What Have We Done by David Wood

*Winner of the 2017 Dayton Literary Peace Prize*

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wood, a battlefield view of moral injury, the signature wound of America's 21st century wars.

Most Americans are now familiar with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking new book, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict. Featuring portraits of combat veterans and leading mental health researchers, along with Wood's personal observations of war and the young Americans deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, What Have We Done offers an unflinching look at war and those who volunteer for it: the thrill and pride of service and, too often, the scars of moral injury.

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Impeccably researched and deeply personal, What Have We Done is a compassionate, finely drawn study of modern war and those caught up in it. It is a call to acknowledge our newest generation of veterans by listening intently to them and absorbing their stories; and, as new wars approach, to ponder the inevitable human costs of putting American "boots on the ground."

Why I Picked It Up

The island of O'ahu has a gigantic military presence, meaning the institution undoubtedly affects you even when you avoid it (like I historically did before moving to the North Shore.) Housing, dating, cultural attitudes, and more all orient you in relation to the armed forces—even native Hawai'ians who might resent the displacement and defilement caused by the intrusion of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The military is undoubtedly a factor.

It's not that I didn't think about the military before (I was actually raised in a military family with a lot of service members and reverence), but I didn't expect it to infiltrate my life to this extent in adulthood. Naturally when I want to learn more or orient my thinking, I read about a given topic.

Factors I Considered Going Into the Book

Of course, I read a lot of psychology, history, and neuroscience. In a recent review, I even admitted that I went into 2024 with a lot of anti-military sentiment hardened by my opinions of how service could intensify (what I perceived as) the worst outcomes for someone.

My view went from reverence to resentment and back again before settling on a wobbly middle ground of respecting the sacrifice and devotion and intention while still critiquing the harms of the military as a whole, both on an individual and societal level.

Nowadays, many of my friends up here are Army. I'm around the military all the time, forcing me to reconsider my proximity or lack thereof to the institution.

Becoming attached to active military means signing yourself up for possible loss and bracing yourself to endure all the psychological hardship they might face if eventually transitioning back to life as a civilian. The challenges don't end when their service does, and I'm very aware of the lifetime commitment thanks to my family. This book was largely delved into the latter.

Anyway, opening myself up to connecting with service members got me to revisit my stance on how the military affects its members and vice versa, to examine my perspective on it with nuance, learn more about it, etc,. It was probably a good time to dive into those ideas again. I don't mind admitting if and when I'm wrong, and the extent to which I believe in—or critique—the military's mission and structure ended up being a foundational question of my fall season. Again, I think I'm probably at a healthy middle ground in considering its pros and cons.

Topics I considered and mulled over going into this book that affected my reading experience included the following:

• My personal suspicion that the structure of the military itself forces its participants to adopt mental survival mechanisms that may be harmful to them within other area of their lives—u-shaped traits.
• An unfailing respect for resilience, grit, endurance, strength, etc,. and other noble qualities that people sign up to develop—whether they reach the best of their intentions or not.
• The bonds and camaraderie only formed within circles of war buddies (like in Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
• My worries about people I care for either dying or experiencing fundamental loss and hardship, and desire to be better in supporting them throughout
• Considering, relationally, how I want to navigate my own affected friendships and relationships when they pop up on this tiny, tiny island

What It's About

What Have We Done: The Moral Injury of Our Longest Wars focuses on the ways we failed the service members who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s, and what that tells us about the way we conduct training, transitions, and more for those currently serving now.

I tend to love to read books I disagree with, and I wasn't sure whether What Have We Done would be one of those—whether it would airbrush uncomfortable truths I knew in favor of blind glorification, or be remarkably cynical about soldiers in ways that feel unfair. Either direction would feel inaccurate. But I thought this book was really, really well-done.

As a complete outsider, I really loved a lot of what David Wood covered and handled, and thought he did an excellent job discussing and weighing various factors of wartime, conflict, autonomy, civilian vs. soldier mentality, grief, loyalty, the chain of command, who's responsible for decisions, and more. He does a brilliant job highlighting the many moral scenarios in which there is no right or wrong answer, and how navigating those choices can plunge young soldiers into a dizzying existential dissonance that has a domino effect on the rest of their lives.

