This American Life: The Balloon Goes Up

Act One. Bombs over Baghdad. Issam Shukri is an Iraqi man, living in Canada. He lived in Baghdad when it was bombed during the first gulf war. He talks about how scary it was when the ground started shaking, and how hard it was to explain to his three year old son.
Act Two.Tice Ridley, a first lieutenant in the army, has been sending regular emails from Kuwait City where he’s stationed about what it’s like to wait for the war to begin, and what it’s like to fight it.
Act Three. What’s French for French Fries? David Sedaris reports on French/US relations.
Act Four. Sarah Vowell tells the story about the first time the US attacked a country that hadn’t attacked us first. It was also the first time the US went to a foreign country to force a regime change. The country in question is still not doing too well a hundred years later.
Act Five. What Peacetime forgets about Wartime.
Act Six. Lessons from Ancient Wars. The story of a preventive act of war commited 3200 years ago, in the lank that’s now Turkey. Seneca’s The Trojan Woman takes place at the end of the Trojan war.

I swear to you, my own life would be so much poorer without This American Life.