'Matterhorn' author Karl Marlantes' nonfiction debut is a powerful book about the experience of combat and how inadequately we prepare our young men and women for the psychological and spiritual stresses of war. One of the most important and highly-praised books of 2011, Karl Marlantes' 'What It Is Like to Go to War' is set to become just as much of a classic as his epic novel 'Matterhorn'. In 1968, at the age of twenty-two, Karl Marlantes was dropped into the highland jungle of Vietnam, an inexperienced lieutenant in command of a platoon of forty Marines who would live or die by his decisions. In his thirteen-month tour he saw intense combat. He killed the enemy and he watched friends die. Marlantes survived, but like many of his brothers in arms, he has spent the last forty years dealing with his experiences. In 'What It Is Like to Go to War', Marlantes takes a deeply personal and candid look at the experience and ordeal of combat, critically examining how we might better prepare