October
13, 2019
I
am reading a book by a psychiatrist friend based on his thousands of hours providing
psychotherapy to American veterans and active duty armed forces personnel suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder. Each
of the chapters of War Stories From the Forgotten Soldiers tells one soldier’s
story — anonymously, of course — including horrific combat incidents, deaths
and injuries, and their effects on the patient and his or her family and
friends. I am only part way through an advance
copy the book — for which I’m helping the author get endorsements — and I have
been moved to tears several times. I
believe the book is of great educational, social and political importance. My concern for the wide recognition of that
importance is that, though I’ve read no graphic or gratuitous descriptions of
violence, even the book’s simple descriptions of what the soldier-patients have
gone through are so horrible and uncomfortable to read that Americans will
refuse to read them, let alone to learn from them.
If
we want to have more peace in the world, we need to know more about war and to
tell the truth about it.
If
we want to have more love in the world, we need to know about anger and hate
and to respond to them with compassion.
