After twelve years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the phrase “thank you for your service” has become ubiquitous in America. We see it on signs welcoming home American troops, we hear it said in stadiums when wounded warriors are introduced to cheers and tears, we say it ourselves. But who are we really thanking? And what are we thanking them for? In part two of his Patten Lectures, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Finkel introduces us to some of the 500,000 Americans who have returned from these wars psychologically wounded and who are home now in the loneliness of the after-war, trying to understand what happened to them and to heal.
Lecturer
2014—David Finkel
Writer, Washington Post and Center for a New American Security