I talk and write a lot about the subtleties that nudge someone to and from belief (and how hard that is to convey in storytelling to boot) and so I deeply appreciated his skill in conveying those...moments of grace, as Flannery O'Connor might say. I have many small bullet points and underlines and discussions I want to have based on this book, both with those I know within the military and those outside of it.

I have a lot of thoughts, so buckle up—or skip to my overview at the end.

First of all, military trauma specifically is harder to navigate than other types of trauma because of its intersection with autonomy and identity. (Whoah.)

Although we're all obviously very sympathetic—and more newly aware—of how wartime ripples throughout soldiers' lives, it's a tricky domain to navigate as a loved one, psychologist, or citizen. Dealing with a veteran or active service member affected by war (or the idea of war) does feel a little like walking on eggshells, which may or may not be their fault.

Still, our knee-jerk reaction may be to think that these awful experiences abroad = PTSD = horrible aftermath. But to take away service members' autonomies by making these sweeping generalizations about trauma is a huge mistake too. They chose a course of life and a framework of reality to base their actions, ethics, environment, etc,. on, and any desire to intervene or commentate can easily come off as pity or condescension in a way that undermines the core confidence they derive from their identity as someone who's taken these vows to serve.

For that reason, dealing with the difficulties of war can't be as flat as shoving veterans into therapy, or assuming that someone's damaged by their participation. And personally, I find many to be defensive about it because it is such a life-altering, decision-steering commitment. For many, the military has to come first for as long as they're in it—and for long after—and doubting that would throw their entire existence into disarray. But that's exactly why and how the institution is a little screwy overall.

There's a middle ground here in assuming the best and worst of someone's military experience that I'm still trying to find. Wood seems to—in my perspective as an outsider, a qualification I will repeatedly say—navigate the complexities specific to military conflict with an empathy and grace that still captures the integrity and flavor of the job and those who sign up for it.

In many ways, you are deciding to become a different person just by joining, even though you don't know who that will be. (Non-military) studies I've read lately illustrate how we take on the traits of our labels, adopt the most potent qualities from every group we join (and become more sensitive to belonging and rejection), get closer to those we endure stress and time with, and more—all reasons why I worry when someone joins that they're going to pick up the traits I negatively associate with the military too.

You're also inevitably going to form and harden survival mechanisms like detachment that allow you to get through the day, but again, might make other areas of life more difficult. If you go off to war or combat or experience death and killing, you might permanently change your nervous system, which Wood explains when he notes how many veterans long for home life but then find their experience once back to feel flat, shallow, and unfulfilling because the spikes in anxiety and emotion within the military eventually become what makes you feel alive, even when they're awful. You have to rewire your entire nervous system, and so much of military training involves solidifying the first mode instead. It's harder to go low or light, if that makes sense.

The paradox of service and individual ethics—

Wood's entire premise in the book establishes that we tend to call every military-related mental problem PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, but that's inaccurate. Often, what service members are experiencing relates more to moral injury, which the military took a long time to formally recognize, define, and begin to treat. The causes, attitudes, and treatments vary slightly enough that we significantly failed those who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan because we slapped that therapy Band-Aid on a bullet wound.

Wood points out that every soldier during war faces an impossible paradox of morality that is constantly shifting under their feet. There's your moral code in a given situation, and then there's your need to follow orders. There is no right or wrong.

The book is full of examples of stricken soldiers who killed children, dreamt about bodies lying in fields, blew up strongholds of women and children, found themselves pulling guns on kids looking for soccer balls, saw friends blown up right in front of them, and carried tremendous guilt. And then there are the ones who came home: the chaplain serving in Afghanistan who started drinking at 9 A.M. back in the States, those who committed suicide, experienced car accidents from driving recklessly, couldn't look at their own children. Out of the combat veterans I personally know, I even know who has their "quirks" and how to tiptoe around their bruises.

Killing is never that simple.

And we all know on an intellectual level that war is evil. Many have the line of when a kill is "good" versus "bad," but Wood talks to many who describe how the line in practice is way harder to distinguish.

One refrain I've appreciated this year personally is "I made the best decisions I could with the information I had available to me at the time," which has gone a long way in releasing me from the agonies of perfectionism and control and detaching from the end result. But soldiers are doing exactly this, but still sometimes find themselves committing a perceived evil for the protection of their units or loved ones and then either being betrayed by their government, reconstructing a shattered ideal of morality, or seriously questioning the deeper purpose of the conflict itself and becoming disillusioned with their entire identity.

