"I was a prisoner before the war; I am no freer now after the war."

This memoir of an Iraqi soldier writing under a pseudonym uses "red flags" as a metaphor for military targets during his country's invasion by the United States in 2003. He recounts his involvement in Saddam Hussein's army under threat of execution, and says danger came as much from the suspicious Iraqi government as from American invaders. Even the fall of Baghdad and the Hussein government has not led to a better life for his people, whom he says are still divided by war.