Listen free for 30 days
-
The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq
- Narrated by: Kevin Pierce
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ Studies
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £23.49
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Fives and Twenty-Fives
- By: Michael Pitre
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins, Nick Sullivan, Jay Snyder, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the rule - always watch your Fives and Twenty-Fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and Twenty-Fives marks the measure of a marine’s life in the road repair platoon.
-
Craig & Fred
- A Marine, a Stray Dog, and How They Rescued Each Other
- By: Craig Grossi
- Narrated by: Craig Grossi
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The uplifting and unforgettable true story of a US marine, the stray dog he met on an Afghan battlefield, and how they saved each other and now travel America together, "spreading the message of stubborn positivity".
-
-
Why are my eyes leaking while I smile?
- By ROB NLM on 13-03-19
-
Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
-
-
Great story of Life & Africa
- By Amazon Customer on 05-11-21
-
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid
- By: Shani Boianjiu
- Narrated by: Shira Segal
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yael, Avishag, and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty Israeli village, attending a high school made up of caravan classrooms, passing notes to each other to alleviate the universal boredom of teenage life. When they are conscripted into the army, their lives change in unpredictable ways, influencing the women they become and the friendship that they struggle to sustain. Yael trains marksmen and flirts with boys. Avishag stands guard, watching refugees throw themselves at barbed-wire fences.
-
-
Israeli fatigues
- By Welsh Mafia on 06-05-13
-
Sweet Sunday
- By: John Lawton
- Narrated by: Lewis Hancock
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turner Raines is Mr Heartbreak. Everybody leaves him. They walk out, they run away...they die. When his oldest friend, Mel Kissing, dies with an ice pick through his skull, Raines picks up the thread and sets out to ask 'who?' and 'why?' But this is America in 1969, and one death is just a drop in the ocean. The Vietnam War is ripping the country to pieces, the Woodstock Festival is in full swing and Norman Mailer is standing as candidate for mayor of New York.
-
-
Listening again it's so good
- By delboy on 17-02-21
-
Safekeeping
- By: Jessamyn Hope
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1994, and Adam, a drug addict from New York City, arrives at a kibbutz in Israel with a medieval sapphire brooch. To make up for a past crime, he needs to get the priceless heirloom to a woman his grandfather loved when he was a Holocaust refugee on the kibbutz 50 years earlier.
-
-
Magestic & moving
- By Kirsts on 04-12-19
-
Fives and Twenty-Fives
- By: Michael Pitre
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins, Nick Sullivan, Jay Snyder, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the rule - always watch your Fives and Twenty-Fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and Twenty-Fives marks the measure of a marine’s life in the road repair platoon.
-
Craig & Fred
- A Marine, a Stray Dog, and How They Rescued Each Other
- By: Craig Grossi
- Narrated by: Craig Grossi
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The uplifting and unforgettable true story of a US marine, the stray dog he met on an Afghan battlefield, and how they saved each other and now travel America together, "spreading the message of stubborn positivity".
-
-
Why are my eyes leaking while I smile?
- By ROB NLM on 13-03-19
-
Love, Africa
- A Memoir of Romance, War, and Survival
- By: Jeffrey Gettleman
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A seasoned war correspondent, Jeffrey Gettleman has covered every major conflict over the past 20 years, from Afghanistan to Iraq to the Congo. For the past decade, he has served as the East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, fulfilling his teenage dream of living in Africa. Love, Africa is the story of how he got there - and of his difficult, winding path toward becoming a good reporter and a better man.
-
-
Great story of Life & Africa
- By Amazon Customer on 05-11-21
-
The People of Forever Are Not Afraid
- By: Shani Boianjiu
- Narrated by: Shira Segal
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yael, Avishag, and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty Israeli village, attending a high school made up of caravan classrooms, passing notes to each other to alleviate the universal boredom of teenage life. When they are conscripted into the army, their lives change in unpredictable ways, influencing the women they become and the friendship that they struggle to sustain. Yael trains marksmen and flirts with boys. Avishag stands guard, watching refugees throw themselves at barbed-wire fences.
-
-
Israeli fatigues
- By Welsh Mafia on 06-05-13
-
Sweet Sunday
- By: John Lawton
- Narrated by: Lewis Hancock
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turner Raines is Mr Heartbreak. Everybody leaves him. They walk out, they run away...they die. When his oldest friend, Mel Kissing, dies with an ice pick through his skull, Raines picks up the thread and sets out to ask 'who?' and 'why?' But this is America in 1969, and one death is just a drop in the ocean. The Vietnam War is ripping the country to pieces, the Woodstock Festival is in full swing and Norman Mailer is standing as candidate for mayor of New York.
