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The sacrifices of service are indescribable -- except by those who have made them. Their personal stories of battlefield life reveal: - The goal to "be ready every day, every single day," -- and how that can quickly descend into chaos. - The realization that every solider must be "okay with dying, consciously or subconsciously, to be good at this job."- How "we all need to serve something bigger than ourselves." Men and women from every branch of the US military and every occupational specialty tell exactly how it feels to jump out of airplanes, to be boots on the ground, to shoot and be shot at, and to recognize that they might never get back home. "When the fear shows up," explains a Marine Corps rifleman, "I tell myself I can do it--I will do it.