In The Good Soldiers, Washington Post writer David Finkel documented the lives of the men of Infantry Battalion 2-16 during a 15-month tour along the front lines in Baghdad. In Thank You for Your Service, Finkel continues to shadow the men as they return to the United States and battle post-traumatic stress disorder while struggling to reintegrate into domestic life. Finkel even follows the men into their homes and introduces the wives who deeply yearn for the men they knew and married before the deployment.
As Thank You for Your Service unfolds, the irony between promise and reality is never lost. The men arrive home to an overtaxed care system, a life of pills and uncertainty about the future. Finkel manages to earn enough trust from the soldiers to slip into the minutiae of their daily lives, observing and recording an exceptional narrative of veterans' disintegration within the throes of PTSD. The soldiers' personal struggles are a searing indictment of the existing support infrastructure and the toll that diminishing prospects have on shell-shocked families struggling to survive. If bitterness, stigma and shame are the sentiments greeting the soldiers' return from war, Finkel forces us to consider an alternative: that gratitude be returned in equal measure to the sacrifices they have given for the protection of our freedoms and for the liberties we continue to enjoy. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant