There are no wars to fight. But Gunnery Sgt. Tom Highway, a dog-faced relic of past wars, still has a lot of fight in him. He is a Marine Corps lifer who started his last tour of duty before retirement, and sees the bumpy road his life has taken become more complicated, due to feisty recruits, by-the-book officers, and a salty ex-wife to whom he's still attracted.

A few good men: Neo military lawyer Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder; they contend they were acting under orders. Jerry Maguire: When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him.

In Elegance Bratton's inspirational and deeply moving retelling of his own story, a young, gay Black man, rejected by his mother and with few options for his future, decides to join the Marines, doing whatever it takes to succeed in a system that would cast him aside. But even as he battles deep-seated prejudice and the grueling routines of basic training, he finds unexpected camaraderie, strength, and support in this new community, giving him a hard-earned...

Follows "Swoff," a third-generation Marine enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through the Middle East deserts. There is no cover from intolerable heat or from the Iraqi soldiers, who are always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they...