Thank You for Your Service Author: David Finkel | Language: English | ISBN:
B00BIV551E | Format: EPUB
Thank You for Your Service Description
AMAZON 2013 BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
From a MacArthur Fellow and the author of The Good Soldiers, a profound look at life after war
The wars of the past decade have been covered by brave and talented reporters, but none has reckoned with the psychology of these wars as intimately as the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel. For The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel embedded with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion during the infamous “surge,” a grueling fifteen-month tour that changed them all forever. In Finkel’s hands, readers can feel what these young men were experiencing, and his harrowing story instantly became a classic in the literature of modern war.
In Thank You for Your Service, Finkel has done something even more extraordinary. Once again, he has embedded with some of the men of the 2-16—but this time he has done it at home, here in the States, after their deployments have ended. He is with them in their most intimate, painful, and hopeful moments as they try to recover, and in doing so, he creates an indelible, essential portrait of what life after war is like—not just for these soldiers, but for their wives, widows, children, and friends, and for the professionals who are truly trying, and to a great degree failing, to undo the damage that has been done.
The story Finkel tells is mesmerizing, impossible to put down. With his unparalleled ability to report a story, he climbs into the hearts and minds of those he writes about. Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding, and it offers a more complete picture than we have ever had of these two essential questions: When we ask young men and women to go to war, what are we asking of them? And when they return, what are we thanking them for?
One of Publishers Weekly’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2013
One of The Washington Post’s Top 10 Books of the Year
A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
An NPR Best Book of 2013
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013
- File Size: 897 KB
- Print Length: 272 pages
- Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books (October 1, 2013)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00BIV551E
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,993 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #1
in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Post-traumatic Stress Disorder - #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Americas > United States > Military History > Veterans - #3
in Books > History > Military > United States > Veterans
- #1
in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Post-traumatic Stress Disorder - #2
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Americas > United States > Military History > Veterans - #3
in Books > History > Military > United States > Veterans
Commenting on this book should start with the elegiac cover image of nameless soldiers packed into a transport plane - small, faceless and an honest visual portrayal. That's what soldiers looked like, going overseas or coming home: tired and small and grinding out another day. As this easily five-star book explains, that grind continues long after the plane ride ends.
In interviews, author David Finkel has made clear he did not use the title ironically - as he said, when one says 'thank you' this book describes what those words are thanking a soldier or their families for.
This book follows soldiers and family members first chronicled in Finkel's The Good Soldiers, which told the story of an Iraq deployment in 2007-8. The years since have given Finkel the time and space to tell a post-war story with honest perspective.
Finkel scrupulously avoids the first-person narration so self-indulgently common in many wartime stories and memoirs. He does not pass judgement, or editorialize. He witnesses and chronicles events and conversations, but only rarely can a reader say with confidence what Finkel actually thought. That's a compliment - the narrative becomes the subject's story, whether it's Sgt. Adam Schumann, dealing with crippling PTSD, or Amanda Doster, who lost her husband, or others. With this objective focus, I rarely felt manipulated or emotionally distracted by a writer's demand that I feel something - the descriptions do that without needing any artificial help.
"Thank You For Your Service" by David Finkel is an intimate story that tells story about the former soldiers and severity of their integration back into society.
Somehow this is a sequel to his previously published work "The Good Soldiers" where author introduced us the soldiers of one Infantry Battalion that left for Iraq.
Their return is described in this book and reader can realize how changed they become due to their experience not matter how short it was, someone malicious could say.
These are people who have wounds that are invisible on first sight, they don't lack any of the limbs or are disabled in common sense, that would have probably helped them to be seen as victims. Instead they have PTSD and TMI, problems that are still a mysterious to most people and often misused, thereby often belittle.
We see how is difficult for them to continue living their normal lives, with their families but also on general level how difficult their society reintegration is.
The title of the book is made in somehow ironic way because this is a sentence they've been hearing lot of times since they came back but anyone besides themselves and their families know and can't understand how difficult is to be back, how strange it feels to start living again normal life after all the shocking events they've been through.
The author writes without any hesitation, his stories are powerful while he portrays former soldiers as broken men together with their families that became broken due to their war experience.
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