Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em with Jon Flatt

Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em is a raw, unflinching memoir by Jon Flatt, a young soldier who fought in the harsh, unforgiving mountains of Afghanistan—and returned with invisible wounds that refused to heal. But this isn’t the story of battlefield glory or cinematic heroism. It’s what comes after the guns go quiet. What follows is not a victory parade, but a slow-motion collapse: chain-smoking through panic attacks, staring through loved ones as the weight of memory presses harder, and trying to outrun the war that still lives inside his skin. As Flatt attempts to re-enter a life that no longer fits—becoming a husband, a father, a man who smiles when he doesn’t feel like dying—he confronts the bitter truth that survival doesn't mean the fight is over. Told with brutal honesty, dark humor, and moments of aching clarity, Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em is a meditation on trauma, addiction, brotherhood, and the haunting cost of staying alive. Flatt’s voice is both literary and lived-in—gritty, poetic, and disarmingly vulnerable—as he lays bare the long road from soldier to civilian, and what it really means to come home. This is not just a war story. It’s a human one.