by David Finkel
First published 2013
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel follows members of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they return home from their brutal fifteen-month deployment during the Iraq surge. Finkel embeds with these soldiers not on the battlefield, but in their American homes and communities. He documents their daily struggles with trauma, their families' attempts to reconnect, and the overwhelmed medical and support systems trying to help them heal. The book reveals how wives become widows, how children cope with changed fathers, and how professionals work within failing systems to treat psychological wounds. Finkel shows soldiers fighting new battles against depression, rage, and isolation. He captures moments of hope alongside devastating setbacks. The narrative exposes the gap between public gratitude for military service and the reality of what veterans face when the war follows them home. Through intimate reporting, Finkel examines what society asks of its young soldiers and what it owes them in return.
Genres: war, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century, military-history, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: intimate, realistic
Setting: Iraq
Period: Iraq Surge
272 pages · ebook · Sarah Crichton Books
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness, suicide