ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost I would like to thank the soldiers of my unit, who will not be named. Even though I hated the vast majority of the people I served with, we will always be connected. We will be family members that you don’t really like but still talk to from time to time. We threatened each other with grenades, stabbed each other, and sometimes beat each other's asses. But I will always love you anyway.

Thank you to the soldiers of the Second Squad “Hooligans” who helped jog my memory while I went through the long process of writing this incredibly flawed account of our little war. You know who you are.

A huge appreciation to the one other soldier I will actually name, Sergeant First Class Albert Brodeen. He was our first platoon sergeant and the only man who ever led me during my time in the U.S. Army and motivated me to be a better soldier. One day out in field training before our deployment, he told me to write a diary. Or, as he put it, “We are living history. You need to document it,” which started me down what turned into a four-year-long road of writing this book.

Thank you to my sister and long-suffering editor, Amy Good. She took my retarded, ape-like writing style and turned it into a functioning book. Trust me when I say it was ugly as shit before she got her hands on it.

Last and not least to Hamid Sawari, our interpreter. If left to our own devices in Afghanistan, our attitude would have eventually gotten us killed. Hamid was always there to smooth things over with the locals, the Afghan police, and the Afghan army to ensure our survival for another day. When the going got tough, and any other interpreter would have abandoned us, Hamid picked up a weapon and fought side by side with us. I’m glad to say that after several years of trying and writing countless letters to congressmen, he safely immigrated to America a few years ago. He is as big a part of the Hooligans as Slim or me.