From The Washington Post
By Dan Froomkin

In honor of Veterans Day, here’s an excerpt from a remarkable book, Operation Homecoming , an anthology of eyewitness accounts, private journals, short stories and other writings about Iraq, Afghanistan and the home front, from U.S. troops and their families.

The book, published by Random House, is the result of an initiative by the National Endowment of the Arts.

In this essay, Sgt Sharon D. Allen writes about the nightly conversations at her base near Kirkush — conversations during which members of her platoon go around and around trying to figure out why President Bush sent them to Iraq.

A member of the Ohio Army National Guard, Allen was shipped to Iraq in March 2004 with the 216th Engineer Battalion (Combat Heavy). She wrote the essay In June 2004.

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