open source is sponsored by listeners like you.

Pitch in to keep the world's first podcast going strong.

15 years and counting, find us at patreon.com slash radio open source.

And thank you.

I'm Christopher Leiton. This is open source.

Memorial Day is paired with the 4th of July in American sentiment.

The loss of patriot lives linked to the new birth of freedom.

The old farmer's adage in New England was,

get your piece planted by decoration day as the may holiday used to be known.

And you'll have fresh peas on the table for the 4th.

So we honor the memories of all our war dead this long Memorial Day weekend.

And in particular this hour, we ask some war survivors to talk back to some of those memories

in descent as they choose to.

In partnership with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft,

we're drawing on a sparkling collection of short war memoirs

from 15 soldiers who served in what they remember now as misguided or misbegotten American wars

in two decades since 9-11.

Our guests went to Iraq or Afghanistan, some to both wars,

enlisted an officer class, black and white, bitter and proud.

Paths to descent is the title of the paperback from Metropolitan Books,

Andrew Basavitch, who co-edited it, will have a comment on our conversations.

Eric Edstrom gets us started from Stoughton, Massachusetts.

...