Most people I know who are military have gone in with noble intentions related to service and duty and honor and generosity. They want to protect others, or (as in this book), they're angry about violations against those they love, or they crave the active application of their personal philosophies. But even though many are comfortable with killing "for the greater good," the diffused, less-defined nature of modern conflict makes those kills weightier on the sense of being "a good person," which is hard to come back from. I think a lot about this quote referenced in The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism about the need for detachment:

“In an essay called “Empathy for the Devil,” philosopher Adam Morton claims that 'when we are struggling to understand the actions of someone who has done something wrong, it is seeing ourselves as humane…that most limits the accuracy of our empathy.”

And then the military itself is aware of what makes killing easier or harder for those in combat. Part of why guns are designed to "spray" is to reduce the time a soldier needs to pull the trigger, meaning the impacts of what they're doing hit later and they act before they fully have time to process—which is, at the end of the day, often necessary to keeping them alive and achieving their objective.

Wood conveys the frustration of seeing others put their weapon down too, how doing so was just as much of a betrayal to your morals, summoning anger towards guys who shot into the trees purposefully not to kill. It was equally wrong for soldiers to betray those around them who were putting their lives into their hands—who trusted them—because they couldn't handle the burden of emotional and moral confusion. You have to follow through, but there's a price everyone is paying for it, and we're not doing a good enough job honoring that aspect of service.

The book honestly did an amazing job weighing the complexity, terrors, necessity of, and considerations behind killing, illustrating so many different examples and conflicts that veterans described to him afterwards—and what remained with them over time. What Have We Done also pulls no punches in describing gruesome losses and the guilt, bitterness, fear, anger, and overwhelm that each person involved might feel.

“'When I get on that fuckin' plane [to deploy] I'm already dead. I said that for ten years, said good-bye to my family, I am dead...I have made that decision a thousand fuckin' times. When a time and a place comes, that decision is already made, and I've proven it dozens and dozens of times. Well, that does something to you. Tonight when I close my eyes I will dream of killing or dying, whichever is necessary...We can't ever really go home.'”

The confusion of revenge and prevention, the anguish of quick necessary actions for survival that wouldn't sink in right away, the flatness of returning home and immediately feeling disconnected from modern life. The sense that "home" and the person you were once no longer existed, and blind hero worship feels wrong and shameful in light of everything you did that you thought you would never do. It's isolating, except within the circle of those who understand, which is why military circles can be lifelong.

Similarly, although I struggle with the concept in relationships and friendships affected by the military, detachment and disassociation and distance from civilians does serve a purpose for every active soldier.

I got frustrated in another military book with how blatantly the narrator just did not give a shit about his loved ones making sacrifices for him (it felt incredibly selfish), but What Have We Done actually did a gorgeous job explaining why and how it's so difficult to (in the sappiest way possible) love and connect to anyone else beyond the military ecosystem, especially after combat. There's a real sense of, "I can never really get close to this person" or "They can never really see me and understand" or even "If they knew what I'd done, they wouldn't look at me the same." Ultimately, detaching in that way is one of the only ways to prepare for and survive the process holistically—so I get it, in a way I didn't before. It is a sacrifice on both sides, but it's still hard to navigate.

The emotion in the impossibility of balancing such disparate lives—and how it erupts

Wood does such an incredible job portraying that helplessness at the impossibility of it, the anger at the government and the trivial flatness of home, the bitterness hardened by these long and seemingly pointless wars. His narration is restrained but the emotion is recognizable. He captured the disorientation of this existential confusion or identity shift as well as pointing out the broader ways in which the U.S. military and broader society is ill-equipped to handle the aftermath of the crisis they force soldiers into.

In many ways, he also did an absolutely amazing job making me fully understand how soldiers strengthened and solidified their trust and bonds with each other—how, even when they came home to those who loved them, soldiers felt so incredibly distant from civilians that they only craved being with those who understood (by going through the same.) Combat losses remembered from wartime were proven to hurt more than the recent loss of a spouse, for example.

Who's responsible for the worst deeds?

