The War Comes Home Washington's Battle against America's Veterans [Paperback]

The War Comes Homeis the first book to systematically document the U.S. government's neglect of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Aaron Glantz, who reported extensively from Iraq during the first three years of this war and has been reporting on the plight of veterans ever since, levels a devastating indictment against the Bush administration for its bald neglect of soldiers and its disingenuous reneging on their benefits. Glantz interviewed more than one hundred recent war veterans, and here he intersperses their haunting first-person accounts with investigations into specific concerns, such as the scandal at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This timely book does more than provide us with a personal connection to those whose service has cost them so dearly. It compels us to confront how America treats its veterans and to consider what kind of nation deifies its soldiers and then casts them off as damaged goods.

Aaron Glantz,an independent journalist whose work has appeared inThe NationandThe Progressiveand on Democracy Now!, is the author ofHow America Lost Iraq.

List of Resource Boxes
Preface: Returning Home from Iraq
Acknowledgments

PART I COMING HOME

1 A Soldier Comes Home 3
2 Trying to Adjust 16
3 A Different Kind of Casualty 28

PART II FIGHTING THE PENTAGON

4 The Scandal at Walter Reed 49
5 Coming Together 61
6 Education 69
7 Drugs, Crime, and Losing Your Benefits 86
8 Losing Your BenefitsPersonality Disorder 95

PART III FIGHTING THE VA

9 Meet the Bureaucracy 105
10 Didnt Prepare to Treat the Wounded 118
11 More Bureaucracy 129

PART IV THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
DRUGS, CRIME, HOMELESSNESS, AND SUICIDE

12 Crime 143
13 Homeless on the Streets of America 156
14 Suicide 167
15 Suicide after the War 176

PART V FIGHTING BACK
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