Soldiers Once
My Brother and the Lost Dreams of America's Veterans
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Catherine Whitney's brother, Vietnam veteran Jim Schuler, died at just fifty-three years old, while living in a flophouse. It had been sixteen years since, in one of his drunken rages, he had last seen his family. He was one of countless veterans who never recovered from the trauma of war and the stress of returning to live in a country that didn't care about his pain.
The story of what happened to Whitney's brother resonates with humanity and has a clear relevance to current national concerns. Soldiers Once puts a very human face on veterans -- policies, finding in Whitney's personal drama a broader significance. It is both an investigation into her brother's loss and a meditation on the lost dreams of our military brotherhood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran ghostwriter and coauthor Whitney (Where Have All the Leaders Gone?) now writes in her own voice about her brother Jim Schuler, a vet who served three tours in Vietnam and died penniless and alone in 2001 at age 53. Whitney also offers her take on many issues such as PTSD, veterans' benefits and homelessness affecting American veterans of wars from WWI to Iraq and Afghanistan. Whitney presents little that is new on these subjects. The parts of the book dealing with her brother and family are more fully realized, although much of that narrative, including Jim Schuler's service in Vietnam and his postwar army career, is based mostly on speculation since he had little contact with his estranged family. Whitney herself was adamantly against the Vietnam War, something her troubled brother never forgot or forgave. Whitney thus only partially succeeds in her "mission" to "find" her brother, and her account fails to meet the standard of the one invoked in the title, Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway's classic We Were Soldiers Once... and Young. 8 pages of b&w photos.
