United States. Marine Corps

Phil Klay served in Iraq from January 2007 to February 2008. He recently won a National Book Critics Circle award for his collection of short stories. Originally broadcast Nov. 25, 2014.

As a bomb-detecting dog, Zenit the German shepherd never chased his tail or dug holes. Those are skills he learned after he was adopted by his former professional partner, Cpl. Jose Armenta.

In the early days of the Iraq War, during a firefight in Baghdad, Lu Lobello's Marine unit mistakenly opened fire on a family of civilians, killing three. Years later, and after enlisting the help of reporter Dexter Filkins, Lobello reached out to that family for forgiveness.

Marine Jess Goodell spent eight months recovering and processing the remains of fallen troops in the Mortuary Affairs unit. "I don't think I ever stopped smelling death when I was in Iraq," she says.

After producing Band of Brothers in 2001, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg return to World War II with The Pacific, a 10-part historical miniseries beginning Sunday night on HBO. TV Critic David Bianculli review the series, which examines the Pacific theater of operations.

Washington Post military correspondent Ann Scott Tyson was recently embedded with Marines in Afghanistan fighting in Helmand Province, a stronghold of the Taliban.

Fresh Air's TV critic has a look at the new HBO miniseries, created by The Wire's David Simon and Ed Burns. Generation Kill focuses on a unit of Marines during the first 40 days of the Iraq war.

Marine Lt. Col. Steve Beck and journalist Jim Sheeler talk about the book Final Salute.

Life magazine has called David Douglas Duncan perhaps the best war photographer since Matthew Brady. In 1999, Duncan received a lifetime achievement award for excellence and bravery from the Marine Corps. We rebroadcast an interview with Duncan from July 2, 1990

Jarhead tells the story of a Marine sniper whose unit is sent to the Middle East for the Iraq conflict of 1991. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal, who narrates the film; Jamie Foxx; and Peter Sarsgaard. It was directed by Sam Mendes, who won an Oscar for American Beauty.