-
-
Listening again it's so good
- By delboy on 17-02-21
-
Safekeeping
- By: Jessamyn Hope
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1994, and Adam, a drug addict from New York City, arrives at a kibbutz in Israel with a medieval sapphire brooch. To make up for a past crime, he needs to get the priceless heirloom to a woman his grandfather loved when he was a Holocaust refugee on the kibbutz 50 years earlier.
-
-
Magestic & moving
- By Kirsts on 04-12-19
-
Love Me When I'm Gone
- The True Story of Life, Love and Loss for a Green Beret in Post-9/11 War
- By: Robert Patrick Lewis
- Narrated by: Robert Patrick Lewis
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rob had a pretty rough childhood: He was given up for adoption as an infant, brought into a family of highly decorated military men, suffered the loss of his mother to cancer, rebelled, and landed himself in military school. When he finally returns home, he meets Cindy, who quickly becomes his best friend. After graduation the two go off to college at opposite ends of Texas, and their paths diverge.
-
Stallion Gate
- By: Martin Cruz Smith
- Narrated by: Frank Muller
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a New Mexico blizzard, four men cross a barbed-wire fence at Stallion Gate to select a test site for the first atomic weapon. They are Oppenheimer the physicist, Groves the general, Fuchs the spy. The fourth man is Sergeant Joe Pena, a hero, informer, fighter and musician. These four men - and a cast of soldiers, roughnecks and scientists - will change history forever.
-
-
Great story, dreadful narration.
- By Sue ONeil on 26-04-21
-
John Henry Days
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. Sutter is a bonafide junketeer - a freelance writer, travelling from city to city, hungry for free meals and the discarded sales receipts of others to claim on his expense account. Travelling into the backwoods of West Virginia to write a piece on the unveiling of the new John Henry postage stamp and the ensuing John Henry Days festival, J. continues his nearly record-setting, three-month junket binge.
-
The Silent History
- By: Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby, Kevin Moffett
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, LJ Ganser
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It begins as a statistical oddity: a spike in children born with acute speech delays. Physically normal in every way, these children never speak and do not respond to speech; they don't learn to read, don't learn to write. As the number of cases grows to an epidemic level, theories spread. Maybe it's related to a popular antidepressant; maybe it's environmental. Or maybe these children have special skills all their own.
-
A Good Country
- A Novel
- By: Laleh Khadivi
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A timely novel about the radicalization of a Muslim teen in California - about where identity truly lies, and how we find it. Laguna Beach, California, 2010. Reza Courdee, a 14-year-old straight-A student and chemistry whiz, takes his first hit of pot. In as long as it takes to inhale and exhale, he is transformed from the high-achieving son of Iranian immigrants into a happy-go-lucky stoner.
-
Jumping from Helicopters
- A Vietnam Memoir
- By: John Stillman, Lori Stillman
- Narrated by: Scott Miller, Sarah Sampino
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1967, at age 19, John Stillman - refusing to wait for the draft - voluntarily enlisted in the Army to aid his fellow countrymen in one of the most opposed involvements in our nation’s history: the Vietnam War. Written with John’s daughter, Lori Stillman, Jumping from Helicopters is a vivid and moving memoir that unearths 50 years of repressed memories with stunning accuracy and raw details.
-
No Tougher Duty, No Greater Honor
- A Memoir of a Mortuary Affairs Marine
- By: GySgt L. Christian Bussler - Ret.
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An autobiographical account of one US Marine Reservists tours as a Mortuary Affairs Marine. His story begins in 2002 as an everyday postal letter carrier in Springfield, Ohio when he gets the call to muster. In the next three years, his life is thrust onto the world stage as an active participant in combat. His unique experiences as an MA (Mortuary Affairs) Marine puts him and his teammates directly into the path of war. Told in first person view, hear what it was like to witness a regime crumble, walk the streets of terrorist-held cities, go on Search and Recovery missions, and more.
