Military Veteran

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a tremendous toll on the mental health of our troops. In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama took to the Senate floor to tell his colleagues that "many of our injured soldiers are returning from Iraq with traumatic brain injury", which doctors were calling the "signature wound" of the Iraq War. Alarming stories of veterans taking their own lives raised a host of vital questions: For instance, why hadn't the military been better prepared to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI)?

Two veterans - one human, one canine - have returned to Montana to recover from the traumas of war. Former Army Ranger Nick Conway depended on his WMD dog Snowflake to help him navigate IEDs on the battlefield. Now he needs his best friend to help him cope with his PTSD and acclimate to civilian life. When he meets Holly McGuire and agrees to help her deliver meals to the needy, her inner light calls to him, but his demons hold him back from giving in to his attraction.

When I first started to think of writing, I was in a foxhole in a war zone as an American soldier. Being a scared 21-year-old, I was lacking sleep, tired, stressed, and dirty. Eating cigarettes for breakfast while my ripped and torn-up clothes were rotting off my body, my thoughts seemed to be a little delusional at the time. I believed that writing down my thoughts would help me cope with my current life of death, destruction, misery, bullets, bombs, chemicals, and the enemy charging toward me.

From the desert sands to the stage, achieving dreams takes time, effort, and hard work. Each of us defines success differently. Whether we come from humble beginnings or not, the uphill climb into becoming ourselves is a unique journey. Renrick Palmer discovered his truths in some of the tensest situations known to man as he worked his way to the place he always knew would be home: performing on stage.

For 24 years, I've brought American veterans from all over the United States to high schools in Oregon to share their military experiences during times of war with the students. Over the years, as I became friends with many of these veterans, they began to open up and share with me. Many veterans refused to talk for years, but reached out to me as they grew older and realized they wanted their stories remembered. Even their spouses and children had never heard many of these shared stories.

Remembrance: Volume II follows the release of Remembrance: Volume I in 2020, sharing more personal experiences of WWII veterans. Listeners will learn about the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Roberta Leveaux, RAF female pilot, and Tuskegee Airman Roger "Bill" Terry, who paid the heaviest price for his role in the Freeman Field Mutiny. Volume II also includes many Korean War stories, along with the Chosin Few and South Korea’s gratitude, Veterans of Underage Military Service, and Holocaust survivors Les and Eva Aigner.

In spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam-era Winter Soldier hearings, Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered veterans to expose war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are the powerful words, images, and documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The amazing experiences of the Queen Alexandra nurses in the World Wars is one of the greatest adventure stories of modern times, and - incredibly - remains largely untold. Thousands of middle-class girls, barely out of school, were plucked from sheltered backgrounds, subjected to training regimes unimaginably tough by today's standards, and sent forth to share the harsh conditions of the fighting services.

The Vietnam War dominated a generation and affected so many lives in so many different ways. Some were drafted, some enlisted. Some became war heroes, intentional or not, but most were just trying to survive. From 1956 to 1976, from the Delta to the DMZ, these stories tell who we were, the jobs we did, our memories of that time and place, how it changed us, and what we did after we came home.

Real stories told by real people, in their own words. Hundred veterans, men and women, caught up in an all-too-real war. From the Delta to the DMZ, come walk in their boots. If you were there, you understand. If you weren't, buy this audiobook and you will, because they’re like Doritos. Try a few, and you won't be able to stop. The Vietnam War dominated my generation and affected so many lives in so many different ways. Some of us were drafted.

After serving in a scout-sniper platoon in Mosul, Tom Voss came home carrying invisible wounds of war - the memory of doing or witnessing things that went against his fundamental beliefs. This was not a physical injury that could heal with medication and time but a "moral injury" - a wound to the soul that eventually urged him toward suicide. Desperate for relief from the pain and guilt, Voss embarked on a 2,700-mile journey across America with a fellow veteran. Listeners walk with these men as they meet other veterans, Native American healers, and spiritual teachers.

On November 18, 1967, Private First Class Davis' artillery unit was hit by a massive enemy offensive. At 21 years old, he resolved to face the onslaught and prepared to die. Soon he would have a perforated kidney, crushed ribs, a broken vertebra, his flesh ripped by beehive darts, a bullet in his thigh, and burns all over his body. Ignoring his injuries, he manned a two-ton Howitzer by himself, crossed a canal under heavy fire to rescue three wounded American soldiers, and kept fighting until the enemy retreated.

This book argues that the elements that contribute to healing war trauma - including safety, connection, community, dialogue, mutual respect, diversity, and compassion - can help build a stronger nation. But this message comes with a warning and a challenge not just for caregivers, veterans service organizations, governmental departments, Congress, and the White House, but for all Americans. War creates incalculable suffering - not only among those on the front lines, but also among those left behind.

Known in health care circles for his ability to fix ailing hospitals, Dr. David Shulkin was originally brought into government by President Obama, in an attempt to save the broken Department of Veterans Affairs. When President Trump made him VA secretary, Dr. Shulkin was as shocked as anyone. Yet this surprise was trivial compared to what Shulkin encountered as the VA secretary: a team of political appointees devoted to stopping anyone - including the secretary himself - who stood in the way of privatizing the organization and implementing their agenda.

The experience of the Vietnam War is almost impossible to grasp - the fear, smell, pain, and camaraderie. Boys were turned into men, men were transformed into soldiers, and then from soldiers to warriors. These warriors had wives who shared in their transformations. Some marriages were strengthened, while for others men and their families were left emotionally and spiritually battered. Focusing in on a singular company’s experience of war and its eventual homecoming, Andrew Wiest discusses the shared experience of combat and both the darkness and resiliency of war’s aftermath.

Previous books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's Beyond Valor. Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible.

Codenamed Operation Telic, the British component of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the largest gathering of British troops since the Second World War. While the British public prepared for the worst as its soldiers were facing weapons of mass destruction, most servicemen and women were under no illusion that they were invading Iraq to rid the people of Saddam Hussein.

For the first time, Army Ranger hero Nate Self tells his story. Self recounts the Roberts Ridge Rescue mission, the ferocious battles in Afghanistan, and the lone war of attrition that Nate Self has waged against post-traumatic stress disorder. This audio will become a go-to work for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate Self opens up his whole life - tragedies, successes, failures, and a struggle with suicidal thoughts - to share the facts.

Soldier Keith Nightingale has conducted terrain walks in Normandy for over forty years with veterans, active-duty military, and local French civilians. Over the decades Nightingale conducted dozens of formal interviews and informal conversations with many of the principals of the day, including Generals Bradley, Collins, Gavin, Ridgway, and Hill. Added to this rare new primary material from the top brass are numerous conversations with lower-ranking vets who did the heavy lifting.

Tracks: Memoirs of a Vietnam Veteran is the amazing true story of a young boy in high school who decides to become a United States Marine, knowing he would go to Vietnam. This book describes boot camp and infantry training. He is placed in tanks, something he had never dreamed of serving in. He then ventures on a Mediterranean cruise. He becomes a sergeant and a tank commander and is sent to Vietnam. His first full day in Vietnam almost became his last.