It was an exposed feeling. And where were my machine guns? I found my old pistol and kept it around like a rabbit’s foot, but I missed my 240s and my .50-cals something awful. It seems weird, I’m sure, but I really just wasn’t buying it that there wasn’t some enemy about to come over the green hills, and I felt so unprepared—I wouldn’t be any good to protect anybody.

I was set to soon go off to Fort Thomas, Kentucky, for PTSD therapy (posttraumatic stress disorder, of course). Maybe that would settle me down and let me get some sleep and stop feeling so depressed and angry at every little thing.

Some guys really go nuts when they come back, and I wasn’t in danger of that, but I could feel the kinds of crazy things that maybe got the better of them. As for me, I was a hunter before I went over there, and I was a hunter still—but now I was all nervous about it, like I needed a machine-gun fix. You are over there long enough, and under such constant battle stress, that it resets all your settings way into the red, and they are very hard to set back. The main thing gnawing was that I didn’t get my friends out as I had promised. I had spent a good part of my twenty-one years being pretty critical of other people who failed at their responsibilities, and now it was all coming back on me in a big dump truck.

Hoffman’s story, and the subsequent harassment and sexual assaults she says she experienced while deployed in Iraq, are detailed in a lawsuit “Daniele Hoffman, et al., v. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, et al.,” filed Friday, morning in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (Case No. C12 05049 DMR), on behalf of 19 current and former Army and Air Force service members against the current and former secretaries of defense, alleging ongoing violations of their civil rights. The lawsuit’s second plaintiff, Kole Welsh, a former Army cadet, says he was raped by his staff sergeant, and was infected with HIV as a result of the assault.

The key problem, the lawsuit says, is “permitting the ‘chain-of-command’ (i.e., a single individual) to control which sexual assault allegations are fully investigated and prosecuted. They have not eliminated the ability of a single officer to prevent a victim from accessing the military’s judicial system. The reality is that this officer may well be a sexual predator himself.”

The case is the fifth of its kind brought by the Washington, D.C., attorney Susan L. Burke. Like the previous cases, all of which are pending in the district or circuit courts, it alleges that defendants knew the military was violating the constitutional rights of men and women who reported rape and sexual assaults, that they presided over dysfunctional systems in which a tiny fraction of sexual assault charges are investigated, and that they repeatedly refused to do anything to fix the problem. “Each Defendant repeatedly cites a policy of ‘zero tolerance’ and systematic reform regarding rape and sexual assault,” the suit reads. “Yet this rhetoric has failed to change the misogynistic culture of the Army and has not resulted in any meaningful reform or reduction in sexual assaults.”

Unfortunately, many never sought help, or the wait to get it was too long and clearly too late.

Marine Capt. Nicholas Borrelli, son of a recently retired 33-year Marine Col., was stationed at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego following his second deployment tour in Iraq. The transition from being in combat to serving at boot camp, where you can get in trouble for not having your uniform properly ironed, was a difficult one for him. He started excessively drinking and found himself caught in fits of rage and frustration that he couldn’t control. One night after drinking too much and getting into a fight a with his girlfriend, he “beat up his apartment.” He smashed the windows, broke the shower door and punched three holes in the wall. He wrapped his blood soaked leg with a towel and passed out on the floor. The next morning he crashed his motorcycle on the freeway off-ramp by missing the turn. Abandoning his bike, his girlfriend picked him up and rushed him over to the Emergency Room. He was lucky his injuries were minor, the worst being the 40 stitches needed for the gash on his leg.

In the hospital, Borrelli’s father pleaded with him to get help, and he went to his commander the following day. Borrelli explained to his boss that he felt he had lost all control over his impulses. Instead of sympathy or support for being honest, he says he was informed that he could be referred over to the on-base mental-health unit—but the repercussions might be costly to his career and standing in the military. The captain was next in line for a promotion to company commander, and seeking help could put that in jeopardy, he says he was told. He decided against the referral, telling the commander that he’d figure it out on his own.

