Binding Their Wounds America's Assault on Its Veterans [Hardcover]

The victims of US military campaigns are usually nameless civilians in far away places, but there are also victims closer to home - the soldiers so often used and then discarded by the establishment. Binding Their Wounds is a book about US veterans written by a US veteran - Bob 'Doc' Topmiller. Topmiller fought in Vietnam, founded a school for orphans there, and become a professor of history before he tragically committed suicide. Close friend and scholar Kerby Neill stepped in to complete the book. The result is a history of US veterans and their treatment by the US establishment from the early republic to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Binding Their Wounds offers policy recommendations to improve post-conflict treatment and care for veterans which are long overdue.A harrowing reminder that wars do not end when the fighting stops, Binding Their Wounds is also an impassioned plea for America to do better by those who bear the scars of war.
Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: Americas Path to Permanent War

This is a book filled with love and anger and patriotism, but patriotism as Mark Twain defined it: supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. It asks us all, as individuals and as citizens, to consider mistakes that have been made, to listen with open hearts to those who have suffered, and to accept responsibility for being agents of change. Would that Doc Topmiller had finally been able to bind his own wounds, but, as his death underscores the urgency of the problem, so this book, and the community it brought together to honor his intent, suggest solutions.
Penny Coleman, author of Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War

Bob Topmiller was my hero. How could he not have been? In the short time I had to know him again, he restored within me a belief in the nobility of human character. His extraordinary intellectual gifts and hlÓ3