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Those Who Have Borne the Battle: A History of America's Wars and Those Who Fought Them James Wright. New York: Public Affairs, 2012. 331 pp. Bibliog. Index. $27.99.
Reviewed by Michael S. Neiberg
This book is more sympathetic than argumentative. It emerged from the desires of the author, a former Marine, history professor, and college president, to tell the story of American veterans. Having met with many former combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan, James Wright sought to understand their situation in its historical context, while explaining to readers the relationship between the nation's wars and the men and women who fight them.
Especially in an era when medical care for veterans is inconsistent and their suicide rates alarmingly high, the topic of these people and how the United States has cared for them is critical. Wright's approach is personal, with a great deal of first-person writing and harkening back to individual experience. Not for nothing does the book begin with Wright's recollection of what the military meant to those in his childhood hometown of Galena, Illinois. However, as a scholar he rejects much of the mythology Americans have created about their wars; Wright strives to...