'I want to write the book that explains it - the horror, the terror, the shame, the mind-numbing boredom; and the joy and the honour. Down to the goriest and most degrading detail, down to the suicide attempts, the suicides, the anorexic desperation, the promiscuity, the comradeship, the tedium, the bravery, the violence'. From basic training to intensive language school, to learning how to fire an automatic weapon, to being deployed in Iraq and holding up the American convoy because it's complicated for a woman to pee in a chemical weapon's suit, Love My Rifle is a gripping memoir of life in the US army written by a woman with an unforgettable voice. It touches on today's news stories, of Abu Ghraib prison and the soldiers still fighting in Iraq, but also on more universal issues: of being the one woman in a troop of 200 men, of patriotism and honour, of courage and military incompetence.