War & Coffee

In this thrillingly candid military memoir, a helicopter pilot chronicles his time to Afghanistan both in combat and on base.

In 2009, Joshua Havill was deployed to Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot with the "Screaming Eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division. In War & Coffee, he shares a comically irreverent, brutally honest perspective on what it means to join a decades-long war half way through. In between the occasional mortar round and rocket-propelled grenades, Havill takes a direct look at the tactical and ideological substance of a conflict laced with as much debauchery as tragedy.

After nine years of US Navy Submarine Service and a civilian interlude, Havill reentered the military in 2002 to pursue aviation. His career culminated with a year of flying UH-60 Blackhawks out of Bagram Air Base. Time away from the cockpit was spent living in a plywood B-hut and making frequent visits to “the Lighthouse,” the base’s sparse yet beloved self-serve coffee shop. Set during the most pivotal year of Operation Enduring Freedom, this is a captivating illustration of life in a warzone.