-
-
written from the heart
- By Tash on 18-06-20
-
Send Down the Rain
- By: Charles Martin
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allie is still recovering from the loss of her family's beloved waterfront restaurant on Florida's Gulf Coast when she loses her second husband to a terrifying highway accident. Devastated and losing hope, she shudders to contemplate the future - until a cherished person from her past returns. Joseph has been adrift for many years, wounded in both body and spirit and unable to come to terms with the trauma of his Vietnam War experiences. Just as he resolves to abandon his search for peace, he discovers a mother and her two small children lost in the forest.
-
Policing Saigon
- By: Loren W. Christensen
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Policing Saigon isn't Platoon or Apocalypse Now, but the story of Loren W. Christensen's experience as a military policeman (MP) in a city of millions at a time when chaos and fear reigned. As a 23-year-old from a small town in Washington State, the author was plunged into a chaotic city of brawling servicemen, prostitutes, racial violence, enemy rockets, riots, and death. It was a place that would give him a unique opportunity to see up close a different side of the Vietnam War and its effect on the human condition.
-
Keeping Watch
- By: Laurie R. King
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Allen Carmichael came back from Vietnam a lifetime ago - but only now is he ready to return home. For years, he's lived on the fringes of the law, using a soldier's skills to keep watch over those too young to defend themselves. Some consider him nothing but a kidnapper for hire - the best in the business; others call him a hero. His specialty has been rescuing children from abusive parents and escorting them to loving homes. But after 25 years, he is ready to take on his final case - a case that could destroy him.
-
War Flower
- My Life After Iraq
- By: Brooke King
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brooke King has been asked over and over what it's like to be a woman in combat, but she knows her answer is not what the public wants to hear. The answers people seek lie in the graphic details of war - the sex, death, violence, and reality of it all as she experienced it. In her riveting memoir War Flower, King breaks her silence and reveals the truth about her experience as a soldier in Iraq.
-
-
Worth a listen
- By David G. Nichol on 01-05-19
-
Dispatches from the Edge
- By: Anderson Cooper
- Narrated by: Anderson Cooper
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Striking, heartfelt, and utterly engrossing, Dispatches from the Edge is an unforgettable memoir that takes us behind the scenes of the cataclysmic events of our age and allows us to see them through the eyes of one of America's most trusted, fearless, and pioneering reporters.
-
-
This Taught Me A Lot.
- By flubb on 06-02-18
Summary
In 2003, after serving five and a half years as a carpenter in a North Dakota National Guard engineer unit, Bronson Lemer was ready to leave the military behind. But six months short of completing his commitment to the army, Lemer was deployed on a yearlong tour of duty to Iraq. Leaving college life behind in the Midwest, he yearns for a lost love and quietly dreams of a future as an openly gay man outside the military. He discovers that his father's lifelong example of silent strength has taught him much about being a man, and these lessons help him survive in a war zone and to conceal his sexuality, as he is required to do by the U.S. military.
The Last Deployment is a moving, provocative chronicle of one soldier's struggle to reconcile military brotherhood with self-acceptance. Lemer captures the absurd nuances of a soldier's daily life: growing a mustache to disguise his fear, wearing pantyhose to battle sand fleas, and exchanging barbs with Iraqis while driving through Baghdad. But most strikingly, he describes the poignant reality faced by gay servicemen and servicewomen, who must mask their identities while serving a country that disowns them. Often funny, sometimes anguished, The Last Deployment paints a deeply personal portrait of war in the 21st century.
Critic reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Max
- 07-12-12
Good Book
I wasn't expecting an amazing story and it wasn't. But it was well written and the longer I listened to it the more I looked forward to when I could pick it up again. I'm a gay vet and what I found was very similar experience and thoughts/feelings/circumstance despite that I was an officer in non-combat duty whereas the author was enlisted in combat duty. The narrative would appeal to anyone - it's not all about the gay, it's more about an average soldiers daily experience in the military, with a deployment to Iraq, and by the way he's gay which add's another dimension. The narrator is very good - it might have been better with a younger narrator for the effect, but that was a minor distraction. I'm generally not interested in contemporary war tales (too soon) but I liked the non-rambo style in which this story was told.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Matthew
- 28-12-12
Clear story about Iraq Vet
How did the narrator detract from the book?
The narrator did not match the author's writing style. The writing and voice of the 28-year-old author did not match the narrator's much older, reserved style of communication. I felt like my Dad was reading me the story. This book feels like a documentary so using the actual voice of the author would have helped convey the story. This book would have been better if the author read his own book.