{"product_id":"9780299282134","title":"The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn 2003, after serving five and a half years as a carpenter in a North Dakota National Guard engineer unit, Bronson Lemer was ready to leave the military behind. But six months short of completing his commitment to the army, Lemer was deployed on a yearlong tour of duty to Iraq. Leaving college life behind in the Midwest, he yearns for a lost love and quietly dreams of a future as an openly gay man outside the military. He discovers that his father’s lifelong example of silent strength has taught him much about being a man, and these lessons help him survive in a war zone and to conceal his sexuality, as he is required to do by the U.S. military.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003e            The Last Deployment\u003c\/i\u003e is a moving, provocative chronicle of one soldier’s struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance. Lemer captures the absurd nuances of a soldier’s daily life: growing a mustache to disguise his fear, wearing pantyhose to battle sand fleas, and exchanging barbs with Iraqis while driving through Baghdad. But most strikingly, he describes the poignant reality faced by gay servicemen and servicewomen, who must mask their identities while serving a country that disowns them. Often funny, sometimes anguished, \u003ci\u003eThe Last Deployment\u003c\/i\u003e paints a deeply personal portrait of war in the twenty-first century. \u003cbr\u003e   InSight Out Book Club selection   Bronson Lemer named one of \u003ci\u003eInstinct\u003c\/i\u003e magazine’s Leading Men 2011   QPB Book Club selection\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Finalist, Minnesota Book Awards\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Finalist, Over the Rainbow Selection, American Library Association\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Amazon Top Ten 10 Gay \u0026amp; Lesbian Books of 2011    ","brand":"University of Wisconsin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47107834937584,"sku":"9780299282134","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780299282134_p0.jpg?v=1763682955","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780299282134","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}