blonde, perfectly maintained, always camera-ready. Still carrying the psychic weight of my first deployment to Iraq, I had been drawn to her lightness, her apparent normalcy. She represented everything I thought I was fighting for: the American dream, stability, home. We married within eight months. She was twenty-two; I was twenty-five.

The kids came quickly. Emma, now seven, and Jackson, five. I tried to be present, but the army had other plans. When you’re good at what you do in Special Operations, they keep sending you back. This last deployment had been the longest: sixteen months in East Africa, training