Thank You for Your Service

By David Finkel

Thank You for Your Service - David Finkel
  • Release Date: 2013-10-01
  • Genre: Military History
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 83 Ratings

Description

Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by American Sniper Writer Jason Hall and Starring Miles Teller

No journalist has reckoned with the psychology of war as intimately as David Finkel. In The Good Soldiers, his bestselling account from the front lines of Baghdad, Finkel embedded with the men of the 2-16 Infantry Battalion as they carried out the infamous “surge”. Now, in Thank You for Your Service, Finkel tells the true story of those men as they return home from the front-lines of Baghdad and struggle to reintegrate--both into their family lives and into American society at large.

Finkel is with these veterans in their most intimate, painful, and hopeful moments as they try to recover, and in doing so, he creates an indelible, essential portrait of what life after war is like--not just for these soldiers, but for their wives, widows, children, and friends, and for the professionals who are truly trying, and to a great degree failing, to undo the damage that has been done. Thank You for Your Service is an act of understanding, and it offers a more complete picture than we have ever had of two essential questions: When we ask young men and women to go to war, what are we asking of them? And when they return, what are we thanking them for?

“Finkel sketches a panoramic view of postwar life....A book that every American should read.” —Jake Tapper, Los Angeles Times

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. One of Ten Favorite Books of 2013 by Michiko Kakutani (The New York Times), a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year

Reviews

  • New viewpoint

    5
    By Enginner Noah
    Countless war novels focus solely on the war itself with little to no consideration in regards to what happens after. “Thank you for your service” nearly perfectly recounts the struggles who just went through the hardest times of their lives and their search to find the help they need.
  • Excellent

    5
    By lallen859
    My heart has been hurting for these soldiers for years. Mr. Finkel has written an excellent account of exactly how wounded they are, as well as the toll on their families. What can I, an average American citizen, do to help their recovery? Suggestions appreciated.
  • A hard read

    4
    By Mzhenya
    This book could fairly be rated as a two- star and as a five-star, just one tragic story after another. But I feel these stories just had to be told. Very hard read, at some point I felt guilty that I was laying peacefully in my comfy chaise reading at all. I wish those commanders in chief read this book, too. If they did, they wouldn't start up wars.