Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

"Billy Lynn," along with his army buddies called the Bravos, are Iraqi war heroes on a Public Relations (PR) tour for the  troops.  This engrossing anti-war novel, is also a cutting parody of the American lifestyle the soldiers are fighting to protect.  Specialist Billy Lynn, the hero in Fountain's novel, epitomizes the glorious soldier the army wants to use for PR, much like "Pat Tillman." The movie industry is vying to capitalize on the Bravo rescue story, "a tale of heroism ennobled by tragedy.  Validation, redemption, life snatched from the jaws of death."  Lynn knows otherwise:  there is nothing noble to war, it is "a fuckup so profound and all encompassing as to crush all hope of redemption."   The story takes place over an army issued Thanksgiving leave with PR fanfare to honor the Bravos during a Cowboys' halftime @Dallas Stadium.  Only 19, war has left Billy in a torpor of melancholy and highly sensitive to the absurdity of American idealism.   "Billy suspects his fellow Americans secretly know better, but something in the land is stuck on teenage drama…no amount of lecturing will enlighten them as to the state of pure sin toward which war inclines."  There is a strong anti-war message in this exceptionally bitter-sweet tale that is as entertaining as it is perceptive to the "extremely high American threshold for sham, puff, spin, bullshit and outright lies."  Ben Fountain should be awarded the Medal of Honor for his novel.