Reborn on the Fourth of July

Logan M. Isaac, HoSM

Limited first edition (InterVarsity Press, 2012) copies available while supplies last

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About the Book

He went to Iraq a soldier and a believer. He came back something harder to name.

Reborn on the Fourth of July is the memoir of a man caught between two loyalties — to the Army that formed him and to the Gospel that undid him. Logan M. Isaac served as a forward observer in Iraq, one of the few in his platoon who could swim, one of the first to arrive at a night rescue mission that would quietly crack something open in him. What followed was not a clean conversion story. It was messier than that: a slow reckoning with reflexive fire training, with survivor's guilt, with the discovery that the Church had almost nothing useful to say to people like him, and with the decision to apply for conscientious objector status — not to escape a second deployment, but to go back unarmed.

He went back unarmed.

The book that emerged from that experience does not ask readers to become pacifists. It does not ask them to support the war. It asks something harder: to sit with the human being in the foxhole and resist the urge to turn him into either a hero or a cautionary tale. As the Publishers Weekly starred review noted, the author's heart stands with soldiers who are too often glorified or vilified but seldom understood. That remains the book's irreducible center — then and now.

Who This Book is For

Reborn on the Fourth of July was written for anyone who has felt the tension between love of country and love of God and found that the available options — flag-waving or flag-burning, patriot or pacifist — didn't fit. It will speak directly to veterans navigating faith after service, to civilians who want to understand that navigation without reducing it to a bumper sticker, and to pastors and congregations who have discovered they have no language for the soldiers in their pews.

It is also, simply, a compelling memoir. You do not need to share the author's faith or his politics to find yourself unable to put it down.

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Praise and Press

“Logan's excellent, eye-opening book seeks to chart out a third way... His heart stands with soldiers, who are often either glorified or vilified, but seldom understood.”

From the Publishers Weekly ⭐️ Starred Review, one of fewer than 10% of reviewed titles to receive this distinction.

"Challenging while written at an accessible level. It would benefit readers with a variety of positions on war and peace."

Shaun C. Brown, for the Englewood Review of Books.

“Following your conscience while in the military can put you at odds with its own ‘institutional conscience’ and with specific missions and wars overseen by civilian politicians. Logan’s journey from combat soldier to conscientious objector is a powerful story of recognizing one’s conscience and then following it to the remarkable places of witness in our world.”

Anne Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (Retired) and former United States Diplomat

Book Excerpt

From Movement One, "Rescue Mission"

Just after midnight, we got a distress call from another one of the units from our Forward Operating Base. There had been a vehicular accident in a convoy headed back to base; a driver had rolled over an embankment above a reservoir.
The temperature was in the fifties on land, and I suspected the water was even colder. The concrete barrier was at least four feet above the surface of the water, so while I could get myself in the water, I would need to be hauled back up. I made sure there would be a constant presence that I could call on to grab me before I took off my boots and body armor, and I plunged in.
It was much colder than I expected. My breath escaped my lungs as I hit the water, and I gasped for relief and air as soon as I resurfaced. I was never so scared in my life — not of getting hurt or drowning but of having to retrieve a lifeless body from the frigid and foreboding waters. I prayed over and over to God that my search would be in vain.
Nobody had been lost. I was left blessedly empty-handed and with a supreme sense of accomplishment. I thought the worst was over, but I was wrong again.

About the Author

Logan M. Isaac is a combat veteran, professed monk, theological ethicist, and author. He served in the United States Army from 2000 to 2006 as a forward observer in the 82nd Airborne and 25th Infantry (Light) divisions, deploying in support of operations in Iraq. He holds graduate degrees from Duke University and the University of St Andrews, where he developed a "martial hermeneutic" — the recognition that combat experience is a legitimate source for biblical interpretation. He is the founder of the Military Improvement Association, a 501(c)19 veteran civil rights organization, and Grunt Works, a community platform for rank-and-file believers. He owns and operates The Chapter House, an independent bookstore in Albany, Oregon. He is a Life Professed member of the Hospitallers of Saint Martin.

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