The tired truism that journalism is history’s first draft does not quite apply to covering war—or not usually, in any case. In those battles that I’ve fought in and those that I’ve reported on, as soon as the gunfire ebbs and soldiers start passing out the post-firefight cigarette or candy bar—or whatever corporeal ritual they’re engaging in to remind themselves that they’re still alive—invariably, they begin to tell stories. They huddle in small groups urgently talking about what just happened, trying to bring order to the violence and chaos they’ve experienced. One guy will talk about entering a house on the left. The other guy will remind him that they entered on the right. They’ll argue about where another friend was shot. The story will begin to congeal when everyone agrees that this is what happened—a first draft, which then, in the hands of a journalist, becomes a second one. Ever since Homer decided to sort the heroes from the villains at the gates of Troy, the stakes in a war story are always exceptionally …