Roadside: My Journey to Iraq and the Long Road Home

A military memoir by a biracial child of refugees and survivors, Roadside is about life and death, about family lost and gained, and about America, as a dream and a reality. It’s about the roads one takes to leave home and find it again.

As a half-Black, half-Korean kid in Campbell, California, Dylan Park-Pettiford never really fit in, so he and his little brother Rory became joined at the hip. But after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, swept up in patriotism, Dylan enlisted in the US Air Force and was sent to Iraq, and the brothers were separated.

There Dylan’s days alternated between boredom and terror, and rare moments of levity and learning came thanks to an Iraqi boy named Brahim. Like Rory, Brahim was wise beyond his years, and he and Dylan bonded as much over rap music as about life. Over the following year, Dylan would bring Brahim food and toiletries to keep him going; Brahim would bring intel to keep Dylan and his friends alive. When they said goodbye at the end of Dylan’s tour of duty, he knew it was for the last time.

Or was it?

Dylan returned to a world that had moved on without him. He would go through a soul-crushing divorce, a bout of homelessness, and struggles with prescription drugs, alcohol, and his own mental health. Eventually, he caught a few breaks and overcame the odds—until the violence Dylan thought he’d left in the Middle East followed him home.

Just when his life was at its darkest, fate intervened again, but this time to orchestrate an impossible reunion. In a world marred by a seemingly endless wave of negativity, this story of love, loss, and brotherhood may offer a faint glimmer of hope as we face an uncertain future.