Many of the soldiers carrying out the worst deeds were the youngest and least prepared; the politicians and generals making the broader calls to establish the domain of war (or rules of engagement) weren't the ones pulling the triggers. Rules of engagement, the purpose of conflict, and burden of decisions were each poorly defined, and by nature, set up these soldiers for to carry these burdens themselves.

“The point of it is our ROE prevented us from taking care of ourselves and each other. But sometimes you have to make decisions, like I have to take a chance with my life to try to save—when you see your friends die, you're like I can't let that happen again...[But] when things go down, the people in charge aren't there...They're there to...take credit for our good deeds and disown our bad ones.”

Furthermore, ROE—like who is considered a "combatant" in situations like little kids assisting the Taliban bury IEDs—got incredibly blurry, causing intense dissonance and "rock and a hard place"-type decisions no 18-year-old should have to make. (I, personally, also often think about how joining the armed forces is one of the few effective methods of class mobility we genuinely have.) The standards were also repeatedly revised, making it difficult to tell which rules applied at a given time.

“To place someone in that circumstance, in which a momentous moral choice demands to be made, is to expose them to a lasting sense of betrayal by higher authorities who didn't have to make the decision.”

Informally, I know friends and soldiers who take comfort in philosophies of autonomy and Stoicism, which say that you can only control yourself and make decisions that align with your broader philosophies and purpose.

But what if you literally can't? The military makes doing so impossible in every scenario, and the book is littered with examples of singular, haunting incidents that follow these individuals for the rest of their lives. Wood highlights this impossibility as one of the most searing evils of war.

Survival mechanisms fail them in the end, and we do too.

We train (and choose, in elite units) soldiers for their grit and ability to adhere to guiding philosophies, but then proceed to shatter their moral compass—and then somehow, the U.S. acts confused when they don't adapt well to life outside of deployment. How do you fix that when the dissonance is built into the very system itself?

We tell them if they struggle with war that they're not strong enough (which the framework of moral injury shifted some, versus calling everything PTSD), after telling them that being strong is the only way they're good enough. And then if you really struggle, you might be discharged or betrayed by the system, which fucks up so many people too.

“Their fundamental belief was that their service in the Marine Corps or navy or army was paramount in their lives. They can no longer do the things they believed defined them as a person.”

So their sense of identity is just totally fucked at this point.

So Wood is sensitive about issues like how veterans drop out of treatment at twice the rate that others do, how we treated war-related trauma historically as a "weakness" and how that's forever changed military members' perception of grief and resilience, how CBT and CPT were never going to be enough for what they needed. PTSD is relevant, sure, but that's not the only problem or even the main one.

He also pointed out that historically, many societies demanded penance for lives taken during war. Certain empires or cities or churches had rules for rituals you'd endure to basically cleanse the soul. You might abstain from drinking, sex, sleep, and other vices or needs for a certain amount of time based on the amount of lives you took; you might have a baptism of sorts; you might undertake a voluntarily banishment from your home for a certain amount of time.

Regardless, there was formalized forgiveness baked into the system, which may have helped give significance to the event while still allowing a method for moving on and still seeing yourself as a morally accurate person based on whatever code you adhere to. Since a lot of the problems our soldiers experienced were based on moral injury, that could have helped a lot—but the U.S. specifically avoids talk of "killing" as being fundamental to the act of war, in a way that exacerbates the cognitive dissonance and guilt many participants feel.

“Rather than confronting the morality of killing, we've just surrounded it with a conspiracy of silence. 'We want to be looked at for the purpose we achieved (protecting them) not for the means we used (killing others).'”

So what can we do about it? Is there anything to do at all?

A book like this would normally be devastating to me because I am always most upset when I feel helpless—when there is really nothing to do—and so much of What Have We Done emphasizes the impossibility baked into these situations and watching young men and women enter the pipeline.

But Wood does offer some insights and suggestions, plus a helpful history of the gradual shift within the military in changing how it looks at and supports mental wounds. Wounds, not illnesses. (An important distinction.)

I can tell you firsthand—through my experiences with loved ones—that the military is shitty at cleaning up the messes they cause within individuals' heads, from how it deals with suicide attempts to how it punishes wrongdoings (and who it blames.)

Some of it's absolutely structural which is why, although I am supportive of the military again, I will always approach everything related to military service (and those involved) with appropriate caution and nuance. And I'm sure my stance, like now, is perpetually evolving so the goal here is just to keep an open mind overall.

But I digress. Wood offers, throughout the book rather than in a list or framework, some ideas on how to best approach the kinds of moral injuries inflicted during war. Here are some points that struck me most.

Stop saying you "understand."

As he notes, saying "I understand" to a combat veteran is empty and frustrating, because military service is so all-consuming and esoteric and transformative from the get-go that no outsider really could. Even one veteran pointed out to Wood that the only people reading his book were those who likely already agreed with him.

(As someone who always aims to be a better listener, I could be better about using this phrase as a default or filler; I'm suddenly self-conscious about whether or not I've ever done this, but awareness is the first step to being better.)

Instead, you listen with validation. Resist the urge to say "it's okay," etc,. But rather let the truths yeah, that was fucked up [of you] and I honor your service exist together. (His phrases, not mine.) Preserve their integrity and the weight of the story.

“What are the predictors of getting better? Was it a spouse that could tolerate hearing the stories? These are the stories I hear all the time, guys say, 'What saved my life was my wife hearing all the things I did and telling me I love you anyways.' And convincing them that they deserve to be loved.”

Wood does emphasize that the only thing that builds trust (as an attached civilian in this situation) is really just time. And in that way, it's really on both sides, because a service member has to want to invest in someone enough to let them build trust in the first place. Within their unit or whatever, it's kind of forced by stress and proximity by default. Experiencing hardship with someone is what knits you together, yadda yadda, so eventual openness—slowly, nonjudgmentally—is still the cure.

“All this can add new bruises to the sense of right or wrong....then there's the guilt of explaining why even the most loving and supportive spouse cannot fill the role of combat buddies...the clash of needs can be emotionally painful, and rebuilding relationships an added challenge.”

My perspective on this after reading is that basically, Wood is making the case that every single time someone returns, there's the possibility of them feeling (and essentially being) an entirely different person. They're disconnected from home, others, themselves, and the only way that those affected really even get through it is by rebuilding from scratch every time. Constant forgiveness, constant reorientation, and an endurance that many people simply don't have.

In many ways, I think (in these worst-case scenarios, and the anticipation of them), both loved ones and service members are each signing up to "get through it" alone, and each person will feel isolated for a long time, even after reconnecting.

“'Forgiveness is a process, not a one-time thing. And I have to confess,' he said as he slid off his stool to head home, 'sometimes I know I'm not there.'”

Don't ignore the cost, and don't pity them.

Wood points out the anger and frustration that affected soldiers feel, coupled with the shame of participating in deeds that go against their "normal" moral codes.

For many soldiers he studied, they didn't want forgiveness. "To forgive was dishonorable," he wrote, "dismissing a wrong they'd committed."

The structure of this specific therapy involved pointing out that the experience of guilt or shame or anger or emotion meant that the affected person possessed an intact set of moral values because they could see where any actions violated these. Which meant that they could be listened to and understood and forgiven.

But crucially, what helped with military trauma versus regular trauma was peer-to-peer therapy amongst their own unit or branch, which eventually broke down the expectation of shame and rejection. Basically, forgiveness and understand could only come from their own.

As other military books have pointed out, the way the military functions so effectively is by knitting together these groups so tightly; for many, especially dealing with a moral injury, the worst consequence they can imagine (subconsciously or not) is being isolated or rejected by their own group.

So a sequence of therapy sessions included adaptive disclosure, relating the transgression over and over until its potency was diluted (and break through their avoidance), make positive corrective judgments about the self, imagine coaching another member of the unit through the same, see that those in their in-group (unit) do not judge them for it even after hearing the full story and considerations (because we often edit ourselves in the most flattering light the first time around—hence the repetition—and some of the worst details may only come to the surface in later sessions), and then to engage in some sort of positive practice or service. Not because they "need to" but because it helps them reconnect with their sense of morality and purpose. And then start letting other loved ones in, eventually. Patience and patience and patience.

“When I came home, people were afraid to ask me about my experience. Because they were afraid it would disturb me. But I found it more disturbing to have that significant piece of my life ignored.”

“Where healing is needed, it cannot begin with pity.”

