They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars

Ann Jones

Oct 2013 · Haymarket Books

About this ebook

“Unsparing, scathingly direct, and gut-wrenching . . . the war Washington doesn’t want you to see” (Andrew J. Bacevich, New York Times–bestselling author of Washington Rules)
 
This “uncompromisingly visceral” account (Mother Jones) of what combat does to American soldiers comes from a veteran journalist who was embedded with troops in Afghanistan and reveals the harrowing journeys of the wounded, from the battlefield to back home.
 
Along the way, the author of the acclaimed Kabul in Winter shows us the dead, wounded, mutilated, brain-damaged, drug-addicted, suicidal, and homicidal casualties of our distant wars, exploring the devastating toll such conflicts have taken on us as a nation.
 
“An indispensable book about America’s current wars and the multiple ways they continue to wound not only the soldiers but their families and indeed the country itself. Jones writes with passion and clarity about the tragedies other reporters avoid and evade.” —Marilyn Young, editor of Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam

About the author

Ann Jones is a journalist, a photographer, and the author of ten books of nonfiction. She has written extensively about violence against women, reported from Afghanistan, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East on the impact of war upon civilians, and embedded with American forces in Afghanistan to report on the impact of war on soldiers. Her articles appear most often in the Nation and online at TomDispatch.com. Jones’s work has received generous support from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History (both at Harvard University), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the US–Norway Fulbright Foundation.