Nothing As It Seems: A Memoir

Far more than a combat memoir, Nothing As It Seems is a brutally honest, deeply human story about war, trauma, family, grief, grace, and the long journey home. As a U.S. Army infantry officer, Dennis Call led soldiers through some of the most violent battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But the hardest battles were not always fought overseas. They followed him home—in the form of anger, guilt, shame, depression, fractured relationships, and the quiet isolation that so often accompanies trauma. The violence of war may have been the catalyst, but the wounds ran deeper and touched every part of his life: his marriage, his family, his faith, his sense of identity, and ultimately his understanding of what it means to heal. Through vivid storytelling and unpretentious confession, Dennis pulls back the curtain on the realities that military members, veterans, and trauma survivors often carry in silence. He writes candidly about combat, loss, moral injury, brotherhood, and the unseen costs of survival.