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Soft Spots: A Marine's Memoir Of Combat And Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (2009)

by Clint Van Winkle(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0312378939 (ISBN13: 9780312378936)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

St. Martin's Press

review 1: I read this book and saw parts of myself in it. I read it and found parts of my ex husband in it. I read this book and found every veteran that I had or had not deployed with in it. Very powerful, understanding, and moving book. Do you really want to know what it is like to kill someone? Read the book. How memories can haunt you? Read the book. How reality and past get so mixed up that you don't know which one you are living. Read the book. Clint is a stand up American Citizen who is also a war veteran. I am impressed with his need to survive and get well. PTSD is no joke and can haunt any of us non-combat or combat related. He drowns himself in both civilian and military families. He finds it hard to turn off his killer instant. His senses are hightened and he always on t... morehe look out for an IED or listening for bullets being fired. If you are looking for a happy ending you won't find on here, but what you will find is progress. That is all we can ask for. I hope you enjoy the read just as much as I did.
review 2: An impressively written book by a Marine combat veteran of the Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Van Winkle writes clearly and sensitively. He contrasts his life in combat and his life upon returning home. So many great insights. A formidable story. Reading this book and other books by combat veterans, it's hard to agree with today's news analysis who say with such confidence that Americans "have no stake in the war." Surely we do, surely we must after reading Van Winkle's book, as well as, Colby Buzzell's, My War: Killing Time In Iraq. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2005, and John Crawford's, The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq. New York: Riverhead Books, 2005. Especially too after reading books like Jane Mayer's, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, New York: Doubleday, 2008, and Chalmers Johnson's, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, clearly show the lies and secret agenda of the Bush administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc) that aimed our attention on Saddam Hussein instead on the primary target after September 11th: Ossama Bin Laden and Al Queda. We have more of a stake in the safety of our men and women in uniform especially in a war where we invaded a nation for the first time on nonexistent evidence. Iraq makes Vietnam look like somebody pushed us into a war we didn't want to be involved in the first place. As if we were standing next to the kid, next to the other kid, that the bully pushed who fell against, the second kid and then us (the third kid) and we were somehow drawn into the mess. Christopher Hitchens was a strong proponent that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld be charged and tried as war criminals for their actions in taking the United States to war in Iraq. I was a proponent of this way before I heard Hitchens. As Hitchens is dead, I haven't heard any person in the media argue this point. Maybe Gore Vidal was a proponent of this, but he died recently too. And with the state of corporate media television, we're not going to get indepth objective stories. And since most people don't read, such stories in our fine written media are not going to get read. United States leaders are not, should not be exempt from International Law. Van Winkle's book is another experience we need to be exposed to. Memoir is the best way I have discovered not only to learn about a subject, but also a person's experience and discoveries along his or her experiences. There are so many good, great memoir out there. This is a good memoir worth reading and experiencing. Once you have, you will have a stake in the lives of our men and women in today's military, overseas and working in bases here at home, doing their duties. Sobering this week was the killing of the U.S. Ambassador of Egypt and three other men from the embassy. Their flag draped caskets, the Marine pallbearers in their dress blues and white pants. The hearses drive away with the caskets. An extremely moving scene reminding us that there are so many people that want to do our people harm.dy less

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