Moving a Nation to Care: Now Available for Pre-Order
If you've been one of my partners on this journey from ePluribus Media, Veterans for America, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, National Gulf War Resource Center, SoapBlox/Chicago, Daily Kos, My Left Wing, Political Cortex, Booman Tribune, Blue Force, TPM Cafe, or Gen. Wes' Clark Community Network, thank you.
My appreciation for your heart and hands on this issue! Onward...
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[Lastest update to this page: 24 Feb 07].
Book Reviews
See the book review page for full list.
From Unsolicited Opinion:Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America’s Returning Troops is a timely and important reminder that war’s costs are often more subtle than the obvious dead and wounded casualties. Regardless of one’s view of the wisdom of any particular war, author Ilona Meagher clearly demonstrates that the psychological wounds of war require as much attention as the more visibly injured. Achingly illustrated with examples of soldiers’ experiences after returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Moving A Nation to Care is a wake-up call to the wider public who may be tempted to dismiss the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder as something that veterans must simply "get over" upon returning to civilian life. ...
[I]ndividuals are left to fight their own personal wars as they relive and ponder their actions while the nation that sent them into combat holds on to an an image of war as noble and gallant. The all too vivid examples of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, murder and suicide in Moving A Nation to Care show that families, friends and the veterans themselves often pay the high cost of combat. If anything, the examples are overwhelming. I found myself dreading each new name because all too often the name introduced a story that ended in death. As difficult as reading these stories may be, however, the examples are necessary to bring attention to something society would rather ignore–the full cost of war.
Fortunately, Moving A Nation to Care is more than a litany of death and despair. It is also the story of activists–veterans and their families–like James Blake Miller, a veteran of the 2004 Marine assault on Fallujah. A photograph of Miller, battle weary, his face covered in dirt and blood, became an icon of Iraq combat, the "perfect image of a valiant and virtuous warrior". These days "...outspoken and open to a fault, suffering with PTSD, Miller no longer represents the mythic soldier. Yet his bluntness is the dose of reality we need...[he] asks us to consider the costs of war for the individual rather than endlessly, and mindlessly, perpetuating the myths of gallant battles and Teflon warriors." Captain Stefanie Pelkey, the widow of Captain Michael Jon Pelkey who committed suicide as a result of PTSD from his year in Iraq is another activist. So are Kevin and Joyce Lucey, whose son Jeffrey also took his own life after returning from Iraq. These dedicated individuals are helping tear down the Defense Department’s "wall of silence regarding PTSD" asking why, in preparing for war, was care for returning troops basically ignored?
For all that Ilona Meagher does in bringing this important issue to the public, even more significant, is the list of resources for concerned citizens presented in the final chapter. This chapter is Ms. Meagher’s effort to "move a nation to care". It offers sources for understanding the experience of war, how to communicate with returning veterans, opportunities for political action and page after page of organizations offering assistance and support to veterans and their families.
From ePluribus Media:Meagher's book is an attempt to move Americans to action on veterans' rights: She is honest in her concern and this is a book on a topic that has much more relevance to our individual lives, even those of us with no immediate family members in the military, than many of us might think. What happens to the members of our military matters to our lives, no matter who we are. ...
Meagher's book is in three parts. The first two use personal stories to provide an understanding of PTSD for those of us who have never experienced it or war. This first part really has two purposes, to show that although PTSD is nothing new, it is a serious problem indeed. The second gets into the complexities of PTSD in contemporary American society, explaining why PTSD is different for veterans today, given the particulars of the contemporary Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. In the third part, she brings it home -- literally, discussing, among other things, the impact of quick transport, picking people up from Iraq one day and dropping them home the next -- without any time for adjustment. It's here, also, that she provides lists for the activism that she hopes her "call to arms" will make necessary in each of our hearts -- places to contact, things to do relating to easing the impact of PTSD. In many ways, these are the purpose of the book. The point is to give Americans -- all of us, but particularly the veterans facing PTSD and their families -- information on how to proceed both in dealing with the trauma and in forcing our government to deal concretely with the problem.
The style of Meagher's writing is breezy; there's no anger in the prose. Meagher lets the examples she presents speak for themselves -- and that's good. The outrage is in the violence that PTSD victims have experienced and then recreate (most often against themselves) -- and in the help that comes too little and too late, if at all.
From Amazon.com:Book Description
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in our returning combat troops is one of the most catastrophic issues confronting our nation. Yet, despite the fact that nearly 20 percent of the over half million troops that have left the military since 2003 have been diagnosed with PTSD, and that many who suffer symptoms are unlikely to seek help because of the stigma of this terrible disease, our government and media have remained silent.
Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops is a grassroots call to action designed to break the shameful silence and put the issue of PTSD in our returning troops front and center before the American public. In addition to presenting interviews with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering with PTSD, such as Blake Miller, the famous "Marlboro Man," this book will be the most comprehensive resource to date for concerned citizens who want to understand the complex political, social, and health-related issues of PTSD, with an eye toward "moving our nation to care" to do what is necessary to help our fighting men and women who suffer from PTSD.
Ilona Meagher is editor of the online journal PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within and author of the PTSD Timeline, a comprehensive database of PTSD incidents. She has appeared on Fox News and numerous other media outlets.
Robert Roerich, MD, is one of the world experts in trauma therapy and PTSD and a board member of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
About the Author
Ilona Meagher is editor of the online journal PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within. Her collaboration with ePluribus Media has resulted in the PTSD Timeline, a database of reported PTSD incidents. She has appeared in numerous media outlets, and has been interviewed on Fox News about the issue of PTSD in troops returning from Iraq.
Thank you to everyone who has supported this endeavor, most especially the military families and veterans who helped me to write this book, as well as those who continue to serve our country in uniform. A lot of work yet to do...but we have certainly begun.
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2011: Jan 