The Story

As the U.S. military finished the pull out of troops from Iraq, The Story listens back to those who served in the war. We hear stories of combat over the past nine and half years and how soldiers have made sense of their service.

Ahmed was a sculptor. Then the war came, and he now makes his living as a photographer and reporter. He is keeping an audio diary for The Story.

When Lynn Hill retired from operating Predator drones for the U.S. Air Force, she closed that chapter of her life – until she started writing poetry about having one foot in the war and one foot at home.

It’s been nine years this weekend since two passenger jets were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center towers. Those attacks changed this country profoundly, and they continue to have a direct and dramatic effect on the people who worked on site in the aftermath. When Brooklyn firefighter Steve Mormino arrived in lower Manhattan just after midnight on 9/11, he expected devastation. But what struck him most was the silence. For the next four months, Steve worked constantly at Ground Zero. Years later he found out that his lungs had been permanently damaged from the particles in the air. Also, contributor Krista Bremer.