to their subordinates. Her male peers seem to make innocuous small talk, but then close out these interactions by hinting at a sexual proposition or bluntly speaking them. Most disturbing early on: a lieutenant overseeing the search of a monastery, who refuses to interact directly with an English-speaking monk in Iraq, forcing Williams awkwardly to translate between two people who can see, hear, and understand each other. Love My Rifle More Than You does an excellent job of highlighting scenes and mindsets that are effectively terrifying in their implications.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue