Elizabeth D. Samet and her students learned to romanticize the army "from the stories of their fathers and from the movies." For Samet, it was the old World War II movies she used to watch on TV, while her students grew up on Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. Unlike their teacher, however, these students, cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, have decided to turn make-believe into real life. West Point is a world away from Yale, where Samet attended graduate school and where nothing sufficiently prepared her for teaching literature to young men and women who were training to fight a war. Intimate and poignant, Soldier's Heart chronicles the various tensions inherent in that life as well as the ways in which war has transformed Samet's relationship to literature. Fighting in Iraq, Samet's former students share what books and movies mean to them—the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the fiction of Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee, the epics of Homer, or the films of James Cagney. Their letters in turn prompt Samet to wonder exactly what she owes to cadets in the classroom. Samet arrived at West Point before September 11, 2001, and has seen the academy change dramatically. In Soldier's Heart, she reads this transformation through her own experiences and those of her students. Forcefully examining what it means to be a civilian teaching literature at a military academy, Samet also considers the role of women in the army, the dangerous tides of religious and political zeal roiling the country, the uses of the call to patriotism, and the cult of sacrifice she believes is currently paralyzing national debate. Ultimately, Samet offers an honest and original reflection on the relationship between art and life.

"To fully explore the lifelong effects of war trauma in the 20th century, the focus must be on Vietnam veterans, explain Schroder and Dawe, both Vietnam veterans themselves and, respectively, now a writer-businessman and a mental health counselor. Profound statements on the human condition, the narratives of the five featured veterans convey the symptoms of PTSD in non-technical language, offering emotional and intellectual comfort to millions of Americans whose relatives and friends have served the country in time of war. This book, which also includes a glossary of military terms, will be of interest to veterans and their families and friends, as well as to counselors, therapists, psychologists, veteran care workers, and students of studies in trauma, psychopathology, and treatment. These are more than war stories, because for these veterans the lingering "war" is internal - and it may never end."--BOOK JACKET.

The commanding officer of an infantry battalion in Vietnam in 1969 recounts how he took over a demoralized unit of ordinary draftees and turned it into an elite fighting force, and describes its accomplishments.

In the wake of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Art Spiegelman’s Maus comes cartoonist Carol Tyler’s multigenerational graphic memoir, You’ll Never Know. The author chronicles her fraught relationship with her father, Charles, a WWII veteran, and how the war affected their lives through both childhood and adulthood. You’ll Never Know is also a tribute to servicemen and women, dramatizing the trauma of the war on the Greatest Generation and those who followed. Tyler’s ink and watercolor narrative is in turns sprawling and gimlet-eyed: compassionate and enraged. Her father’s memories are woven into her own, which span her Catholic, Midwestern childhood; her troubled marriage; her daughter’s struggles; and her efforts to care for her aging parents. Even though Tyler’s work has an accessible, homemade feel (the organizing metaphor of the book is a photo album with “snapshots” of Tyler family life), You’ll Never Know is a sophisticated graphic work about war, love, and loss.

In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure. The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."

The history of the government's treatment of returning combat veterans has been long absent from the public's awareness. Lately, a plethora of documentaries presenting the wounded veterans' plights are currently making their way into the American public's consciousness. After their initial treatments, the wounded service members from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan face an ongoing battle to receive appropriate care and financial assistance. The Department of Veteran Affairs has historically been drastically under funded, under staffed, and overworked. The costs and consequences of war are unpredictable. America is unprepared. A book most relevant to the current situation of our government's treatment of the homecoming warrior is Soldier's Heart by Lee Burkins. This book is possibly the most honest inquiry of war and its consequent trauma ever written by a combat soldier. Burkins, a former Green Beret, writes with the emotional firepower of an automatic weapon. Novelistic in nature, Soldier's Heart weaves and braids the grime, blood, and guts of the experience of war with the world's past historical treatment of the warrior returned home. He humorously reveals the uncompromising assault he and a handful of pugnacious veterans made upon the bureaucracy's neglect of the combatants. Sit in a Veterans rap group, walk the jungles with the tribal warriors Burkins led in combat and follow the inner world of a warrior's struggle to comprehend the reasons behind humanity's penchant for war and the government's reluctance to acknowledge the trauma now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. ( A story from Soldier's Heart

"Since the end of World War II, a substantial body of literature has been written on the causes and treatment of war-related traumatic stress disorder ... What contribution does [this book] make to veterans, their families, and treatment professionals? How is it different from other books? Most literature that addresses combat trauma is written by or for treatment professionals, and is not widely read by vets. Most veteran writings are in the nature of 'war stories', which capture the actual combat experience, but not the emotional legacy of trauma, its effect upon their lives, or upon their families ... In war, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines quickly learn to count on each other for survival. Vets often don't believe that anyone, including family and treatment professionals, who hasn't endured combat can understand or help them deal with the effects of combat trauma. Veterans often have difficulty describing their experiences and feelings to family and friends. Family members frequently don't know how to respond in ways the veteran will accept. The editors, a team of clinicians, a veteran recovered from PTSD, and his spouse, recognized the need for a book written by veterans and family members, for vets and their families, that would help survivors -- veteran and family alike -- cope with the effects of combat trauma in their lives. Working as a team, clinicians ... formed a non-profit organization, The National Trauma Institute at Baltimore, whose mission is to advocate for those experiencing stress related traumas, their families, and clinicians working with these individuals. The Institute's first project is [this book]"--Page 6-7.

To preserve our peace of mind and our way of life, the men and women of the United States military often sacrifice their youth-and sometimes even their lives. They steadfastly guard the futures of millions of people they will never meet. Now over seventy-five riveting stories bring to life these heroes and the loved ones they have fought for. Organized in six themed sections: patriotism, inspiration, faith on the frontlines, love and family, honor and sacrifice, and dedication and courage. Stories from a Soldier's Heart honors those who carry in their warrior hearts the world's hope for freedom.

Contains the personal testimonies and first-hand accounts of the war in Iraq from eighteen soldiers on the front lines.

From Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart comes the extraordinary story of American hero Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley security director and a veteran of Vietnam and the British colonial wars in Rhodesia, who lost his life on September 11. When Rick Rescorla got home from Vietnam, he tried to put combat and death behind him, but he never could entirely. From the day he joined the British Army to fight a colonial war in Rhodesia, where he met American Special Forces’ officer Dan Hill who would become his best friend, to the day he fell in love with Susan, everything in his remarkable life was preparing him for an act of generosity that would transcend all that went before. Heart of a Soldier is a story of bravery under fire, of loyalty to one’s comrades, of the miracle of finding happiness late in life. Everything about Rick’s life came together on September 11. In charge of security for Morgan Stanley, he successfully got all its 2,700 men and women out of the south tower of the World Trade Center. Then, thinking perhaps of soldiers he’d held as they died, as well as the woman he loved, he went back one last time to search for stragglers. Heart of a Soldier is a story that inspires, offers hope, and helps heal even the deepest wounds.