"Preserving their integrity is critical" for the process, according to Wood. Similarly, there's a whole conversation in here about how the sense of shame and guilt and confusion led to self-destruction, to the affected soldiers feeling like they don't "deserve" love or forgiveness or were secretly rotten. And while that sounds totally cliché, it's a valid framework of understanding. You can't force them into being open again; to a certain extent, suppressing the dissonance is the only way to survive for a long, long time, and their units are the only ones who really understand what that's like, etc,.

“'The good thing is, pretty much everyone I know has issues. The guys that don't have issues are the scary ones.'”

Then again, it's obviously an enormous sacrifice and burden, but that doesn't mean that no person serving carries the responsibility for how they process their burdens, lash out at others, construct their lives and values, etc,. So there's a balance in how they might choose to narrow in on themselves and their role in the military versus the other aspects of their personhood and lives. Their decisions are still their decisions, but I suppose it begins with the first one: the choice to join up at all.

Overall Thoughts

What Have We Done is a smart, detailed book. Ironically, I've been thinking a lot about the reliance of the military on suppression/repression and how its definition of masculinity and resilience (in some ways) can hurt individuals long-term. But What Have We Done is emotionally affecting and hurts to read. It's not sappy or inspirational—not that kind of emotional—but bleak and informative in the right ways.

There's a tidal wave of years' worth of rage/grief/bitterness/confusion/anxiety hiding behind every line in the same way it does for those who have served: a sense that there's a deeper hurt lurking below the surface, but that it's also one that's contributed to strength and purpose (so you can't demonize it all either.) A lot of it boils down to whether or not you choose this for yourself, but I'd say a broader point of the book is that we haven't given recruits or young soldiers the proper preparation for understanding the scope of their choice. Which I guess is life, but it still caused a lot of trouble when sorting through the aftermath of undefined parameters in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Some scars kind of toughen you. Some scars debilitate.”

So much frustration is layered into the narrative and discussion, paired with the unique helplessness of not being able to do more to alleviate it for those suffering.

I thought about how part of the reason I read so much is because I have this deep-rooted (and often mistaken) belief that if I can only just understand something better, I can fix it or at least try to be as generous as possible in my perception of it. Nothing is ever unfixable or unchangeable.

And this book gives me the same sensation as Good Old Neon did—a realization that multiple opposite truths can exist at the same time. And there's this deep-rooted fear in some of these soldiers' stories (and therapists' insights peppered throughout) that resonates with this same concept: that if someone really saw you and knew everything you'd done, they'd know that you were secretly bad and reject you for it. And a lot of what the government and military has set up helps these soldiers achieve their objectives abroad, but not upon coming home, especially when shifting out of service. So we're definitely failing them overall in that way, which is deeply sad.

Suppressing emotion is necessary for everyone to handle most of this, but the emotion also may come out—so how do decide where that line is for you?

“For example, group members articulated that they distanced themselves from loved ones because of their experience due to fear of what others might think if they knew the truth about their actions. Many members felt [after war]...the belief that happiness and advancement is undeserved.”

Multiple truths can be real at the same time. In this case: that military service is a choice and an unanticipated burden, that those suffering want your understanding and are frustrated that you can never possibly do so, that the military cultivates traits that are both helpful and harmful, that therapy is both underutilized and overemphasized, that killing in these situations is both right and wrong at the same time.

Moral injury and the development (and betrayal of) trust are so fascinating to me topically, so it makes complete sense that the nuances of this book would strike me so heavily. Chapters included the changed definition of home, the ethics of killing, the struggles of vulnerability, grief as injury, the idea of moral injury as a wound, the devastation of wartime as a situation in itself, the emphasis on rules, the cost of service, etc,. etc,. Topics aren't very clearly divided, but I never had trouble following the line of thought or mentally layering onto previous points.

So for that reason, it's a valuable book to me, and absolutely one that I'll think about both in isolation for its philosophies and to inform how I engage with the military here. It is compassionate and restrained in the right ways, and being compassionate and restrained in the right ways is pretty much all you can do if you encounter any of the developments or patterns in the book.

For fans of:

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy; Black Hearts by Jim Frederick; The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk; SEAL Team Six by Howard E. Wasdin & Stephen Templin; Wind, Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; An Anatomy of Pain by Dr. Abdul-Ghasliq Lalken; Good Old Neon (story) by David Foster Wallace; You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy.