OIF

"We scanned for all the different types of IEDs AQI would throw at us. IEDs made of old 122 shells, or C4, or homemade explosives. Chlorine bombs mixed with HE. VBIEDs in burned out cars. SVBIEDs driven by lunatics. IEDs in drainage ditches or dug into the middle of the road. Some in the bodies of dead camels. Others daisy-chained together—one in the open to make you stop, another to kill you where you stand. IEDs everywhere, but most missions, nothing. Even knowing how bad the MSRs were, knowing we could die, we got bored."Nathan Englander, who chose "OIF" for Recommended Reading, writes in his editor's note, "What makes 'OIF' particularly special is that Klay not only succeeds in establishing voice and character, he not only manages to walk us through the narrative with confidence, but—for the majority of the story’s audience, unfamiliar with its lexicon—Klay teaches us a new language that we come to understand as we read."Author Bio:Phil Klay is a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a graduate of the MFA program at Hunter College. He has been published by The New York Times, The New York Daily News, and Granta, and has stories forthcoming in Tin House, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012, and Da Capo's upcoming anthology Fire and Forget. He also has an upcoming short story collection to be published by Penguin Press.About Recommended Reading:Great authors inspire us. But what about the stories that inspire them? Recommended Reading, the latest project from Electric Literature, publishes one story every week, each chosen by a great author or editor. In this age of distraction, we uncover writing that's worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we help give great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.About this week's guest editor:Nathan Englander is the author of the story collections What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, as well as the novel The Ministry of Special Cases. He recently translated the New American Haggadah (edited by Jonathan Safran Foer) and co-translated Etgar Keret's Suddenly A Knock at the Door. His first play, “The Twenty-Seventh Man” will premiere at The Public Theater in New York this fall.