In many ways, the plight of returning combat veterans has evolved since the end of the Vietnam War; since 9/11, Americans have been almost wholeheartedly supportive of the men and women who put their lives on the line. But there's a disconnect between that rosy public rhetoric and the reality of how the United States treats veterans once they've come home, and Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard's The Invisible Wounds of War is a searing indictment of this situation.
Guzmán Bouvard reports on the gamut of the returning vet experience, from the huge burdens put on individual families to the grassroots organizations that have risen up in response to institutional failure. Some terrible tragedies are being played out as veterans and their families seek appropriate levels of mental health care, with some cases ending in suicide as soldiers are left with limited help in coping with the guilt and grief they feel. Guzmán Bouvard's account of female combat survivors who were raped by fellow soldiers while serving abroad is especially noteworthy; the indifference of the military bureaucracy and the psychological double wallop encompassed by survival and then rape by their supposed "brothers in arms" is almost beyond imagining.
The Invisible Wounds of War is a sobering document, but it also amply displays the bravery of returning vets and their. While the problems they face are daunting, there is a thread of hope--concrete, prescriptive hope--that points to a better future if those most able to help step up and do so. --Donald Powell, freelance writer