Washington has little political and no military influence over these developments. As Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor charge in their ambitious new history of the Iraq war, The Endgame, Obama’s administration sacrificed political influence by failing in 2010 to insist that the results of Iraq’s first proper election be honored: “When the Obama administration acquiesced in the questionable judicial opinion that prevented Ayad Allawi’s bloc, after it had won the most seats in 2010, from the first attempt at forming a new government, it undermined the prospects, however slim, for a compromise that might have led to a genuinely inclusive and cross-sectarian government.”

Military influence fell victim to similar inaction. The Obama administration failed to get Maliki’s agreement to allow some residual force to remain in Iraq after the general U.S. withdrawal at the end of 2011. The Kurds wanted a continuing American presence; so did the Sunnis; even Maliki considered it might be a useful deterrent to the Baathist resurgence that he feared. The force would also be an insurance against a resurgence of al Qaeda. And, crucially, as both the Pentagon and State Department saw it, a continuing American presence might give the reassurance that Iraq’s divided communities needed to overcome their fears of each other. But negotiations failed, and Gordon and Trainor—while acknowledging that a deal “might have proven impossible under the best of circumstances”—consign much of the blame to Obama and his staff.

All they knew was that the handsome, 8-year-old German shepherd who had earned his rank—Contract Working Dog Master Corporal—courageously fighting alongside Canadian forces in Afghanistan for five years was retiring and needed a good home.

When Carrie picked the dog up and brought him back to her household—which includes 5-year-old twins Colby and Carlee, the latter of whom is disabled and has her own therapy dog (a yellow Labrador named Sunshine), and her father, John, a Vietnam vet still suffering from PTSD—Uzo was not quite the gentleman she expected.

The new dog was incredibly nervous and on edge, patrolling the halls, sniffing in closets, and climbing on and under furniture. Whenever a helicopter flew over their home in Park City, Utah, he would stare up, wagging his tail furiously.

That’s why, back in 2008, he decided it was time to stop the lies. He courageously told his command he was gay, even though he would surely be discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He was kicked out of the Air Force soon after. That was the reward for his honesty. But for Loverde, it was a matter of integrity. Simple as that. 

Four years later, after a long, arduous political battle that spanned decades, President Obama led the fight to finally end the discriminatory policy, and now Loverde—and thousands of others—serve openly, with pride and dignity. 

Today, we mark the first anniversary of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We recognize the thousands of troops who were unfairly targeted by the policy and thank them for their service to our nation. We take a moment to celebrate the fact that our military has made historic progress in the march toward full equality for all men and women. Equality for people like Loverde—who rejoined the Air Force earlier this year. 

Glen always said that if he didn’t know what he wanted to do by the time he was 30, he would become a Navy SEAL. He was a man of his word. He spent his 20s having adventures—he went to flight school, became a ski bum, taught white-water rafting. Anything that sounded challenging and cool, he was up for it. And then, as promised, he became a SEAL. When he made up his mind, there was absolutely no stopping him. I never doubted that he would succeed.

A half hour after that phone call last week, my brother’s friend called again. I answered the phone and said, “Tell me, tell me he’s fine.” I honestly thought that’s what I would hear. But the news was devastating. Glen had been killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. I just crumbled.

My parents didn’t know yet. I had to figure out how to tell them, along with the rest of my family, which is a horrible thing. There’s simply no way to sugarcoat it; you just have to say it, and so I did. After that, there really were no words.

Not anymore. Jen is a “targeter,” an analyst who pores over grainy drone footage and sorts through phone intercepts and other fragments of intelligence to find the exact location of terrorists, drug traffickers, or arms dealers. Since Sept. 11, the CIA has come under heavy, and often negative, political scrutiny. But during this same period, the agency has quietly perfected the art and science of the modern manhunt by training a generation of targeters like Jen. As opposed to the area specialists who analyze a country’s government or economy, the targeters (sometimes called “targeteers”) almost always focus on one person or one group. They work in the same units as the case officers and special forces teams that act on their analysis. And in recent years, according to Jose Rodriguez, a former deputy director of operations at the CIA, the majority of targeters have been women.

