Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Meredith recommended this to me and then it was also a NY Times Notable book for 2012.  (That Meredith, she is always ahead of the game!)

The book is about a group of soldiers who are home - briefly - from Iraq as war heroes.  They have a little time with their families and a little time touring, parading, at the White House, and at an NFL game.  Billy (the title character) struggles with whether he feels like a hero or not, and how he feels about his imminent return to Iraq.

The situations the soldiers are in while they are home creates a very satirical look at how we recognize and reward armed service.  There are characters in the book - caricatures really - who exalt the soldiers without really understanding what their sacrifices and hard work are.  Fountain creates some really cool word images in the book to represent these conversations.

I liked this book, and appreciated reading it while it was relevant to current events.  It did a good job of satirizing not war itself, but the inadequate yet overblown responses that many of those at home have towards soldiers.