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Last detail I'd like to look at, Yon says this:

When Kurilla woke in recovery a few hours after surgery, he called CSM Prosser and asked for a Bible and the book: Gates of Fire. Kurilla gives a copy of Gates of Fire to every new officer and orders them to read it. He had given me a copy and told me to read it. In my book, there is a marked passage, which I thought rather flowery. But I have it beside me on the table by the map of Iraq.

"I would be the one. The one to go back and speak. A pain beyond all previous now seized me. Sweet life itself, even the desperately sought chance to tell the tale, suddenly seemed unendurable alongside the pain of having to take leave of these whom I had come so to love."

The book, Gates of Fire, is written by Steven Pressfield.

(This link to Amazon came through GMT Games, a game company with which I have no affiliation, other than as a customer.)

Why might Kurilla, a leader of men, find special meaning in this book?

The book is fiction, a historical novel, but describes the famous battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. In a narrow mountain pass, 300 Spartans,led by Leonidas, and their allies held back a massive Persian invasion force. This force was wiped out.

It is a brilliant novel. Kurilla must have been touched by the account of Leonidas, and his difficult task of leading men in this perilous situation, one fraught with mortal danger.

In the book, Leonidas says this:

"You are the commanders, your men will look to you and act as you do. Let no officer keep to himself or his brother officers, but circulate daylong among his men. Let them see you and see you unafraid. Where there is work to do, turn your hand to it first; the men will follow."

Kurilla was that kind of man. He was the first man down that alley.

It is instructive that Yon highlighted the passage he did. The passage is taken from Chapter One. The words are from a character named Xeones. Xeones is the narrator of the novel. He survives the battle, and lives to tell the tale of what happened in that mountain pass.

Yon is that person as well. He sees himself as the one who will witness battle and return to tell others about it. He is the one who brings back to us tales of unbelievable courage. Without him, we would know very little of the courage of the men who put their lives on the line for us. God bless Yon, and God bless our Armed Forces.

Today, there is a famous monument at the site of the battle, and an epitaph on the monument says this:

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to their laws, we lie

Yes, Michael, go tell all of us of the courage of those who serve to defend us.
http://www.jeffkouba.com/myblog/2005/08/dissecting-gates-of-fire.html