Soldier from the War Returning: The Greatest Generation's Troubled Homecoming from World War II

One of our most enduring national myths surrounds the men and women who fought in the so-called good war. The Greatest Generation, we’re told by Tom Brokaw and others, fought heroically, then returned to America happy, healthy, and well adjusted. In Soldier from theWar Returning , historian Thomas Childers shatters that myth. Interweaving the intimate stories of three families—including his own—he reveals the true cost of the war. Alcoholism, homelessness, and unemployment were rampant, leading to domestic violence and a skyrocketing divorce rate. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were diagnosed with psychoneurotic disorders (now known as PTSD).Though many veterans bounced back, others were haunted for decades afterward; some never fully recovered.
Novelistic in its telling and impeccably researched, Childers’s book is a stark reminder that the price of war is unimaginably high, and the toll can stretch across generations.