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On 9/11/01, the World Trade center and pentagon in New York City were under a terrorist attack that destroyed the buildings and killed thousands.
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Ryan Smithson, fresh out of high school, decides that has to do something to prevent another attack and enlists the army to take action.
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Already in the army, goes through basic training where he’s taken away all privileges in order to make them appreciate his liberty and learn the basis of the army.
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Now he knows he will be sent to Iraq sooner or later, and decides to marry very young so the army lets know Heather, his girlfriend, if something happens to him.
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As predicted, Smithson is sent to Iraq without guarantees of surviving, he is going to the heart of the war.
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While at the battlefield, kids at schools in America send letters and food that is appreciated, but specially letters are what keep them motivated.
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Ryan is now in Abu Ghraib, a dangerous prison, on a mission; everything seems quiet until a flying bomb explodes near from where he was, changing his perspective on the enemy.
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After a couple of months in war, Ryan is allowed to go home for two weeks to visit his family; the hardest goodbye he has ever said was the one after the two weeks.
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Nobody had died until now, someone that Ryan didn’t even get to know so well had died, but this makes him sob like a baby and feel deep regret of not sharing more with him.
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It is finally over, Ryan is allowed to go home and forget about war for now; but he starts missing not only war, but the platoon and the times they shared together.
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Now Smithson can finally start his life after high school as a civilian, gets a job and goes to college, but the memories still haunt him down.
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Ryan found a way to let flow his bad thoughts and proliferate about it, all the essays that he wrote are published into a book called “Ghost Of War” on 2009.
