“God’s love for humankind is one of our present culture’s all-pervasive, invisible, unquestioned, and thus unconscious assumptions. When war shattered this assumption, American soldiers in Vietnam lost a sustaining idea.” ― Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character

I’ve always thought Vietnam stole everything from my generation that really mattered, leaving us with a plague of PTSD. The plague worsened when veterans came home and discovered they were invisible. Somehow, the cynical comments from the introduction to Dalton Trumbo’s anti-war novel “Johnny  Got His Gun” became the national attitude:

So long, losers. God bless. Take care. We’ll be seeing you.

Frankie, an army nurse who serves in-country Vietnam in this gritty, well-written novel, experiences this attitude in spades.

“We were the last believers, my generation. We trusted what our parents taught us about right and wrong, good and evil, the American myth of equality and justice and honor. I wonder if any generation will ever believe again. People will say it was the war that shattered our lives and laid bare the beautiful lie we’d been taught. And they’d be right. And wrong. There was so much more. It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.”

Hannah’s story sounds like it comes from a woman who was there. If you were there, this novel might stir up your case of the plague.

–Malcolm