Alex Vernon is assistant professor of English and chair of American Studies at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. He is author of most succinctly bred (The Kent State University State University Press, 2006) and Soldiers Once and Still: Ernest Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O'Brien (2004), and coauthor of The Eyes of Orion: Five Tank Lieutenants in the Persian Gulf War (The Kent State University Press, 1999).