Indeed, the CIA’s first unit devoted to tracking al Qaeda, known as Alec Station, hired women analysts almost exclusively in the 1990s. Mike Scheuer, the first chief of Alec Station, says that when he left the post in 1999, all of his 14 targeters were women. He also says the first captures of senior al Qaeda leaders after Sept. 11 were the result of investigative work done by these women. “If I could have put out a sign on the door that said ‘No men need apply,’ I would have done it,” he says.

One of the most famous targeters in recent history was Jennifer Matthews, the head of a CIA team that tracked a senior al Qaeda operational planner known as Abu Zubaydah to a safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, according to Joby Warrick’s book The Triple Agent. In the book, Warrick captures the hard choices a top-flight intelligence officer has to make to balance spy work and family. While serving in the CIA’s station in Khost, Afghanistan, Matthews spent Christmas Day in 2009 with her children back in Fredericksburg, Va., through a Skype video chat. After her children opened their presents, her son and youngest child asked, “Mommy, can you show us your gun?” according to Warrick’s account. She showed him her pistol and rifle. Then she was off to the mess hall on the base for a Christmas meal with her fellow officers. Five days later, Matthews was killed when a Jordanian physician she thought was a spy for the CIA blew himself up at a meeting with her at the Khost station. “She was among the best,” says Rodriguez.

Glen was very loyal to his friends and family. He kept the same core group of friends since elementary school, and it was their loyalty to each other and fun-loving nature, as well as Barbara’s welcoming home, that brought them from being a one-time crew of social misfits to the center of an awful lot of damn fun people of all stripes who remain tight to this day. After high school, Glen attended Embry Riddle aeronautical university in Arizona, where he flew planes, rode a motorcycle, and decided that the only thing cooler to do than what he was doing would be to up and leave. His fearlessness took many forms throughout his life, but was always at his core. He became a ski bum at Snowbird, Utah, in the winters, working at restaurants and becoming a phenomenal skier on both regular and telemark skis, as well as a talented cook and afterparty expert.

In the summers, he was a white-water rafting guide down the Colorado River, where his knowledge of the outdoors, his responsibility, and his abilities to tell a great tall tale and get everyone to have fun made multi-day journeys from Moab to Lake Powell experiences of a lifetime for many. He was always a hard worker and extremely responsible, which never managed to drive a wedge between him and the lovable riff-raff who shared his lifestyle. His athleticism also led him to become a triathlete during this period. The many friends he gathered during these years always remained as dear to him as he was to them, and he took every opportunity, usually meaning a few weeks a year, to return to his beloved mountains and friends in Utah.

A desire to push himself and to use his talents to make genuine change in the world led him to join the Navy SEALS in 1995. He passed the training and became a paramedic and sniper, with the Middle East as his area of operations. His team responded to the USS Cole attack, among other missions. In 2001, he got his knees reconstructed and was planning on exiting the military when Sept. 11 happened. He now was not allowed to leave and didn’t want to. He married Sonja Johnson, his girlfriend whom he’d known since high school, and went overseas again. He participated in two tours of the 2003 Gulf War, “Iraqi Freedom.” In the first, his team began by securing the Kuwait oil fields before the invasion officially began to prevent the environmentally disastrous recurrence of them being burned, as had happened under Saddam Hussein’s orders during Desert Storm in 1991. Then they led the earliest Marine contingents battling on the move from the south of Iraq toward Baghdad. He was peeled from his unit for sniper duty for several days, returned to it before the taking of Baghdad, and continued with it to take Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit, where it finally got a breather in Hussein’s riverside palaces once those were cleared. He returned for another tour to the troubled country the following year. About fighting in Iraq, he simply believed that the possibility of liberating the country from a tyrant and making democracy possible for the Iraqi people was worth risking his own life for.

“The suggested packing list basically told us to bring everything,” he says.

He went to his new team leader. “Dude, what do you think you need to bring for deployment?” the team leader asked. “Bring what you think you need.”

The book cites this as an example of the “Big Boy Rules” that guide the team.

