Rebecca Solnit

“The few dozen houses had been burned to the ground and tanks used for aerial target practice were scattered between them. As we looked at the ruins of one ranch house, a noise erupted behind us so powerful it seemed more physical than sound. I turned just in time to see a supersonic jet disappear again, after buzzing us from 200 feet. . . The wars fought in the Middle East have been fought here first, in ways that one might imagine made them more real but instead make them more removed.”