The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq

Synopsis

In 2003, after serving five and a half years as a carpenter in a North Dakota National Guard engineer unit, Bronson Lemer was ready to leave the military behind. But six months short of completing his commitment to the army, Lemer was deployed on a yearlong tour of duty to Iraq. Leaving college life behind in the Midwest, he yearns for a lost love and quietly dreams of a future as an openly gay man outside the military. He discovers that his father’s lifelong example of silent strength has taught him much about being a man, and these lessons help him survive in a war zone and to conceal his sexuality, as he is required to do by the U.S. military. The Last Deployment is a moving, provocative chronicle of one soldier’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance. Lemer captures the absurd nuances of a soldier’s daily life: growing a mustache to disguise his fear, wearing pantyhose to battle sand fleas, and exchanging barbs with Iraqis while driving through Baghdad. But most strikingly, he describes the poignant reality faced by gay servicemen and servicewomen, who must mask their identities while serving a country that disowns them. Often funny, sometimes anguished, The Last Deployment paints a deeply personal portrait of war in the twenty-first century.

Copyright:

2011

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

236 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780299282134

Related ISBNs:

9780299282141, 9780299282141

Publisher:

The University of Wisconsin Press

Date of Addition:

11/16/12

Copyrighted By:

Bronson Lemer

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Military, Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, Social Studies

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.