<em>“A lot of people look at Adam Gray's story and say people who commit suicide are cowards or they don't have, in the army lingo, ‘intestinal fortitude,' ‘the hoorah' or whatever. It's exactly the opposite. Adam was the most gung-ho soldier I ever met in my entire life--the first guy to kick down a door. [But] I think he hated who he was when he was there. And I think he couldn't deal with what he had done. And I still have trouble with that. It haunts me every day, and it's something I'll never get away from.”</em>--Jonathan Millantz, served with Adam Gray in Battalion 1-68 in Iraq. On April 3, 2009, Adam took his own life.<br /><br />Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from a year's tour in Iraq only to die in his barracks. For more than three years, reporter Joshua Phillips--with the support of Adam's mother and the cooperation of his Army buddies--investigated Adam's death. What Phillips uncovered was a story of American veterans psychologically scarred by the abuse they had meted out to Iraqi prisoners. How did US forces turn to torture? Phillips's narrative recounts the journey of a tank battalion-- trained for conventional combat--as its focus switches to guerrilla war and prisoner detention. It tells of how a group of ordinary soldiers, ill trained for the responsibilities foisted upon them, descended into the degradations of abuse. The location is far from CIA prisons and Guantánamo, but the story captures the widespread use and nature of torture in the US armed forces. Based on firsthand reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as interviews with soldiers, their families and friends, military officials, and the victims of torture, <em>None of Us Were Like This Before</em> reveals how soldiers, senior officials, and the US public came to believe that torture was both effective and necessary. The book illustrates that the damaging legacy of torture is not only borne by the detainees, but also by American soldiers and the country to which they've returned.