“Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.  This world in arms spends not money alone.  It spends the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

 Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thirty years after the Vietnam War, tens of thousands of American combat veterans struggle still with the debilitating and crippling effects of posttraumatic stress disorder. Soldier’s Heart explores and analyzes the symptoms of PTSD, brings heightened awareness of the disorder, illustrates its destructive impact on American society and provides hope to those who suffer.

Living in the shadowy interior of the brain’s Limbic System and to the untrained eye invisible, PTSD reaches beyond its stricken victims negatively to influence family members and loved ones.  Soldier’s Heart delves deep into the lives of otherwise “normal” American veterans who seemingly for no reason, display lifelong patterns of bad choices and erratic, self-destructive behavior.  Exploration and analysis of the life portraits of the combat veterans in this book brings the myriad symptoms of PTSD to light and equips lay readers to recognize the disorder and through understanding, take positive steps to facilitate the healing process.

For years, families and friends have heard bits and pieces – snippets – of war stories from the veterans in their lives.  Grudgingly revealed, generalized and non-specific, these anecdotes leave the veterans’ loved ones yearning for more information, desperate to understand the events that made the veteran who he is and if necessary for discovery, to know and feel the horrors their husbands, daughters, sons, brothers or fathers experienced.  More than a mere re-telling of “war stories,” Soldier’s Heart examines the entire life portraits of the featured veterans through extended first-person testimony, a roadmap for readers to gain understanding of PTSD’s insidious and often counterintuitive symptoms.  By their nature poignant and profound statements on the human condition, the narrative portraits in Soldier’s Heart will provide emotional and intellectual comfort to countless of Americans whose relatives and friends have served the country in time of war.