Excerpt from All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

After everyone has fired, Bradshaw is named the day's champion. Mounting the center vehicle, he leans into the eyepiece of the TOW's thermal sight and reaches beneath the launcher for the controls. When he fires, a column of flame spurts out the back of the tube as the missile launches downrange and unspools nearly two-and-a-half miles of filament from its tail. As the missile streaks toward the VW van, the wire carries signals from the tracking module in Bradshaw's hands to tiny compensating thrusters on the missile.

Just after firing, Bradshaw detects movement over the rim of the dune where the van sits. Camels! His instincts are to push away from them, and the minor movement of his hands causes the TOW to splash down in the sand and explode in a geyser of brown.

Mueller nearly doubles over with laughter. He kisses his fingers and points up at the sky. Thank you for that, God, he says.

There are camels out there, Bradshaw calls down from the turret. And a couple of men.

Berkholtz grabs his M4 and squints through the optics. Sure enough, a line of camels is plodding over the dune with white-robed men sitting atop the two in the lead. As they get closer, the gray-bearded Bedouin in front waves at the soldiers. This is the era of goodwill. Everyone loves GIs.

Dude doesn't know how close he came to getting killed, Mueller says. Lucky for them, Bradshaw can't fire for shit.

The squad stands watching as the camels trudge steadily toward them. When they reach the hard-packed crest, the two Bedouins dismount.

Hey, Faust, Berkholtz says, give me a few minutes alone here.

Faust herds the rest of the squad to the middle Humvee, where they hunker in its shade.

Berkholtz turns to the lead Bedouin and says, As salaam alaykum.

Wa alaykumu as salaam.

Berkholtz only knows Arabic phrases from flash cards in his cargo pocket, and the Bedouins don't speak English at all, so they resort to pantomime. Berkholtz points up at the missile launcher, then out at the ruined vehicles on the range. Didn't you see? he asks, tapping his cheekbone near his eye. Didn't you hear? he says, touching an ear.

Inshallah, says the Bedouin, shrugging his shoulders. "As Allah wills it."

Berkholtz motions with two hands patting the air for the Bedouins to stay put. Then he tells the driver in the TOW Humvee to radio command and tell them what's going on.

Already done, says the specialist. Captain Cuneo's coming out here. We're supposed to cease fire and hang tight.

Berkholtz stands with his arms crossed near the two Bedouins, who gather their camels into a tight pack and tap their legs with sticks to goad them into sitting. Berkholtz can't stop thinking how close they'd come to a colossal fuckup. A civilian casualty would have drummed both Bradshaw and him out of the service. The one who fired the shot and the one in charge.

The Army had trained him to lead troops in battle, but not how to stopper up their wrath once the fighting was done. In the buildup phase to war, Berkholtz had trained the squad relentlessly, rehearsing combat scenarios in the kill house countless times, chewing ass on anyone committing an error, running the men over and over until responses became second nature. Once bullets start flying, he'd told them, there's no time for second-guessing.

The training had paid off and everyone made it through in one piece. That's all Berkholtz had ever wanted. Not the power of command or the glory of medals. He only wanted to do his job right and bring his boys home in one piece. Looking over to the Humvees, he sees Mueller is still heckling Bradshaw, his nonstop chatter wafting through the roasting air. Berkholtz should break them up, but he's tired of playing babysitter.

Excerpted from All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose. Copyright © 2022 by Bill Glose. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.