Cultural Writing. Biography and Memoir. LETTERS FROM ABU GHRAIB, a collection of e-mail messages sent by Joshua Casteel to his friends and family during his service as a US Army interrogator and Arabic linguist in the 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion, is the raw and intimate record of a soldier in moral conflict with his duties. Once a cadet at the US Military Academy at West Point and raised in an Evangelical Christian home, Casteel found himself stationed at Abu Ghraib prison in the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal. He was troubled by what he was asked to do there, although it was, as he writes, "miles within the bounds of what CNN and the BBC care about." Forced to confront the nature of fundamentalism, both religious and political, Casteel asks himself a fundamental question: "How should I then live?"

Author City: IOWA CITY, IA USA

Joshua Casteel is 27 years old and currently a dual-MFA candidate at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program. Since his discharge from Active Duty May 30th 2005 as a Conscientious Objector, Joshua has been invited to speak at over 50 venues worldwide, including the UK, Sweden, South Korea, as well as two national tours of Ireland.