Thank You For Your Service

Sometimes books are not meant to be totally pleasurable. They are meant to showcase something that our every day lives just cannot reveal; they are meant to make us feel more than what we are feeling. And that in itself is not always easy - forget enjoyable. David Finkel's distressing "Thank You for Your Service," brings to light an issue that needs national attention.

Finkel, who covered the psychology of war with the prized "The Good Soldiers" in 2009, follows soldiers as they return to the motherland after being stationed across oceans to fight for their country. The return, joyful and inspiring at first, soon becomes as much of a struggle as being out on the ground fighting in a war that you, the warrior and representative, did not start. You see families torn apart, young wives with children learning to love again, and the reintegration of soldiers into society. And this society is no longer the one they knew: It has changed, in part thanks to technology and the like, but all while the wars raged on and soldiers were cut off from what we perceive to be "real."

Finkel, worthy of his Pulitzer, manages to again write a book with enough substance and gravitas without having to make himself the main attraction of the read. The book, now in paperback, is the story of the soldiers and how they fare as human beings having taken on a job seen by many as treacherous as well as honorable. Finkel's research began according to him when he embedded himself with a 2-16 infantry battalion during its fifteen-month deployment to eastern Baghdad during the Iraq War surge of 2007 and into 2008. Evident in his latest book is Finkel's commitment to portraying the lives of these soldiers as they return from this mission - no longer boys, but now men - without adding in his own flavored opinion.

One of the big focus points in Finkel's book is PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Statistics from Georgetown University show, in their Face The Facts USA project, that 1 in 5 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has been diagnosed with PTSD - totally roughly 300,000 soldiers. The suicide rates among these soldiers amount, according to this study, to roughly one person per day - at present, the highest rate since these wars began. Finkel's book is the first light to be thrown on a discussion that will be ripe for election year 2016.

"Thank You for Your Service"
David Finkel
$12.96
Picador