This is a
story that badly needs to be told. Few
escape heavy combat unscathed. Thus Ann
does us a serious service here in reporting closely how these suddenly broken
men are cared for and the attempts to make ir right for therm.
It was not
always so. In other wars few survived real
contact with weaponry and a good measure of the dead was simply to count up the
injured. There were always as many dead
and the injured were usually the survivable type in their medical world.
Flak suits
have changed all that. The targets today
are the extremities. It is also better
tactics. One injured soldier instantly commandeers
four others in an effort to save his life.
Worse, we are still losing soldiers but we are receiving at least four
times as many casualties as seriously injured.
The degree of
damage is also often so serious as to preclude a serious working life
afterward. It needs to also be noted
that most injuries in Afghanistan come from stepping on mines. That means that you lose your limbs and
likely your sexual organs as well. In
fact that is the rule rather than the exception.
The book is a
grim read but you will know what the modern price of such war is.
These wars
against so called Islamic insurgences can be won but not this way.
They Were Soldiers
How the Wounded Return from America's Wars—The Untold Story
BY ANN JONES
Ann Jones shines a much-needed light on the dead, wounded,
mutilated, brain-damaged, drug-addicted, suicidal, homicidal casualties of our
distant wars, taking us on a stunning journey from the devastating moment an
American soldier is first wounded in rural Afghanistan to the return home.
Beautifully written by an empathetic and critical reporter who knows the price
of war.
About the author
Ann Jones is a journalist, photographer (Getty Images), and the
author of eight books of nonfiction, including Women Who Kill,Next
Time She’ll Be Dead, Kabul
in Winter, and War Is Not
Over When It’s Over. She has reported on the impact of war in the Middle
East, Asia, and Africa, and embedded with American forces in Afghanistan. She
regularly writes for The
Nation andTomDispatch.com.
Reviews
“Read this unsparing, scathingly direct, and gut-wrenching account
— the war Washington doesn’t want you to see. Then see if you still believe
that Americans ‘support the troops.’”
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country
—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country
“An indispensable book about America’s current wars and the
multiple ways they continue to wound not only the soldiers but their families
and indeed the country itself. Jones writes with passion and clarity about the
tragedies other reporters avoid and evade.”
—Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990
—Marilyn Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945–1990
"For a decade, Jones, through her firsthand reporting of war
and life on the ground in Afghanistan, has given us more of the reality of that
conflict than any dozen of her well-connected colleagues in the established
media, attuned as they have been to the cant and spin pouring out of official
mouths. Now, she has turned her shrewd, wise, compassionate, reality-bound eye
to some of the bitterest facts of all: the almost unimaginable suffering of the
American soldiers wounded and otherwise impaired in the conflict. The result is
a harrowing and compelling tale that is hard to bear but must be borne if we
are understand the disaster this country unleashed in Afghanistan." —Jonathan
Schell author of The
Unconquerable World
“This is a painful odyssey. Ann Jones’s superb writing makes it
possible to take it in without sugar coating.… Read this book. You will be a
wiser and better citizen.” —Jonathan Shay, MD, PhD, author of Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the
Trials of Homecoming
"Ann Jones' new book, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars --
The Untold Story,
is devastating, and almost incomprehensibly so when one considers that
virtually all of the death and destruction in U.S. wars is on the other side.
Statistically, what happens to U.S. troops is almost nothing. In human terms,
it's overwhelming. Know a young person considering joining the military? Give
them this book. Know a person not working to end war? Give them this
book." —David Swanson, www.warisacrime.org
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