“Ten Kliks South” is a short stoy by National Book Award Winner and Veteran of the Iraq War, Phil Klay. The narrative follows a Marine assigned to the Artillery Gun Six Crew in the Iraq War. His crew is on its first “arty mission” with human targets, which triggers the narrator’s complex emotions about the abstract reality of modern warfare—an increasingly virtual landscape. Over the course of the story, Klay makes clear the ever-growing dissonance between acts of warfare and their violent consequences. “Ten Kliks South” was included in the Thornwillow Dispatch in October 2021. To support and subscribe to future publications like this one, visit https://thornwillow.com/thornwillow-dispatch
