by Nick Turse
First published 2019
Nick Turse tackles the mental health crisis that followed America's first military defeat. The Vietnam War left lasting psychological wounds on those who served, yet controversy has surrounded PTSD diagnoses since the 1970s. Critics questioned a 1990 report claiming high disorder rates among veterans. Debates continue over whether traumatic combat exposure or personal vulnerability factors like age and education matter more for developing PTSD. Turse combines military records, clinical data, and veteran interviews from two major studies conducted one decade and four decades after the war ended. He traces how combat severity, involvement in civilian harm, race, and military roles shaped outcomes. The book covers nurses' wartime experiences and examines how chronic PTSD affected veteran families. Turse explores post-war readjustment challenges, including shifting public attitudes toward the conflict and veterans' own assessments of the war's impact on their lives. This research offers concrete policy recommendations for addressing the long-term consequences of military service.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, military-history, academic, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, personal-accounts
Setting: Vietnam
Period: 1970s, 1990s
352 pages · Hardcover · Oxford University Press
Content warnings: mental-illness, war