I am prior service (6 years Army). I am working on a zombie novel that puts an emphasis on realism. Many of the characters are direct analogues to real people I served with (hell, the thing is told from my point of view).

This story is set in 2011 in an alternate universe. Pretty much everything is the same (same timeline, major historical events, etc.) except for one big difference:
A disease, previously locked in a remote and inaccessible region of the Afghan mountains, is released on the world. This microscopic parasite takes over the brain of an infected human, driving them to hunt down and attack others to spread the pathogen. Spread through bites and blood, the pandemic sweeps across the middle east and north into Eurasia.

The break down:
 Zulu Alpha is a story of the zombie apocalypse told from the perspective of U.S. Army grunts. There will be swearing! There will be violence! There will be in depth descriptions of medically accurate gore! 
You have been warned.