Flasack: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, And The Lessons Of War

A photographer deftly weaves psychology and military, political, oral, and cultural history to trace the experience of post traumatic stress disorder in the military up through the Vietnam War.

A powerful, beautifully written, timely reminder of the continuing horror of postwar life for many soldiers returning from combat
With the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, once again America's men and women who have seen war close-up are suddenly expected to return seamlessly to civilian life. In Flashback, Penny Coleman tells the cautionary and timely story of posttraumatic stress disorder in the hope that we can sensitively assist those veterans who return from combat in need of help, and the families struggling to support them.
"A remarkable combination of painful experience and thoughtful interpretation. Coleman concludes with a moving plea that 'we accept the truth that war itself is an illness that sickens our society as surely and in much the same way as it sickens our citizens and our soldiers.' Few authors have done more to confront that sickness as a step toward cure." --Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, author of Home from the War
Penny Coleman, the author of Village Elders, lives with her family in New York City.