Fire and Forget is the latest offering of the military-publishing complex, devoted to printing the works of returning soldiers and their spouses. The fifteen stories gathered here describe, in various ways, action in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the difficulties encountered in returning to civilian life. The collection also features some experiments with form, including a sardonic “choose your own adventure” which places the reader inside the gun-turret of a Humvee. Despite all this variety, however, there is a disappointing consistency of tone and effect. Stock characters frequently reappear—the deranged enlisted man, the hapless officer, the meddling civilian—and rarely do they challenge stereotypes. Additionally, questions of the authors’ motivations are unavoidable as these stories seem designed to support one viewpoint with regard to war.

Brian Van Reet’s “Big Two-Hearted Hunting Creek” is a good example of the collection as a whole. This story is about two wounded soldiers, Rooster and Sleed, who go on a fishing trip, hoping to find solace in nature. Among other injuries, Rooster’s face has been masked, burned featureless by fire. He reflects, “ ‘Wounded warriors’—the term the Army used to refer to us in official memoranda. . . . ‘I guess it’s what we were, but the phrase was too cute to do our ugliness justice.’ ” Exacerbating his physical injuries are his loneliness and a family that, at least in his eyes, is of no use. His father is a government employee who tests chemical and biological weapons on