We’ll hear from the men and women of the U.S. military on the greatest moments of heroism they’ve ever witnessed, on the concept of sacrifice, and on the lives of America’s veterans. We’ll also hear from those who shape and influence foreign policy, national security, and military issues about the question of our national character, set against the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. And throughout the summit, political dissidents, artists, and journalists will shine light on the wide range of expressions of courage and valor, and what it really means to speak truth to power.

Speakers include Admiral William McRaven, Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Alfred Rascon, former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Bono, Garry Kasparov, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, vet entrepreneur Zach Iscol, and others. Read the full agenda here.

Follow The Hero Project at The Daily Beast for more coverage of the Summit, including exclusive interviews with speakers and guests, as well as our extensive reporting on military and veterans’ issues. On Twitter, follow The Hero Summit and the hashtag #hero12.

Powers, 31, deployed in Iraq in 2004–2005; a native of Virginia, he had entered the Army at the age 17. In 2012, he received an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow (he also received a B.A. in English, in 2008, from Virginia Commonwealth University). Powers is an artist who was a soldier who lived to tell the tale. One can hear the American poets Richard Hugo and James Wright in his narrator’s autumnal voice. Bartle says, "Clouds spread out over the Atlantic like soiled linens on an unmade bed. I knew, watching them, that if any given moment a measurement could be made it would show how tentative was my mind's mastery over my heart. Such small arrangements make a life, and though it's hard to get close to saying what the heart is, it must at least be that which rushes to spill out of the parentheses which were the beginning and the end of my war: the old life disappearing into the dust … " You don’t know quite what to think of Bartle’s war story, so much as you feel it.

Coincidentally or not, and at least tonally, the novel’s opening line is pleasingly reminiscent of the first line of Hemingway’s short story “In Another Country,” also about war—World War 1—and the narrator here, too, is windblown, shell-shocked: “In the fall the war was always there but we did not go to it anymore.” Powers’s novel arrives as a reading experience akin to one you might have had in the early 20^th century had you picked up Wilfred Owen’s WWI poetry or stopped at the book shop for Hemingway’s In Our Time. Powers is writing out of a once more recognizable tradition—Pablo Picasso’s 1937 “Guernica” after the Spanish Civil War; John Steinbeck’s 1939 The Grapes of Wrath; Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 Slaughterhouse-Five after WWII—that instinctively tilts world events toward the light until they refract as art. I don’t know anyone today writing The Grapes of Wrath after the last Wall Street crash. I hope to be corrected.

For worse, in this YouTube/Twitter-of-the-moment age, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become The War, they’ve all run together, everybody’s paying attention to them and nobody’s paying attention to them, and these technologies—TV included—have piped whole oceans of adrenaline and trucked vast smoldering cities into our consciousnesses so that we can review this carnage on our phones while shopping the produce aisle. In other words, this “nonfiction” reality comes at us as a continuous movie—as fiction-like, if we’re even paying attention. One of the thrills of reading Power’s The Yellow Birds is that it’s a “movie” that reads like nonfiction. What is unusual but satisfying is that you have the long-lost sensation of being in the hands—the mind—of an artist who’s taking in reality, shooting it through the fluttering curtain of his own mind, giving you back something—a gift, a story, a rendering, a picture, a sense of the sense of being alive in a time and place—Iraq, the war, the buddy he has to save—as his own humanity is mirrored back to us in shining straps of prose.

“At this point we are not scheduling any further interviews with Mark or Kevin Maurer, his coauthor, for security reasons,” she said. “As anyone who watched 60 Minutes can tell you, they went to great lengths to disguise Mark. We want to take even more precautions now that his name has been outed.” 

Last month, Fox News first reported that Owen’s real name was Matt Bissonnette, a decision that prompted Dutton to cancel a scheduled media tour for security reasons.

“He should go into hiding,” said Don Mann, a former member of SEAL Team Six and the author of the book Inside SEAL Team Six, which explores the world of the elite group behind the bin Laden raid. Mann said Bissonnette will have to “have an identity change, and a name change; he will be a target for the rest of his life. Our enemy will not forget that he was one of the people who put a bullet into Osama’s body.”