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Paperback
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Bob Dole
ISBN13: 9781569755136
Condition: NEW
Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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The bravery displayed by our soldiers at war is commonly recognized. However, often forgotten is the courage required by veterans when they return home and suddenly face reintegration into their families, workplaces, and communities. Authored by three mental health professionals with many years of experience counseling veterans, Courage After Fire provides strategies and techniques for this challenging journey home. Courage After Fire offers soldiers and their families a comprehensive guide to dealing with the all-too-common repercussions of combat duty, including posttraumatic stress symptoms, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. It details state-of-the-art treatments for these difficulties and outlines specific ways to improve couple and family relationships. Courage After Fire also offers tips on areas such as rejoining the workforce and reconnecting with children.
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| "Courage AFTER" is the Salient Phrase |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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The forward by Senator Bob Dole is the best review from a fellow Wounded Warrior:
"I thank you for your service to our country, and I sincerely encourage you to now focus on your own well-being."
In "Courage AFTER Fire," `AFTER' is the salient word.
The Veteran can think of returning home as a new deployment with a new set of challenges that require the warrior to "improvise, adapt and overcome."
The tips for family and friends are very useful.
If the symptoms of PTSD (i.e. flashbacks, emotional irritability, avoidance/rejection, thought fragmentation, depression and substance abuse,) are contagious for family and loved ones, then stability, patience and understanding can be contagious for the warrior as well.
For example, always being on the lookout for tripwires on roadside bombs in the parking lot of Wal-Mart can leave loved-ones stressed-out, fatigued and bewildered.
The Vet then develops avoidance habits to spare the love-ones' of this unrest.
But, stability, emotional equanimity, understanding, and an "always open" communication policy on the part of friends and family can also pervade the warrior's consciousness by reminding them that war memories are not real threats.
The warrior also develops habits for avoiding these threatening memories.
Both types of avoidance (i.e. avoiding people as well as memories,) exacerbate the condition.
The authors lay out a step-by-step process for overcoming such avoidance.
Overcoming avoidance is not the end-all, however.
The warrior is advised to continue to press into normal daily activities once the avoidance of threatening memories has been overcome.
For example, the authors recommend avoiding news, politics or situations (backyard BBQs may remind them of burning flesh,) that remind the Vet of their deployment.
However, once the imaginary threat of memories has been diffused by way of the step-by-step process, then, engaging in news and current events can be used as a logical extension for overcoming avoidance and finding one's way back into normal daily life.
Indeed, such subsequent engagements may even be a source of inspiration and provide an additional sense of purpose.
The book has actual stories and plenty of practical coping strategies for warriors, and their loved ones' with the courage and the will.
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| Good book |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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This book deals with a difficult topic-how to interact with returning soldiers. It is good to know that there are professionals out there that are helping these soldiers and that the military is offering more services to them-these problems are real.
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| Thought it would be good |
| Customer Rating: 2 out of 5 |
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I purchased this for my boyfriend upon him returning home from Fallujah. He didn't open it once. It's just not a book that a war veteran wants to read, or even be reminded of. He went through enough and all he really needed was professional help. Not a book that reiterates the pain and struggles that families endure.
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| Down Range: To Iraq and Back |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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My son suggested I read this before he comes home from his tour of duty in Iraq. It has been very helpful to understand what he has to deal with in terms of adjusting from daily combat and normal day to day life at home. Most people don't have a clue what these brave men and women have to deal with. They cannot just turn off their emotions just because they are back home.
Eveyone who has a loved one serving in a war zone should read this book.
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| 2 tours and it nearly killed me |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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It wasn't the war, it was when I returned home and could not function. I applaud this book for it's intent and gratitude that it gives to our young warriors. It is one of the few written for "our" generation. Thank you
-Timothy Kendrick author-PTSD: Pathways Through the Secret Door
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