Thank You for Your Service Hardcover – October 1, 2013

A number of years ago, I read “The Good Soldiers”. An excellent dispassionate view of the war in Iraq at the level of the US infantry man. “Thank You for Your Service” is essentially the sequel. It covers many of the same soldiers who were in Iraq and details some of the outcomes back in the United States. It makes for troubling reading.In the case of both books, David Finkel was “embedded” with the soldiers involved. He saw their triumphs and their tribulations right up close. This can be very disconcerting. Although I vastly preferred “The Good Soldiers” as a book, I was still very unnerved by the sequel. Troubled soldiers back in the US had traumatic brain injuries and PTSD. They were regularly suicidal. They regularly reverted to violence and other forms of anti-social behaviour.Choosing to be a soldier is not easy. Many are injured both physically and psychologically. Many remain scarred for life even without physical injuries. Finkel documents the process of repair with a keen eye. Often, he lets the soldiers and their families speak for themselves.Overall, “Thank You for Your Service” is a confronting read. It is, however, extremely insightful. It gives the reader a clearer picture of the many issues that need to be managed.

Thank You for Your Service was named one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly and one of the Top 10 Books of the Year by the Washington Post…and I wholeheartedly agree. I won’t say it’s the best nonfiction book I’ve read this year (only because it doesn’t beat The Boys in the Boat, which is my favorite nonfiction of 2013 so far), but it definitely claims the number two slot.This is a heartbreaking and moving series of stories about various members of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion and their families dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) following war zone deployments. These men, even though they came home without a physical scratch, gave their lives as they and their families knew them to our country. The soldiers experience crippling anxiety and migraines, violent tendencies, depression, and memory loss. These effects cause immense pain and hardship for the soldiers’ families, as they see their father/husband/brother turn into a completely different human being…and, in many cases, a monster…and the wives are generally left trying to hold the family together. One soldier’s wife said of her husband’s months long stay in a mental rehab center, “I’m pissed. […] He gets to go fishing. He gets to go out on weekends. […] I’m always here, taking care of everything. This is not why I got married and had kids, to do this on my own. I’d like to stay in a hospital for a couple of weeks. And sleep.”.TBI (“the signature wound of war”, according to the military) is particularly relevant right now, as it is the same injury that football players have been suffering from and has been covered extensively in the media. While the football players’ TBI is caused by repeated flows to the head, the soldiers’ is caused by close proximity to repeated explosions.Finkel’s writing style is powerful and made the soldiers’ situations seem very stark and real. He quickly switched back and forth between discussion of heavy feelings and emotions and mundane details of life. It reminded me of the sequence in the pilot episode of “Friday Night Lights” (the TV show) when the director cuts back and forth between scenes of Jason Street’s spinal surgery and the football game going on simultaneously. Finkel also included macabre things the soldiers do to make light of their situations, but are probably horrifying to anyone else. For example, one of the soldiers used his bullet hole ridden war helmet as his Halloween candy bowl, no doubt terrifying Trick or Treaters.Though Thank You for Your Service is incredibly sad, I was completely engrossed and had trouble putting it down. It’s a totally unique look at the effects of war and would be a great gift for the holidays.For more reviews, check out my blog, Sarah's Book Shelves.

I haven't read "The Good Soldiers" yet, though I surely will, having read "Thank You for Your Service."First, if not foremost: What a writer! I have a bit of a soft spot for those journalist/authors who meld factual authority with story-telling aplomb, and in this Finkel excels. Like the proverbial fly on the wall, he seems to have been everywhere he needed to be--almost in the heads of his subjects--as he traces the lives of the shattered men who survived their Iraq tours of duty described (so I understand) in "The Good Soldiers."As much as the experiences of these veterans, Finkel brings to stunning life all of the characters in an often sad and desperate struggle, the struggle to restore and maintain viability for the wives, lovers, children, and friends of these veterans suffering from PTSD. The wives are not fantasy constructions on the order of the gal waiting back home; like the soldiers who came back, they are real people dealing with more than they ever could have bargained for. (How could they? You would have to have had some way to know what it was going to be like. But the way it turned out is unbelievable.) The men and women who are, or try to be, the support system for these veterans are also human beings--if, that is, they bestir themselves, as these soldiers did once, to enter fully into their institutional roles, to really _be_ what the organization assigns them to be.Before reading this book, I had my doubts about the reality of PTSD. (Nothing like a new "disorder" to whet the sound-byte media culture.) Now I'm ashamed of myself. I don't know, and it's not my job to know, how many veterans may try to game the system through self-dramatization, or even invention, of PTSD symptoms. But I know now that PTSD is devastating reality for many, many more than a few of our veterans, those suffering souls and their spouses, whom we thank for their service, wishing as we do so that we could sound as sincere as we want to be, but never can be.

This book gives humbling insight into the damaged minds of American Servicemen, victims of PTSD, returning from our new age wars. It powerfully demonstrates war on a second front - at home - where wives and family try valiantly to come to terms with this changed, returning warrior. The tragedy experienced by them all is gutting. Attempts made by the forces to help and support these terribly damaged people is touching ......... but the bottom line is forcibly brought home to us all. War ruins all the lives it touches.

An incredible book which I really found offered an upsetting insight into the hardship suffered not just by America's soldiers but even more so by their families and loved ones. Not sure the Pentagon will be too pleased as the support offered to those who have served their country and are suffering as much mental pain as physical don't seem to be as well cared for after the battles as they were prior to and during the conflict. " Thank you for your service " should be compulsory reading for the top brass. These guys deserve a lot more than sympathy from readers.

A simply written factual account of the personal experience endured by too many people far too frequently. A good sense of perspective keeps the narrative from becoming 'mawkish'!

This is such a powerful, painful and important book.

This is just a very very good book. Read it